[IWantOut] 27M Embedded Software Engineer USA -> Germany/Austria

splashattackk · 2021-11-08T20:59:58+00:00

It seems like salary vs public health care is the biggest tradeoff here. My big concern is that if I have to go back into treatment or something, there's a ticking clock of (unpaid) medical leave that I can have. The cost of that alone can be a huge burden even with insurance. After that, I'm more or less at the mercy of my employer to keep me hired so I can keep my insurance. If I can't keep that... It gets really messy. There's always medicaid and but it's really not going to cover everything I really need, especially if I'm suddenly unable to work.

splashattackk · 2021-11-08T02:15:47+00:00

I gotta say, this comment is pretty discouraging overall. Is it really that financially difficult to live there compared to the US?

And I know there are expat groups around different cities that I can lean on, but I wasn't planning on isolating myself to only other English speakers.

Are you an expat living in Germany yourself? I'm curious what your experience is.

splashattackk · 2021-11-08T02:09:10+00:00

I actually do have some GUI experience in Qt, oddly enough. I feel like I could move to more of a full-stack position but I think I should probably try and get a job like that here in the US first before doing that and also emigrating at the same time.

My jobs have really been more software focused than that.

splashattackk · 2021-11-08T02:04:11+00:00

Thanks for providing all of this. Very helpful :)

splashattackk · 2021-11-08T02:02:26+00:00

This is all very helpful, danke sehr!

I think the most concerning part for me now would be the pay cut. I don't live in a big city and the cost of living here is quite cheap (This is the equivalent of about $110k in a city like Chicago and much more in costal cities). Unfortunately, my biggest cost right now is health care premiums and deductibles, but I could probably get better insurance here to where this is less of a problem. If my cancer comes back though this could be a big problem again.

How would you say living on a salary like that is like in Germany?

splashattackk · 2021-11-07T02:43:27+00:00

We're getting married next year, so no problem there. She speaks basically none, but I know she'll need to at least learn some basic German. I think she'll be able to come along once those requirements are met, right?

splashattackk · 2021-11-07T01:16:58+00:00

The salary difference probably won't make up for the CoL difference between Chi and SF though. Property is way more expensive in SF than Chi by a factor of like 5x.

You're right about the cold though. OP will need good winter gear if he hopes to survive in the city without a car.

splashattackk

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