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Ask HN: living and working in US

62 pointsby seminoleabout 11 years ago
Hi everyone,<p>I wanted to ask for your comments. I&#x27;ll try to keep this as short as I can.<p>I&#x27;m a 26yo enterprise Java dev and the sole provider for my little family (wife and toddler). We&#x27;re EU citizens. We spent the last 8 years in UK, and have recently moved to Belgium looking for a change. And change we got, but not the good kind. So want to move again. My wife keeps saying we should move to US, perhaps California. She thinks we&#x27;ll finally have some sunshine, lots of affordable fresh food, perhaps live in a house with garden, beautiful nature close enough to actually go camping for the weekends, and friendly and approachable people. And she&#x27;s probably right about these, but I&#x27;m a little scared about what we&#x27;d be giving up. Namely,<p><i>40h workweek </i>5 weeks of holiday a year <i>free&#x2F;cheap health insurance </i>free&#x2F;cheap education up to university level for our daughter.<p>Am I being paranoid? I hear stories from both ends of the spectrum. Some say they&#x27;ve been working 60h&#x2F;week with no holiday for 5 years, in which case all that sunshine and nature have as much value as a travel brochure. But others claim that US is developer&#x27;s paradise. And while health insurance is expensive, some get it from their companies or it&#x27;s offset by the substantially higher salary. Some claim that public education system is also underrated.<p>What&#x27;s your opinion&#x2F;experience with this? What would you expect re: work&#x2F;life balance &amp; health insurance in a decent (choose your own definition) company? Any comments on school education? General cost of living?<p>Also, I do realize US is huge, but California is the only state I get to hear about - please give a shout for your favorite place!<p>Thanks a lot for comments, they are important to us.

35 comments

davidwabout 11 years ago
&gt; She thinks we&#x27;ll finally have some sunshine, lots of affordable fresh food, perhaps live in a house with garden, beautiful nature close enough to actually go camping for the weekends, and friendly and approachable people.<p>That sounds kind of like Italy. Maybe not as much sunshine as California here up north, but it&#x27;s certainly better than the UK or Belgium from that point of view.<p>Of course, the economy is in the tank, but maybe you can work remotely or something.<p>Going to the US is not easy: you&#x27;ll have to find a company willing to hire you.<p>That said, if it&#x27;s what you want, don&#x27;t let the naysayers get in your way - go on a vacation there, travel around some, meet people, see what day to day life is like, and then go for it! It&#x27;s not perfect, but there&#x27;s a lot of good stuff there - much more than some of the haters here give it credit for.<p>Some people work crazy hours, many people don&#x27;t. As someone who is likely to have a good job, you&#x27;ll have decent health care, even if the system is a bit screwy.<p>Edit: a few other places to check out might be:<p>* Colorado (Boulder, Denver, Ft. Collins). Snowy, but still quite a bit of sun. If I ever went back to the US, this is high on my list of places to check out.<p>* Austin, Texas. I don&#x27;t know much about it, but it&#x27;s supposed to be a nice place, and definitely sunny&#x2F;hot.<p>* Bend or Ashland in Oregon. Not as sunny as California, and cold in the winters. Not as many jobs either, but nice smallish towns.
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ashazarabout 11 years ago
Just sharing my bookmarks that were previously discussed on HN. Hope you can find some useful info in them. Best of luck for your journey.<p>1. What&#x27;s the best place in the U.S. to live and work cheaply? <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6702111" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=6702111</a><p>2. What&#x27;s the best place in Europe to live and work cheaply? <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6703058" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=6703058</a><p>3. Where can I move cheaply to work by myself for a year? <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6700531" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=6700531</a><p>4. A &quot;Hacker&#x27;s&quot; Guide to the Bay Area <a href="http://islandofatlas.net/2013/10/04/a-hackers-guide-to-the-bay-area.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;islandofatlas.net&#x2F;2013&#x2F;10&#x2F;04&#x2F;a-hackers-guide-to-the-b...</a> <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6502430" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=6502430</a>
bowlofpetuniasabout 11 years ago
&quot;And change we got, but not the good kind.&quot;<p>This raises a bit of red flag, because lots of people migrate with a vague idea of &quot;the grass is greener&quot; without knowing what they&#x27;re getting into. Since Belgium is not a bad place to live, I&#x27;m wondering what it is you&#x27;re running away from.<p>And since you put a work&#x2F;life balance, cheap health insurance and cheap education top of your priorities (all things Belgium already offers) and don&#x27;t seem to know very much about the US, I wonder why you&#x27;re not considering the much less complicated and safer option of another EU country? (Also, of all continental European countries, Belgium is probably most like the UK with it&#x27;s post-industrial similarities.)<p>What is it that makes you think you and your family be happy in the US?<p>I&#x27;m getting a strong sense you don&#x27;t really have a clear picture of that, and are just looking to flee to a magical land far away from your current troubles. I live in a place with lots of expats, and that scenario usually doesn&#x27;t work out well.
abcd_fabout 11 years ago
My all time favourite place in North America is Europe.<p>I am a European. I lived in US for two years, I lived in Canada for 15. I also lived in Sweden and Japan. States are good because it&#x27;s just one big Walmart - everything is ridiculously cheap, but what it gets in quantity it tends to lose in quality. Canada in this respect is somewhat better, but it has the same problem - it feels ... I don&#x27;t know ... diluted? Too much stuff, too little substance. It is nice, it is comfortable and affordable, but - and I am dumbing it down considerably - you can&#x27;t get a decent croissant, because nobody simply gives a shit about getting them right.<p>On the other hand, the grass is always greener on the other side. If you move, you will have at least a couple of years of excitement and novelty.<p>PS. And generally working too much and not enjoying life <i>is</i> in fact the biggest lifestyle issue in States and Canada. No better manifested by the fact that most of the restaurants are there for <i>eating</i> and not for socializing.
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KhalPandaabout 11 years ago
Just out of curiosity (as a UK resident), how would you plan on moving to the states from a legal standpoint? As far as I&#x27;m aware, if you don&#x27;t have immediate family who are US-citizens, $500k-$1M to invest in a business, marry a US citizen or take employment on a H1-B (not easy), it&#x27;s not possible?
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RickSabout 11 years ago
If there&#x27;s one place you&#x27;ll find a 40 hour work week, it&#x27;s enterprise Java. Most of the glorified 80 hour work weeks occur in the startup realm. I&#x27;m generalizing significantly here, but enterprise is stereotypically a &quot;clock in, check out&quot; type of job at larger companies, and securing something that pays well without sucking up your whole life is very easily doable.<p>Are those 5 weeks of holiday paid? If so, that is not a common benefit in America.<p>Without citizenship, your healthcare coverage is likely to be either costly or limited.<p>Scholarships and grants exist, but a free ride through college is also rare.<p>If you were already a US citizen, this move would be possible (but even for the majority of Americans, what you ask for is off the table), but since you&#x27;re not, I say move to Canada.<p>Specifically, Toronto. As metropolitan as any American city (with a sufficiently large job market), numerous strong immigrant communities, better healthcare, great food. Nice and clean, fairly safe - I&#x27;d have no qualms bringing up a kid there. The surrounding suburbs are very mellow.
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jacquesmabout 11 years ago
What countries are you from originally?<p>Plan a holiday to the US, look things over and then make a budget (emigration is far from cheap), save and then decide to back out or bite the bullet. Don&#x27;t do anything permanent until your visa is in the bag for you, your spouse and your child. Hollywood and anecdotes are not good inputs to a life determining decision like this, consider it a huge project and devote resources accordingly.<p>Why is Belgium disappointing you?<p>The US is definitely not paradise but it may give you chances that are hard to replicate elsewhere. At the same time, I know plenty of people that are successful in the EU. It usually boils down to the people, not the place.
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gone35about 11 years ago
Sorry if this doesn&#x27;t sound as much but... do your research. <i>Ex ante</i> it appears you and your wife are under a lot of misapprehensions and, if I may say, grass-is-greener media&#x2F;cultural European clichés about the US --too many, perhaps, to disabuse in a single &quot;Ask HN&quot; thread.<p>Like others said below, a good idea would be to come live in the US for, say, a summer or so under a short-term tourist or student visa (<i>eg</i> maybe for a career-related summer course or unpaid internship) and see for yourself.
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lingoberryabout 11 years ago
Unfortunately you don&#x27;t just &quot;go and work&quot; in the US, it doesn&#x27;t work like the EU. Unless you&#x27;re a hot commodity and you can convince Google et al to pay for your visa ($tens of thousands) and then winning the H-1B visa lottery, you will have a tough time.
lazyjonesabout 11 years ago
I faced this question at the age of 29 (late 90&#x27;s) when I got an interesting offer to work in Florida (I live in Austria).<p>In the end, I decided against it. At the (2-day) job interview, people who worked there pointed out that the biggest benefit over Europe was the perceived freedom, the feeling that noone would bother them about their private business (this is probably no longer the case &#x2F; general feeling today). I found the poverty in urban areas most shocking (loitering people, obvious racial inequality).<p>In the end it boils down to whether having your &quot;dream job&quot; (for me it was game programming) is worth both getting ripped out of your surroundings and coping with lower standards in many areas in the US over Europe (well, depends on whether you live in a poor EU country), as well as other issues like the harsher environment (floods, earthquakes). 50-60 hours was a given in the 90&#x27;s, perhaps it is no longer the case now that Google&#x2F;FB set the bar higher for job quality. For me it was better to stay, although nowdays I sometimes ponder moving to Switzerland, Norway or perhaps Australia (for different reasons, none involving career perspectives).
schwarzie2478about 11 years ago
May I ask what your bad experience in Belgium entailed? I&#x27;m curious, being belgian and a programmer... Although IT management here ranks very low in my humble opinion, it&#x27;s not bad working here in the IT sector ( unless you work for banks and financial institutions, those are jerks :-) )
kasey_junkabout 11 years ago
Not to put too fine a point on it, but just saying California isn&#x27;t really even enough to narrow things down. Remember that California is about the size of Spain, but in many ways with more geographic, population and economic diversity.<p>The cost of living, job opportunities, weather, and life style varies dramatically from San Diego, Los Angeles, Bakersfield, Sacremento, and San Francisco.<p>I&#x27;d recommend a trip to see. That said, California is the last place I&#x27;d move if I were a tech worker right now. You can get many of the same benefits (except possible access to VC money) in lots of other places. The Research Triangle NC and Austin TX for instance both offer much of what you are asking for at a much more affordable price.
empressplayabout 11 years ago
Emigration is going to be difficult, isn&#x27;t it? Companies seem to rarely sponsor immigrants unless they&#x27;re total rockstars or aqui-hires because in-sourcers like TCS can bring &quot;average&quot; IT workers in cheaper.<p>It looks like the days of Google et. al. recruiting from far-afield are over, unless you&#x27;re CTO of an early-stage startup someone like Google might buy, or at least have some kick-ass side projects you can point to that will make you irresistibly attractive enough for someone to deal with all of the associated immigration headache, perhaps being better &#x2F; worse off from a lifestyle perspective is a bit of a moot point?<p>Sorry to be a downer but... cart before horse, etc. etc.
yodsanklaiabout 11 years ago
Novelty and the feeling of doing something different are very good reasons to move.<p>Salaries will be higher in the US but without a doubt you will lose in term of vacations and free time. Everything you wife mention, you can have in Europe. Food wise, I think you&#x27;re better off in Europe if you like fresh inexpensive food.<p>The nature on the west coast is incredible. The national parks there are among the most impressive places I&#x27;ve seen. However, with 2 weeks vacations, you may not have much time to visit them. You can&#x27;t really go to the grand canyon for a weekend for instance. You&#x27;ll have more time to go there on vacation while you work in Europe!
foobarianabout 11 years ago
I&#x27;m lucky to work for a Boston shop where work&#x2F;life balance is good relative to my perception of the average American software company, specifically, close to 40 hour work weeks, &quot;death marches&quot; strongly discouraged by upper management because they get how bad they are for turnover, 3 weeks vacation at start, then one more week after every 3 years.<p>One thing about vacations in US is that no matter how much time one gets on paper, I found the company cultures to look down on taking time off. It&#x27;s almost like people are ashamed to take their vacation time.
kovrikabout 11 years ago
I&#x27;m a 25yo Java developer from Russia. My gf and I don&#x27;t like (almost hate) our country and we want out.<p>We choose between USA, Netherlands, Germany, Norway, Switzerland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.<p>I&#x27;m not a well-known software engineer, not an outstanding genius (yes, I&#x27;m not very confident about my skills) - that is why it seems very difficult for me to get a job outside Russia.<p>But I love programming, I try to learn something new every day, improve my skills and knowledge. And I hope we will get out someday (hope dies last :) ).<p>I wish you good luck - don&#x27;t worry, everything would be alright!
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__xtrimskyabout 11 years ago
26 yo that used to live in California, but lives in NY now.<p>You don&#x27;t get sunshine everywhere in California.<p>I personally hated the weather in San Francisco, but a bit to the south (Mountain View) is already much nicer.<p>Now I&#x27;ll go through your requirements:<p>40h workweek: Yes easy to find<p>5 weeks of holiday a year: That is almost impossible to find in my experience, except if you are willing to get 3 weeks out of your pocket. (meaning you are actually deducting your pay)<p>free&#x2F;cheap health insurance: Find a company with health insurance, and then you should be able to have one for your family, and only pay an extra of 200 to 600$ &#x2F; month (yes that is cheap in the US)<p>free&#x2F;cheap education up to university level for our daughter: that&#x27;s not possible, you will have to pay for college. I think you can get one cheaper if you live more than 6 months in that state, and then send your daughter to a state college. Here is an example of a university near me (starts at 4000$ &#x2F; year):<p><a href="http://www.stonybrook.edu/bursar/tuition/tuition-and-fee-rates.shtml" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.stonybrook.edu&#x2F;bursar&#x2F;tuition&#x2F;tuition-and-fee-rat...</a>
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eshvkabout 11 years ago
I moved to America six years ago. I have lived in California, Texas and now live in New York.<p>&gt; My wife keeps saying we should move to US, perhaps California. She thinks we&#x27;ll finally have some sunshine, lots of affordable fresh food, perhaps live in a house with garden, beautiful nature close enough to actually go camping for the weekends, and friendly and approachable people<p>Sure, if you lived in Nor Cal, somewhere close to Marin or in the East Bay, you could probably get that. It is kind of puzzling to me that you would go all the way to America for this though. Wouldn&#x27;t you prefer to live in the EU closer to a community ?<p>&gt; 40h workweek 5 weeks of holiday a year free&#x2F;cheap health insurance free&#x2F;cheap education up to university level for our daughter.<p>You are not going to get a 40 hour work week in America. It might be close to 60 hours. At least 50. Again, depends on the place. If you work for a big company like Google, things will be reasonably. Early stage startup. Miserable. Vacation is 2 weeks - 4 weeks. Health insurance has always been paid for me by my employer. Schools, I can&#x27;t comment. I don&#x27;t have offspring.<p>Someone mentioned other regions. Let me give you a quick run through considering that long term, America is my home but I don&#x27;t know whether I want to live in a city.<p>Austin, Texas. Too small, too hot. Still too Texan.<p>New York. I love NYC. But it is not what your wife would want. It is a Megapolis.<p>Colorado. I fucking love Colorado. Boulder is amazing, it is a great college town with all those beautiful girls. Great opportunities for hiking. It has a great and upcoming tech scene. Honestly, if I were ever to buy a summer home or move elsewhere in the U.S., it would be Colorado.
awjrabout 11 years ago
I&#x27;m going to add something from the experience of being the kid that was dragged around Germany and the USA from the age of 3 to the age of 12 moving every 2 years.<p>Positives: - I was put into the german school system learning german almost like a &#x27;native&#x27; and I still have it. (Massive positive) - Luckily I had 2 brothers. We&#x27;d move somewhere new, clump up as a gang, then slowly get to know people and get our own set of friends. - I still find it easy to make friends.<p>Negatives: - Become good friends with somebody, move on. - Making new friends all the time. - I found my memories of Germany 3-10 better than the USA (10-12) but in Germany we were thrown on to our bikes and rode off into the countryside for the day (we lived in villages). In the USA we were driven everywhere although we did have a pool (Florida). - When we finally came back to the UK I found it slightly odd. Culturally I&#x27;d missed out on a lot.<p>Schools were much of a muchness. Of note we were in public school and then quickly moved to private school in the USA (this was 1980).
TheSmokeabout 11 years ago
Some random thoughts:<p>- The most important thing for me: EU states are social states and US is not.<p>- You are not going to get a free health insurance or cheap but quality education for your daughter like in Europe. (Not saying she won&#x27;t get quality education, just saying it won&#x27;t be cheap as we are used to in Europe.)<p>- US is not a developer&#x27;s paradise but it&#x27;s a paradise of possibilities and opportunities.<p>- <a href="http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/CA/house,condo,mobile,land,townhouse_type/9_rid/1-_beds/42.617791,-110.302734,31.821565,-128.29834_rect/5_zm/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.zillow.com&#x2F;homes&#x2F;for_sale&#x2F;CA&#x2F;house,condo,mobile,l...</a> In that link there is a list of houses with a garden that you can buy to give you the idea. For the places that you would think you could afford, there is a possibility of living without a job. (Find remote work and it all works out?) But I think they are better houses than houses in most of the Europe.<p>- You can think of Austin, Boston or Chicago instead of California cities.<p>- Wait, there&#x27;s another possibility: You can move to Berlin, Vienna, Istanbul, Mugla, Izmir or Aydin. You&#x27;d work remotely most of the time except for Istanbul, Berlin and Vienna.<p>- Food in Europe is a lot better than in the US and by food I mean real food, not the cereals, cookies or things they eat thinking they&#x27;re having breakfast. :) (At least in SF)<p>- I tend to think that startups are not for people that are married and with children. They are demanding and consuming. Unless it&#x27;s your own because only then it&#x27;d be worth to your efforts and time. We all know that.<p>Wish you all the luck for whatever you decide and let me tell you one more thing. You should absolutely be grateful for the wife of yours. Mine is not moving a centimetre..
h1karuabout 11 years ago
The cost of living in the tech-scene areas are outrageous and skyrocketing, those are the facts. The sun-shine California lifestyle can be quite nice you&#x27;ll need to be prepared to pay out the wazoo. Don&#x27;t believe it ? Prove me wrong, start looking at the Bay Area rental market.
runewellabout 11 years ago
We would love to have you and your family. The USA is so large and diverse that practically any living scenario is possible. If you want to live near nature with sunshine, fresh affordable food, and a home with a garden then I would suggest checking out more rural parts of northern California. There are many employers that will allow you to work onsite part-time (one day a week, month, or quarter) and the rest of your time at home, assuming your output is acceptable and you are available during working hours. Special arrangements such as this are more difficult in the beginning but are very easy to setup if you have proven yourself to be a productive programmer.<p>I would suggest checking out areas such as Redding, CA. If you make over $100k a year you could get yourself setup with a nice place such as the link below.<p><a href="http://sacramento.craigslist.org/reb/4450341909.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;sacramento.craigslist.org&#x2F;reb&#x2F;4450341909.html</a><p>More properties in that area: <a href="http://sacramento.craigslist.org/search/rea?query=acre&amp;sale_date=-&amp;housing_type=6&amp;hasPic=1" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;sacramento.craigslist.org&#x2F;search&#x2F;rea?query=acre&amp;sale_...</a><p>Note: Life can be wonderful in the USA but our healthcare and education system need work. Healthcare is fantastic if you get good insurance, but that will cost you each month. Being a programmer, it is likely your employer will provide health insurance. Our Universities are some of the best in the world (ex. MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Carnegie Mellon, etc), but our elementary and high school education system is inefficient so you may want to consider one of the many private school options in your area. This too will be costly. Basically expect to pay 10-15% of your salary towards making up for our deficiencies in these areas. Work&#x2F;life balance is entirely possible here although many European countries structure their national policies around promoting such ideas while the USA pretty much leaves it up to the individual to organize their life in the way they see fit. This is why we have so many people living on the extremes, from super-star entrepreneurs to homeless individuals and everyone else in-between.
sologoubabout 11 years ago
California is a double-edged sword. I&#x27;ve lived here for over 15 years and it&#x27;s definitely the place I intend on staying for quite a while.<p>If you plan on being near either Bay Area or the greater Los Angeles area, you have to be ready for the housing prices. A good, safe area with good schools will cost you. A short commute on top of that will cost you double.<p>That said, if you do your research, you can find very solid public schools (school districts) and University is doable, unless you go private.<p>As far as neighbors, it&#x27;s a mixed bag - there are plenty of great people and there also many fake, greedy, etc. Just like any big city. Culturally, Americans seem to be more predisposed to welcoming people than not.<p>Back to the finances, with the costs of housing, it&#x27;s not likely that you will be able to be the sole breadwinner. I&#x27;ve been trying to solve this puzzle for a while, but on a single income things just don&#x27;t pencil...<p>Now the upside - California lifestyle is something else. You have all 4 seasons at your disposal with only a drive or a short flight year round. This opens up a lot of possibilities for enjoying nature&#x2F;sports. If you are more into just quiet enjoyment, the state offers magnificent areas like Big Sur, that are also surrounded by awesome hotels, camping grounds and wine country. California wine is great and very inexpensive.<p>You also have the beach (really cold water though) and great weather most days out of the year.<p>Downside of Los Angeles is traffic and lack of public transit. In SF, you trade public transit for huge cost of living increase.<p>Never having lived in Belgium, I can&#x27;t compare. My only experience has been a very short (6 months) stint in the UK and Moscow. I would not come back to either voluntarily after California.<p>If you are not afraid of a little rain, I would strongly recommend you consider Seattle - reasonable weather (I like rain) and not too much cold, great nature and friendly people (by my standards of visiting and working with a few great folks), no state income tax (CA works out to an extra 10% for me), a lot lower cost of living with similar level of education offered by the local school system.
wellboyabout 11 years ago
Australia dude, best country ever. Salary as high as in California. It has all the good things that the U.S. has, without the bad things.
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adriaanmabout 11 years ago
Do not underestimate the cost (time &amp; $$$) of immigrating and the in(s)anity of US immigration law. Winning the H1b lottery is probably the easiest way. Getting a green card requires a pretty dedicated sponsor willing to spend $5-10K, not to mention the &gt;1 year wait (this is assuming best case: EU citizen with &quot;US equivalent&quot; of a Masters).
seminoleabout 11 years ago
Sorry about the formatting.<p>* 40h workweek<p>* 5 weeks of holiday a year<p>* free&#x2F;cheap health insurance<p>* free&#x2F;cheap education up to university level for our daughter.
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deodorelabout 11 years ago
You look for sunshine, sea, jobs and an european location? Have you considered Sophia Antipolis, on the French cote d&#x27;Azur? I live and work there and it&#x27;s quite nice, and you&#x27;ll surly find a lot of java jobs.
doxydexydroxidealmost 11 years ago
A 3rd Generation US born Citizen turns his back on the USA:living the American dream in Vienna, Austria:<p>Lived in Silicon Valley for 20 years founding 4 companies in the process. I am an honest and decent person who was raped each and every time by my co-founders&#x2F;investors. Only the soulless&#x2F;ruthless succeed in Silicon Valley. SILICON VALLEY IS A TRAP! Everything is dried out and dead, including the people. Everything is about money, and everybody including your employer has their hands in your wallet. Child care is hideous. People are shallow and self centered. Homeless camps are everywhere, and there is no empathy&#x2F;compassion for these older &quot;former heroes of high tech&quot; fucked over by the Vulture Crapitalists masters. Work weeks of 80 hours are the norm. Your company owns your soul. Schools are 3rd world. You have no life. Three hours sitting in traffic to get to the beach. No Culture. East Palo Alto is being bought up and the people tossed out on the street. Crime rate is now &quot;off the scale&quot; in both Menlo Park and Palo Alto (Facebook paid to construct and operate a Menlo Park Police Station just to protect its corporate HQ campus).<p>Lived in Boulder Colorado for 3 years. Closest thing one can find to living in Europe in North America. Fell in love with mountain climbing. Primary reason I chose to move my wife and 3 young children to Vienna Austria 11 years ago (easy access to the Alps).<p>I am giving up my US Citizenship this year to become an Austrian. I was back visiting my family in San Jose last year and could not believe how bad the quality of life in the US had sunk to.<p>Vienna Austria:Everything that the US was while I was growing up in the 1970s. Absolute heaven on earth! Those days are over in the USA. Amazing 5 weeks of vacation time. Founded my own GmbH 7 years ago. Government here is more involved with business: Austria has a high hurdle to start a business. 35,000 euros in startup capital, and avg 7 months approval time. This is actually a good thing as it eliminates much of the fraud in US where anybody can become a founder in 20 minutes and 20 dollars. Virtually no crime. Vienna is the best city in the world for 5 years in a row.<p>WELCOME TO THE USA: NOW BEND OVER:You have no credit history so be prepared to pay dearly for everything! Credit Card: 30% interest rate. Apartment: 6 months rent as deposit. Car loan: 40 percent. Power&#x2F;Gas 600 dollar deposit.<p>Americans are impossible to develop deep long term and meaningful relationships with. They sure are polite, but all relationships are shallow. Everyone is waiting for you to fuck them over, so no one trusts anymore.<p>Austrians are cautious at the beginning, but after a time they are the most trusting people I have ever met. I have never had as many good neighbors and made true friends as I have in Austria.<p>Austrian education system is far superior to the USA! They invest in their peoples future with free higher education and apprentice training programs with the result of the lowest unemployment rate in the world.<p>Austrians, and most Europeans are &quot;social&quot; in &quot;people before profit&quot;. As a lifelong capitalist pig, I had no idea that &quot;American Capitalism&quot; is pure theft. Socialists are not communists. Republicanism (US Representative form of government) is not Democracy, and the wealthy minority are protected at the expense of the majority. The Republican form of world government is 4 Oligarchs (US, RUSSIA, INDIA, CHINA) fighting over a lamb (the people).<p>George Carlin was right! George Carlin ~ The American Dream You have to be asleep to believe it <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q</a><p>Advice:Stay in Europe! You do not appreciate how good you have it! Do not be suckered into the fraud known as the American dream of getting rich, or of ever owning your own home (bought and paid for).
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lukasmabout 11 years ago
Remote work from Spain?
ssprossabout 11 years ago
Come to Switzerland! You&#x27;ll love it and as an enterprise java dev you&#x27;ll find a job. Maybe I can help you here in Zürich, silvan.spross[at]gmail.com
kghoseabout 11 years ago
The only way to figure out if you like it is to try it out. Unless this was a bash US starter, in which case, carry on.
manolusabout 11 years ago
Go live in Brazil!
stefantalpalaruabout 11 years ago
&gt; we&#x27;ll finally have some sunshine<p>You will and you&#x27;ll also have the chance to discover the difference between excess and moderation.<p>&gt; lots of affordable fresh food<p>The food is either affordable or good.<p>&gt; live in a house with garden<p>More like a house with a mandatory lawn in a region hit by a very serious drought. You might also want to ask about the rules imposed by the homeowners association and whoever rents you the house.<p>&gt; beautiful nature close enough to actually go camping for the weekends<p>Yes, if you like deserts and you want to live in SoCal. Note that &quot;close&quot; has a different meaning on that side of the pond.<p>&gt; friendly and approachable people<p>Maybe at first. With time you realize that the friendliness is a form of politeness that hides fear, distrust and greed.
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comrade1about 11 years ago
For the sake of your child you should probably stay in Europe. The education system in the u.s. is terrible. 100% of my European friend couples have moved back to Europe as soon as they&#x27;ve gotten pregnant or gave birth in order to provide a better education for their children.
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hellbreaksloseabout 11 years ago
You didn&#x27;t mention the visa thing at all.<p>You said you are EU citizens. It&#x27;s ok for you moving around EU but moving to the US is going to create immigration problems for you.<p>One of you will need to get sponsored for a long-term working visa not the temporary one. Then still I think according to US laws your Wife won&#x27;t be able to work until you get a Green Card. I heard that they are trying to change that law but still.<p>Sorry to break it down to you like that, you can still try and make it, but its not an easy thing to move to the States especially having a family with you.<p>I&#x27;d suggest you apply to 20 companies+ and try schedule them all within a week. So you and your family can go there for a week do your interviews and see if you can get someone to sponsor you.<p>It&#x27;s not like you said I am just going to move there... If you say that to the officers in the airport asking you the reason for your visit they are definitely not going to let you in.