Is it even possible to get a job in the US from EU?
Posted by Used_Steak856@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 38 comments
Ive sent many applications over the last years and never even had an interview. Would it be wiser to only apply in eu?
ExperiencedDevs-ModTeam@reddit
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gamesbrainiac@reddit
Americans themselves are having a tough time getting a job in the US. I genuinely am curious as to why one would think a foreigner would have a better chance at getting a job (on average).
As a side note, in 2019 and 2020, several US companies courted me to join them in NY and CA. I declined because they wanted me on a H1B and I would only agree if it was a O1 or L1-A (which is more complicated).
TheseHeron3820@reddit
There's a bit of a myth around here in Europe (especially southern Europe where I'm from) that American wages are ludicrously high.
I mean, sure, if you're an architect at a FAANG or something like that. But it doesn't take much to find out that a small company in Louisiana isn't going to pay regal wages.
And besides, American work culture sucks.
JaneGoodallVS@reddit
> American work culture sucks.
I've lived here all my life and found it varies heavily depending upon the company. I worked till 1:00 am sometimes at my previous company, which was a venture funded startup.
Right now, I work 40 hrs/week with 4 weeks of paid time off, plus an additional four 4 weeks of paid paternity leave, plus a handful of holidays (Christmas, Labor Day, etc.).
nath1as@reddit
100k is already unimaginable
x39-@reddit
Which is why you want a job at faang
Because of the better payment and other assets you get
obfuscate@reddit
I'll trade you my US job for your EU citizenship
devHaitham@reddit
Really ? How so? I keep wondering and day dreaming how different things would be if I were to be developing in the US
obfuscate@reddit
Make good money in the US but worry about our politics society and health care
manypeople1account@reddit
Tell us about your dreams. Enlighten us.
AnnoyedVelociraptor@reddit
It's super hard. You're expecting too much $ vs people from India, so you're not getting the H1-Bs.
The investment for them is not worth it.
Join a US company in your country and try to come over on an L1-A/B.
?
enigma_x@reddit
Where is this myth that everyone is out of a job because of an Indian coming from? Companies people from the EU are trying to get into are not the companies underpaying foreign workers.
captain_ahabb@reddit
It's not why everyone is out of a job (that's interest rates) but Indians do make up a large share of H-1B visas (74%).
enigma_x@reddit
Sure. But why is that a thing that's dissuading employers from hiring someone from the EU? Instead of saying "you need a visa that's a lottery" you're blaming this hypothetical indian. That needs to stop.
AnnoyedVelociraptor@reddit
You can lowball the Indian person and keep them longer, due to the massive improvement of quality of life, even when lowballing them.
Can't do that for someone from Belgium. The standard of living is way higher.
enigma_x@reddit
You're just saying things. You can go on blind to see what kind of offers people are getting. Your infantalizing of Indians as if they have no choice but to accept subpar wages is ridiculous.
PoopsCodeAllTheTime@reddit
There's some insider-trading going on with H1Bs, the indians in charge of hiring enjoy bringing more indians into their clique.
or so I heard :shrug:
It makes sense tho, if you are going to get 5% of the H1B requests approved, and you already got a pipeline of possible H1Bs from India, you would fill the requests with people from that pipeline.
A lone company would have trouble getting their H1B approved because there is a limit to how many H1Bs may be a approved on a given year.
or sometihng like that, CMIIAW please
Am I blaming anyone?
No.
If anything I would blame the companies that refuse to work remotely, they would easily hire people abroad.
captain_ahabb@reddit
I'm not blaming any hypothetical person, just pointing out the statistical basis for the stereotype. I support skilled immigration.
InfiniteJackfruit5@reddit
Side note, i remember working at a company that had a contingent of polish developers. I swear all of the polish developers were really good, SUPER confident and quite smug. I always wondered how much we paid them in comparison to a us worker, but from what i'm hearing that rate has risen so it's not as worth it to hire them anymore.
manypeople1account@reddit
I mean it depends, are you trying to interview at a US company which has an office in europe near where you live?
Otherwise, why would a US company want to hire a European? If they want to hire offshore, they will go for some place cheap like India.
flavius-as@reddit
A company who still wants the quality, at a cheaper price.
AromaticStrike9@reddit
Having been on a team that outsourced some work to Europe recently, it's really not that much cheaper anymore outside of a handful of places like Ukraine. Even Poland was at the point where it wasn't really worth it for us, which according to our manager wasn't the case 5-10 years ago.
coderemover@reddit
You don’t outsource to Poland because it’s cheaper but because it’s higher quality.
castro12321@reddit
Exactly. Or put in another words, it's easier to find high quality talent in Poland than in the original country simply because the pool of high quality talent there is already exhausted.
If you want a (really) senior developer, then instead of getting 1 application per month in your country, you can try posting in a few other countries and get 10 applications per month. That makes it much easier to pick the good person for the project.
AromaticStrike9@reddit
Least nationalistic Pole
TastyToad@reddit
High end IT (meaning people with a reasonable skill level, work ethics and English proficiency) salaries in Poland doubled, maybe even tripled, over the last 10 years (I'm making more than double in PLN, slightly less converted to USD due to exchange rates, without me even trying to maximize it).
This was due to a compounding effect of more companies opening their branches here, some outsourced jobs moving from India etc to Europe, covid making remote jobs mainstream and repeated political troubles that made going further to the east too risky or a straight no.
Singularity-42@reddit
Can you give some details? SWE salaries are definitely a lot lower in much of EU than the US.
AutomaticSLC@reddit
Overhead.
Hiring someone in an EU country comes with a lot of extra work for the hiring company. There are companies that will handle this as a service, but by the time you add up the compensation, the cost of employing someone there, and the fees from the services you might as well just hire someone in the US.
windyx952@reddit
Can confirm (cries in polish).
Skizzy_Mars@reddit
Most Americans don’t perceive Europe as being cheaper, even though it is
Linaran@reddit
It's possible but it's rare. I guess 3 main things to overcome are: * Timezones (meetings are usually in the afternoon sometimes evening) * US people get shocked when you tell them you have a 22 day vacation + country holidays and sick leave on top of that.
You gotta prove they're getting their moneys worth. That said, don't expect 100k per year. They're going to give you enough to beat the local market but anything above that needs to come through a raise.
Most of the time freelance remote gigs, but there are EU subsidiaries (although that would just be regular employment?).
Cultural pro tip (joke?): * In EU the scale goes from bad to good. In US (especially west coast) the scale goes from ok to awesome. You learn this when you see people being concerned or sad because you called their work ok 😄
AutomaticSLC@reddit
Depends: Are you uniquely qualified in a difficult area? You might have a chance.
If your skills and experience are generic or even above average, companies have no reason to hire foreign applicants right now. The additional cost of getting them moved to a different country and the risk that they'll back out (happens a lot) are just not worth it.
KuddelmuddelMonger@reddit
Yes it is possible.
g____s@reddit
Yes it's possible , I was a remote contractor for an US company for almost 3 years. Rate was a bit better than what I have now in EU.
PoopsCodeAllTheTime@reddit
I got a job in the EU from LATAM, but this is a tiny company and I have specialized skills.
I also interviewed for a job with India/Syndey teams, they interviewed me because I had some OSS contributions in a particular language. They required me to be online on my late Sunday nights and at midnight during the week. So it did not work out.
Tl;Dr: there are people hiring abroad, but this only occurs when you got a mix of skills and price that can't be matched in a local market, a local market is generally considered a safer bet, less chance of OverEmployed people or fake identities, and also timezone etc.
MooseHoofPrint@reddit
Why should it be?
CommitteeOk3099@reddit
The H1B visa is only part of it. Most of the work is done remotely in India.
Unless you are in a niche framework that is hard to find, you not going to get a contract.
And it is very hard to compete in price.
David_AnkiDroid@reddit
If a company isn't hiring from the EU, they will often still accept EU-based constractors.
If they are, then you have a ton of competition. Obviously possible, but fierce competiion.