HN Explorer

Ask HN: I'm desperate to stay in Denmark. Anyone need a great web/ios dev?

219 points by throwawayCPH ↗ HN
Using a throwaway account, although I'm pretty active on HN.

I spent 6 years working in Silicon Valley where I worked many years for companies such as Yahoo! and Facebook.

My overall experience is probably around 10 years.

I specialize in Python/Django as well as pretty good in Obj-C/Cocoa/Cocoa Touch, and I've got many apps in App Store and few Mac OSX apps as well.

I know C, C++, and PHP pretty well. I also know some Perl, and can pickup any technology very quickly.

I can do development, server admin, IT work, etc.

I freelance and run my own small business specializing in web apps and ios/osx apps.

I'm from US, but now find myself in Copenhagen, Denmark where I met a nice girl and want to stay for foreseeable future.

My tourist visa is quickly expiring, and I need a work visa to stay longer than 3 months.

Anyone interested in hiring me and sponsoring my work visa? I promise I won't disappoint and can bring my tremendous experience to any tasks you have.

Send me an email at desperateincph@gmail.com and we'll talk more.

EDIT: Thanks for all the advice and suggestions. I'm floored at all of the help. If someone is in CPH, and wants to grab coffee, and talk about tech, travel, or whatever, let me know as well.

134 comments

[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 192 ms ] thread
adv0r
I forwarded this to a friend ;) Good luck with that!
Andaith
I'm no help sorry, I just wanted to say: Good luck and I hope you get to stay there.
volpav
Trustpilot is actively hiring. Take a look, mb you'll find something. http://www.trustpilot.com/jobs
sorenbs
We Are very international and already have english speaking people on the team. We Are primarily a .Net shop though.
Spas
Yea. Otherwise it would be cool to have him I think :)

/Søren P

cskau
I was just about to post this.

The atmosphere is nice and international. It's organized yet dynamic; fast paced yet relaxed. They're a relatively young start-up and last I heard they were well funded. Give them a call or drop them an email. :)

Full disclosure: I used to work with these guys before they moved to Copenhagen.

jjoergensen
Hi, try and give me a call if you like +45 31 36 97 05 or write me here jmj@dagensbedste.dk. I cannot make any promises though.

Today we do development in Barcelona and with some externals, but our main office is in Denmark and I could use someone locally who can work independently. We are making a very successful daily deals site in Denmark and 7 other countries.

Best of luck

- Jonathan

the1
> want to stay for foreseeable future.

and then

> I need a work visa to stay longer than 3 months.

I don't know about the law, but if a company sponsors you, you probably need to stay with the company for at least a year. And, I personally wouldn't hire someone whose primary purpose for staying with the company is a girl. You didn't have to mention about it at all. But, good luck.

thlt
I sincerely don't think anything wrong with that. He has worked for Yahoo & Facebook and can find a lot cooler companies in SV than in Denmark but love is something more important than that.
Stegger
I would consider that remark biased. Sweden and the swedes is okay, but a bit envious of Denmark. Anyways, you could try to post your story on amino.dk It's a startup site though, but that could lead to a fast employment. I hope you found a nice girl, and welcome to Denmark.
madd
I guess he was referring to Silicon Valley (SV) - not Sweden.
Stegger
He he, well then I would say he is spot on :-) Sperry about the harsh remark Sweden.
effn
> Sweden and the swedes is okay, but a bit envious of Denmark.

Really? In what way? I have never ever heard anyone in Sweden talk about Denmark that way.

readme
>I personally wouldn't hire someone who's primary purpose or staying with the company is a girl.

You've got your head up in the clouds man. You actually think you'll find an employee who is loyal to your company above all other things in the world, even his soulmate? I can't help but laugh at this attitude.

Take a look through human history and find me some literature about the epic struggle of a man to satisfy his boss, above all other things, including his family and wife.

I think it is a very honorable thing to be committed to a woman (or man, or robot) and if it were me doing the hiring I'd not discriminate against someone who's actually being honest about his priorities rather than blowing a plume of smoke up my arse.

noob1
>and if it were me doing the hiring

Ie. you are not

This is more about motivation and a financial commitment (for an employer), than love and honesty.

I'd rather hire someone that have a genuine interest in my company, customers, products and technology. Not very romantic, I know ;)

datalus
You must be a sad person then :(
jtheory
It's not a binary decision; he should indeed find a company that honestly interests him, or he will be unhappy there (regardless of how happy his private life is; work takes up a large chunk of your waking hours!).

And that doesn't rule out explaining what brings him to the country.

verisimilidude
You've never been burned.

Hiring foreign employees is a lot different than hiring locals. Depending upon the country, sponsoring a visa can cost a lot of money and, more importantly, a lot of time. That lost time takes many forms. You'll have reams of paperwork. You may have interviews with immigration departments. You may need to find and/or furnish an apartment. You may need to spend weeks holding the new hire's hand after he arrives, teaching him how to deposit his checks in his new land, buy groceries, etc. And you may need to set your plan in motion months ahead of time to keep the organization running smoothly.

So when you invest all that time into bringing someone on board, and then they just quit shortly after arriving ("LOL broke up with gf seeyaltr"), it hurts. It hurts bad, for months, while you scramble to find someone else. And it's not the kind of mistake you make twice.

Without understanding exactly how it works in Denmark, I can nonetheless understand an employer's reluctance to subsidize a foreigner's love life.

daniel_iversen
Good luck with everything dude, Denmark is a lovely place (I'm biased, grew up there). A tweet was all I could lend though ;)
kmfrk
You can try contacting your embassy (http://denmark.usembassy.gov/) and see what options you have available. It sounds like you're pretty overqualified to be in Denmark. :)

You could also try to hit up the Robocat guys (http://robocatapps.com/) and ask if they know someone in the community who have any open positions.

I don't know how well they're doing, but Planely (http://www.planely.com/) offer visas for employees, and I imagine they'd love to have you there.

Airbnb also have a Copenhagen office, and while they don't explicitly have an open position, I imagine they'd love to make an exception for you: http://www.airbnb.com/jobs/locations/copenhagen-denmark.

I have no idea how getting a cool developer gig in Copenhagen works, but you could do worse than those suggestions.

EDIT: Oh, right, there is also the newly re-released Django People: https://people.djangoproject.com/dk/. Check out the profiles and see if any companies and openings show up.

EDIT2: You could also try setting up a profile on http://angel.co aimed specifically at Copenhagen.

EDIT3: You could also check out LinkedIn and Quora. I doubt they'll get you anywhere, but it doesn't hurt to try.

franzus
> overqualified to be in Denmark

explain

seanmcdirmid
Ya, that's weird. From my own anecdotal experience, Denmark has the maybe highest per capita computer science PhDs in the world.
mixmax
also, Danes came up with or were leads in the development of Ruby on Rails, PHP, C#, Turbo pascal, C++, Delphi, Google maps, Google wave, the V8 javascript engine for Chrome, and the Varnish cache.

Pretty good for a country with half the population of New York I'd say.

haasted
This is true, but the unfortunate angle on that is that, with the exception of Varnish, none of those things were actually made IN Denmark, if I recall correctly.

Update: Seems DHH started RoR while studying at CBS.

flexd
Varnish was started in Norway as far as I know. Not that it's that relevant to know exactly where it was started. :)
jlouis
The initial funding came from Norway, but the code was written partially in Norway and Denmark IIRC. Perhaps mostly Denmark.
doppel
The lead developer, Poul Henning-Kamp, is a danish national but was hired by a norweigan newspaper to develop Varnish.
peteri
Turbo Pascal was definitely Danish (polydata)
aik
Very interesting. What do you think is responsible for this? How did it come about? My understanding is that the education system in Denmark (and their core educational values) is different than most places.
davidw
> What do you think is responsible for this?

Legos? That and crappy weather that makes staying inside a good idea:-)

panacea
Lego is a medium. Like paint or sand. No need to pluralise :-)
davidw
It's a fairly fluid concept. In Italian, for instance, spaghetti and capelli ("hairs") are both plurals, rather than their "uncountable" English equivalents. I.e. "We're having spaghettis for dinner, but first comb your hairs".

I always played with "Legos" as a kid, so for me that's what they are.

kayoone
All of scandinavia is really good in IT in regards to their tiny population. They also often have the best gamers/clans in the world :) Most of the year its very cold, IT infrastructure was very very good 10 years ago already and the countries are wealthy and have very good educational systems.
aik
Yeah true. However from my understanding a country like Finland focuses on different things than Denmark. Look at their rankings on the international PISA tests for example. Finland scores are great, Denmark not as much (18th I believe). I remember reading at some point (though now I'm not finding it) that Denmark focuses a bit more on personal development relatively, while Finland (and most other places) on the knowledge (math/science).
jacknews
True. Although I recall a couple of studies in the early nineties that measured skill levels, and also "claimed skill levels". Scandinavia was top-tier in actual skill levels, but a country-mile winner in claimed skill levels.
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
hirenj
I think the overqualified here probably is in respect to the points system. You gain points for the level of education that you have, what your nationality is etc. For example, I've got points to burn here being an EU national with a bevy of academic qualifications.
davidw
> I've got points to burn here being an EU national with a bevy of academic qualifications.

I thought EU citizens were free to move to other EU countries without questions?

StavrosK
We are, what's this points system?
icebraining
We are, 'though for staying for longer than three months you need to have a job or enough resources such that you won't "become a burden on the social services of the host Member State during the stay".

http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/justice_freedom_secur...

riffraff
just to expand, it is highly unlikely you would have any issues with the three months period in general, as there is no structure to actually check if you have been in a country more than three months or not (no borders so you can most likely claim that you were in another country until yesterday).
hirenj
I'm joint EU and Australian - so that's probably why I had the points system in my head. There's no points system for the first three months. There are, however, restrictions on EU citizens after three months, as you need a registration certificate. As far as I can see, you can get this if you're either employed, able to fend for yourself while studying, or are filthy rich.
antr
you seem to be underqualified to make qualification assumptions of the Danish labour market
geoffw8
Was there a point to your comment? A rebuttal? A... anything? Fed up of people on HN just trying to be the smartest guy in the thread through odd means, disagreeing being one. The guy made a helpful contribution to the thread, don't give him a hard time for doing so, or worse, calling him under qualified

Worse of all its just not nice, you might have inferred from his comment he isn't qualified to x, what do you think people inferred from your comment, about you?

antr
Yes, the point is the comment. I haven't said that his comment is not helpful, I think otherwise. On the other hand, the remark on the qualifications of the Danish labour market is short sighted: "Hey, lets label the Danish average people for the sake of it". PS: this is not about being "smartest guy in the thread", it's about calling on those who make unsubstantiated remarks; in this case of the people's abilities in Denmark.

On "disagreeing being one" - looking forward to your comments ("Fed up") on each thread of HN. It's human nature to differ on views, and express alternate opinions, and that is of value.

geoffw8
That still isn't a point pal. Its an observation which frankly I don't even know if you're qualified to make. I know I certainly am not. He may have been just trying to make a guy feel better about a bad situation?

Regardless, my point is that yours did not add any value to the conversation at all, it did not leave an open door to discuss the state of the labour market, or ask "hey, are you saying that from experience?". Worse, you called someone you don't know unqualified.

Even if you happen to be the labour minister of Denmark, you still should have tried to add value to the conversation.

Edit (and last I'll say): "It's human nature to differ on views, and express alternate opinions, and that is of value."

DUDE - If thats what you'd done, we wouldn't be having this conversation. You didn't offer an alternate opinion.

Anyway, that is all. Have a good day.

antr
It's a shame you don't apply the same criticism / comment standards to the very first remark towards the Danish.
ila
take it easy man - too much passive-agressiveness
geoffw8
Hey, no aggression intended. Just saying it how it is.
iconfinder
We have open positions at Iconfinder. Call 0045 61 69 67 81 or mail martin.leblanc@iconfinder.com
kmfrk
I'm pretty sure any company who don't have their heads up their asses would love to have you. This is a great opportunity for anyone who knows someone in Denmark to do them a nice favour and get them to hire him. They'll be happy they did.
haasted
Trifork (www.trifork.com) are pretty big in the app space in Denmark. Try applying there.

Edit: also, tradeshift have their development offices in CPH.

Yet another edit: A Danish blogger recently assembled a list of Danish startups. Try looking through that for a match.

http://www.version2.dk/blog/opdateret-liste-over-danske-ivae...

wiredearp
Just to add that Tradeshift also has development offices in San Francisco and that they might (well) be on the lookout for an experienced iOS developer in Copenhagen, even though it may not show from http://tradeshift.com/jobs
kokey
Good luck. Welcome to being a visa requiring foreigner ;-) I have no idea about the Danish system, hopefully it's easier than in the UK. In the UK an employer needs to apply for a sponsorship license first, then they can sponsor you, it costs money and takes many months, and subjected to a monthly quota.

Seems like Denmark is a lot easier. Their points based system still let you in without a work permit (but only with certain occupations and if you have a masters degree or better) or if a Danish employer offers you more than 375k dk ($80k US), you won't need to get a work permit either.

nhannah
hahaha 375k dkk is about 62k USD right now...I wish it was 80k
prtk
Even before I clicked I knew it was about "girl". ;-)
pdelgallego
It was that or the weather :)
oellegaard
No-one would move to Denmark for the weather. Trust me, I'm Danish.
sball
Not for Sweden either (they do it for the very-easy-to-explore wellfare system... sigh)
pdelgallego
I was kidding. I moved to CPH three years ago from Andalusia, Spain. I am still in shock
MrJagil
Hey man, the cold and the rain just makes you appreciate the summers :p
troels
yeah .. which occurs on average every forth year or so ..
mahmud
I did it for the girl, weather was just a bonus :-) Greetings from Australia :-)
pallinder
Well, send an email to zendesk, they are based in Copenhagen and are a nice bunch. They are a rails shop though.
mxttr0
Just so you know, VMware has a dev office in Aarhus. Good luck.
tonfa
Google does too (V8), not sure if they are hiring though.
Ecco
Google's V8 is being developed in Denmark. Just apply at Google :-)
dalleng
If he already worked at FB and Yahoo it seems he has the right qualifications.
cskau
Not necessarily.

The Danish dev team is working almost entirely on V8 and Dart which is primarily C.

They work on very specific things related to optimization of virtual machines and programming language design.

cskau
In Denmark yes, but not in Copenhagen. Google's Danish development office is locate in Aarhus, near Aarhus University.

As far as I know they do have a sales office in Copenhagen though.

mraleph
Not anymore, V8 team is now mostly located in Munich.
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
[dead] survive
I hate this first world problems...
INTPenis
Think about the Swedish job market. It's the wrong way to be commuting from Denmark to Sweden but if you're desperate it might keep you going.
hjalle
I'm pretty sure you already thought about it, but you might consider Sweden (Malmo) as well, since it's really close to CPH and will probably increase your chances of staying in that area at least, although it's not Denmark.
throwawayCPH
Yeah, Malmö is also an option, although I'm not sure how big the tech community is there?
messyp
tech community here is actually pretty good for a city of its size. Malmö is kinda the Oakland to Copenhagen's San Francisco... A lot of startups seem to come out of projects related to Lund University, so you might also look for things in Lund as well (about 10 minutes N. of Malmö .. actually just search for anything in Skåne, which will catch anything in Malmö/Lund/Helsingborg )

monster.se and se.indeed.com are pretty good for generic job listings. Also i've found universities here (i.e. http://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/about-lund-university/jobs , http://www.mah.se/english , http://www.slu.se/en/ ) are a good place to look for Python jobs, as a lot of bioinformatics/science dept. are looking for developers. I guess you might also try blocket.se and thelocal.se , as there are some jobs posted there...

Lastly, not too clear about your situation, but another option might be to enroll in a Pd'D program, as they will give you a visa and a decent wage. This is true in either Denmark or Sweden.

But, just to be warned, Denmark does have a reputation of having rather harsh visa requirements. I'm not joking when I say a lot of people in Malmö moved here because of the somewhat recent Danish crackdown on visas.

messyp
oh yeah, I forgot about these guys: http://www.jayway.com/jobs/

They're hiring iOS devs and seem like a good company. Offices right next to the central train station too.

fowkswe
There's always ... Ikea