Absolute shit. Its easier to get a contract from a US firm working from europe than it is to actually work remote in europe for a european company.<p>Besides, the pay is shit. European companies think 40k is a great salary for an engineer. Better rates to be had in murica. much better. 3-4x+ better.
(Czech republic) - in my peer-group, fully remote work is rare, but not unheard-off (for past two years I have worked with colleague who was fully remote, even though he lives in the same country, and we are about to hire another one. Both of them were hired as senior engineers)<p>What is really common, is reasonably generous attitude towards working from home. Few of my colleagues have arrangement with my manager that they can work from home indefinitely and basically come to office only when they feel like it, because of ~1h long commute from one part of the city to the other. Company policy is 1xWFH/week.
(Germany) In smaller companies it's certainly possible to arrange it - not sure how common it is. In larger companies, this is very unusual and usually not even considered, except for contractors.<p>There are a million of workplace laws and regulations that are hard to apply for someone who's working from home. E.g. I have heard from people working at home that their desk and chair needed to be inspected to make sure it is compliant (ergonomics etc).
Linux software tester reporting in from Eastern EU. I am fully remote and would not have it any other way. My client company (I'm a subcontractor) is located in the same county so it's not like I work overboard. This is pretty standard for some companies, and completely alien to others. Look for the former ones and ask during interviews.
In the UK, I've noticed remote working has become more and more common, particularly in the last 2 or 3 years.
Not only are there more distributed companies, but commutes in the London area are quite long as people have to live far out.<p>So yes, it's happening. I say this as someone who generally prefers to work onsite...
In Europe software companies are more like factories. You punch in, work like a slave all day, then punch out. The socialist mindset created retarded managers. So anything deviating from the standard factory setup is seen as depravity. Europeans don't understand technology. For them software development is like manual labor. Get some monkeys, throw them some peanuts and use a whip to make them do stuff.<p>Overall, remote working in Europe is mostly done for US companies. EU companies are usually mentally disabled.
I know several people working remotely for European companies. They do complain that the pay is less, but that's probably not related to being remote.