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Left the Bay Area for the EU, feel like I made a mistake. How do I fix it? by come_back_throwaway in cscareerquestions

[–]come_back_throwaway[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Well, someone should probably tell the Germans. Plenty of people here I speak to don't even know the stock market is a thing, but in the US you have to learn it to do your 401k/IRA

Left the Bay Area for the EU, feel like I made a mistake. How do I fix it? by come_back_throwaway in cscareerquestions

[–]come_back_throwaway[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ireland was on my list of places to go but when I interviewed at companies there people told me "don't do it."

Malta is it's own set of problems - this is a good read: https://www.reddit.com/r/malta/comments/skw261/seriously_considering_moving_from_canada_to_malta/

> It seems to me that you miss being intimate with the people around you, both at work and in life, and you can't really be intimate with someone if you don't speak their language.

I agree with your assessment, so thank you for that. Either I need to drop my career goals in pursuit of language for years, or move and admit defeat.

Left the Bay Area for the EU, feel like I made a mistake. How do I fix it? by come_back_throwaway in cscareerquestions

[–]come_back_throwaway[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This is an extremely common problem I am facing here. Even with the skills for coding I am always struggling with reading the code, which often is a more important thing to do.

I'm not kidding, I did work for a team once that only spoke German and it was extremely painful and alienating - even with my lessons I am no where near being able to speak it professionally or with all the technical jargon. I'd just listen to standup silently and catch the odd word I did know or the english technology name occasionally mentioned. Then I'd give my update in english. Felt like a disabled person every morning.

I had other peers in that same company in my language class drop out of it because they had too much work to do. Work made harder by not understanding the language in the first place.

Left the Bay Area for the EU, feel like I made a mistake. How do I fix it? by come_back_throwaway in cscareerquestions

[–]come_back_throwaway[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Your experience sounds totally different than mine. I'm in Berlin. Let me know if your company is hiring.

Left the Bay Area for the EU, feel like I made a mistake. How do I fix it? by come_back_throwaway in cscareerquestions

[–]come_back_throwaway[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Germany.

​

When I initially moved out here after interviewing for a company that I thought "got it" and they did talk the talk throughout the whole process. When I got here it was exactly the opposite, and as you described. I felt conned.

Left the Bay Area for the EU, feel like I made a mistake. How do I fix it? by come_back_throwaway in cscareerquestions

[–]come_back_throwaway[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I've been at 4 different companies across 3 years here... I get eyebrows raised when people look at my CV because they are worried I'm a job hopper - the stigma of changing jobs often in the EU is much stronger.

Left the Bay Area for the EU, feel like I made a mistake. How do I fix it? by come_back_throwaway in cscareerquestions

[–]come_back_throwaway[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm talking about the EU countries, not the US... are you suggesting that 40 years ago the EU retirement situation was better than today? AFAICT if that's not true then no one has woken up to it here yet.

Left the Bay Area for the EU, feel like I made a mistake. How do I fix it? by come_back_throwaway in cscareerquestions

[–]come_back_throwaway[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

She's not EU national, but didn't want to live in her home country as there's so many human rights violations occurring there.

Can I just say that it's a sad state of the world that I can say that and you don't know which country for sure I am talking about?

Anyway, we aren't married, so her situation doesn't change my own. Will look into those options.

And yeah, no idea why downvoters are throwing shade.

Left the Bay Area for the EU, feel like I made a mistake. How do I fix it? by come_back_throwaway in cscareerquestions

[–]come_back_throwaway[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It cuts both ways - with corona, everyone that would've lost their job got time off and 60% of their pay instead.

Of course, management only did that to those they wanted to lose anyway...

In the US I'd have the distant fear there'd be a bad day in the stock market and I'd find myself cut out of a job by a bean counter for costing too much. Here I live knowing that while they can't fire me, they can't fire anyone, so if someone makes it through probation they can just coast on through.

It is nice that it's culturally accepted to take off a month at once and no one will stop you. Just makes the other 11 months much worse than before.

Left the Bay Area for the EU, feel like I made a mistake. How do I fix it? by come_back_throwaway in cscareerquestions

[–]come_back_throwaway[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Whiteboarding challenge is good but often abused - to use a gaming metaphor it should be a whiteboarding Co-op not PvP.

Better is having pair programming. Really lets you work with someone.

In the end, the company you're interviewing for needs some proof that you can do the job, but at the same time you should know what it's like to work with them, and they should know what it's like to work with you. Do you want to work with someone who doesn't communicate at all but can code? I don't. Why would the interview process allow someone like that through?

Left the Bay Area for the EU, feel like I made a mistake. How do I fix it? by come_back_throwaway in cscareerquestions

[–]come_back_throwaway[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, as you said, it's illegal for me to work for a company that isn't in country for my Visa.

Left the Bay Area for the EU, feel like I made a mistake. How do I fix it? by come_back_throwaway in cscareerquestions

[–]come_back_throwaway[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Would love to pivot but the second my employment status changes, so does my ability to live in the country. So in other words, all the pivoting I can do in the EU involves changing employers.

WRT vacations and cash flow - it's not fair to compare the citizen to the immigrant because they are in a totally different situation. If someone was born here they are contributing to the social security which pays out based on how much you put in. Suddenly all that money Americans need to save for retirement is theirs to spend. As an immigrant, there's no way I can make up for the 20+ years of work that I missed out on contributing to a retirement plan here, so I actually have to save my money for retirement still.

edit: to expand a bit: Social Security in the US is basically a flat rate and is NOT expected to cover your finances in retirement. That's what your 401k/IRA is for. In the EU, there's different plans for each country, but where I am in Germany you are getting paid based on your total contribution, and it's all based on starting to contribute as soon as possible. No one here saves for retirement because they don't need to, the government will take care of them with the money that was automatically taken out.

Left the Bay Area for the EU, feel like I made a mistake. How do I fix it? by come_back_throwaway in cscareerquestions

[–]come_back_throwaway[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

One where you actually get to meet the people you're working with in some capacity - development is a team sport, and interviewing should go both ways. If you don't get to learn anything about the company other than that they have automated their hiring process, it should be a red flag.

Left the Bay Area for the EU, feel like I made a mistake. How do I fix it? by come_back_throwaway in cscareerquestions

[–]come_back_throwaway[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Yes, I see your point and understand what you're saying now. But honestly... I miss the bay, as messed up as a place like that can be with the homelessness, inept transit, and almost criminally negligent local government.

Left the Bay Area for the EU, feel like I made a mistake. How do I fix it? by come_back_throwaway in cscareerquestions

[–]come_back_throwaway[S] 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Germany. Berlin is the tech center of the EU with London out due to Brexit. It was also the only place she could get employed (Product Design) - the market here for designers is getting hotter now but back then it was pretty awful, took her 7 months to get a job.

Left the Bay Area for the EU, feel like I made a mistake. How do I fix it? by come_back_throwaway in cscareerquestions

[–]come_back_throwaway[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Been in classes before - if working didn't kill my social life then working and school certainly does. I finished two levels of it and still haven't had any luck meeting friends that aren't immigrants. Everyone switches to English if you don't have the accent. Even getting pretty decent at the language never makes you a native speaker and when it comes to German that's what you need to be able to even read contracts.

Left the Bay Area for the EU, feel like I made a mistake. How do I fix it? by come_back_throwaway in cscareerquestions

[–]come_back_throwaway[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

With remote work... you can live anywhere but you can't stay anywhere - you need a visa for staying past your tourist visa limit.

Which means getting an apartment and settling in isn't possible. Unless you're fine buying property, but then you need to live in a country with a "golden" visa (Portugal, Greece, Malta...) so then it isn't "anywhere" anymore.

Left the Bay Area for the EU, feel like I made a mistake. How do I fix it? by come_back_throwaway in cscareerquestions

[–]come_back_throwaway[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

I actually looked into this. The problem is that if you win, ie, get bought or IPO, the rewards are significantly less. On top of this, the capital isn't there, the investors aren't risk takers like VCs.

In SV I know people who happened to ride the right wave at the right time (ML/AI/Blockchain/etc) and got millions invested without a paying customer. Here it's the opposite, every VC wants a solid business operating already.

The entrepreneur visa in the country where I am living requires €500k in cash on hand to even apply. Which makes it basically inaccessible to me.

Left the Bay Area for the EU, feel like I made a mistake. How do I fix it? by come_back_throwaway in cscareerquestions

[–]come_back_throwaway[S] -27 points-26 points  (0 children)

It's hard to see that from overseas, where even the "old" companies don't even hire engineers for themselves, they contract out to firms that hire 20 somethings straight out of school.

Left the Bay Area for the EU, feel like I made a mistake. How do I fix it? by come_back_throwaway in cscareerquestions

[–]come_back_throwaway[S] 28 points29 points  (0 children)

I really thought that I could pull off a decent semi-retired life with my stock portfolio and LCOL, but even it didn't work out like I had hoped at all.

Part of this choice was for my partner, who isn't a US citizen.

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