What are good places for an American programmer to live / work abroad?

Question

I having been working in development for about a year now, and would really like to travel. I wasn't able to afford studying abroad during college, and I would love to get out of the country before I'm too settled down, especially to Europe, Japan, or South America.

Are there any places that are better than others? What are some cheap places to go? Is it easier to live / work in some countries than others? Although I have considered just working remotely, I am sure there are some places where I could possibly find work overseas.

I put together a small site awhile ago looking for fellow programmers to share a house next summer, possibly in Spain. Although a lot of people thought I was a creepy scammer, I think it would be a cool experience. If 3-4 people split rent it would be cheap, and you could develop together in coffee shops, etc.

It would be great in your answer if you could provide the process of living abroad for the country you suggest: visa, housing costs/availabilities, legality of work, etc.

Answer 1

I think that Serbia is the best choice for you...It's in Europe, it's cheap, and software developer salary could be huge, also you could work from your home(in Serbia of course) for some US/EU company for nice salary or even better to open your own company here.

If you are interested in, I could be your host.

Answer 2

I don't know about living expenses but I was considering London or the England/France/Spain area of Europe because they would offer the best chance of local work that wouldn't rely too heavily on having American freelance business (advertisers are pulling back so much of their money that Barack Obama was able to buy thirty minutes of airtime on 7 different networks at the same time last week).

Answer 3

Have you considered Canada? There are lots of great development opportunities everywhere, but Canada might have what you're looking for. Vancouver has a great community of developers, and lots of support from Microsoft with lots of events throughout the year. I suspect no different than in the U.S. If you are not a MS developer, you might also find the Linux/Open Source community is well developed in Canada as well. Toronto and Ottawa are also hotbeds.

Answer 4

You say coffee shop, then I say come to the Netherlands. But don't expect coffee in the shop ;-).

But even if you don't like wooden shoes and tulips, we have still a nice country. Probably a bit small. But lots of programming opportunities.

Answer 5

Any English speaking country would be best for an English speaker.

In Europe, I'd include UK, Ireland, Scandinavia, Netherlands.

Ireland has several advantages:

In Ireland the wages are quite high nowadays. The Euro is quite high to the dollar (despite recent losses). Lots of the big multi-nationals have their European base here (eg MS, Google, Oracle) because of the low corporation taxes.

You'll get to amaze your pals with your amazing psychic abilities as you predict what happens next in the "premiere" viewing of some new TV-series.

With a slight orthographical modification from 'Shawn' to 'Sean' you'll fit right in. (It still sounds the same, but you'd never get away with the 'w')

The disadvantage are: the weather, cost of beer, high rent, language (not quite english).

Answer 6

Plenty of beaches in Australia, and if you move soon summer is about to start! There are plenty of job opportunities for developers and it is one of the few countries not about to go into recession. Of course the attractions in Australia are quite different to Europe but there must be a reason a million pommy backpackers come here every year.

Answer 7

In South America it depends on your area of expertise. Java, ERP-related, and web-related languages are the areas in which there's more demand. But the pay is quite lower than in the US and Europe, except if you're gonna work for major companies. The cost of living is also lower, but I don't think it compensates the lower income (comparing to the US). Not that you won't be able to live comfortably, of course.

Answer 8

Just like Australia, the IT market in NZ is quite strong. Having said that, I would wait until march next year before venturing overseas, mainly if you're employed at the moment. Wait until US election is done and dusted, as well elections in other countries (like NZ).

BTW, if you want to look at information about IT and other jobs here in NZ, look at http://seek.co.nz.

For more information about NZ Immigration laws and procedures, http://www.immigration.govt.nz - NZ's Immigration site is quite good.

HTH,

Wagner.

Answer 9

Don't even think about going to Lithuania (or Latvia, or Estonia) until you really know what you want! And yes, these are in EU too.

Cheers :)

Answer 10

It all depends where you have a work permit to, moving to EU or Australia, NZ etc from US or vice versa without a big pile of cash and/or big employer's job offer(hard to get remotely) is very difficult these days. Correct me if you find out otherwise.

Answer 11

I've had dreams of moving to the Czech Republic since we visited in 2005. Outside of Prague, it was rather inexpensive. Good food. Decent beer. Attractive women. And filled with enthusiastic capitalists.

I've no idea what the visa requirements are, however.

Answer 12

::: SERBIA :::

Serbia is good choice for programmers. You can get decent and cheap internet connection, and work from home if you can keep your job in USA. That's probably best solution, because you'll probably have bigger salary. On the other side, finding development job is really easy in Serbia (at Belgrade&NoviSad), but salary will probably be lower than your current salary, but on the other side, programmers salaries are highest ones in Serbia.

Microsoft have one of very few (5th when opened) development center in belgrade. You can get job there. Part of Windows 7 (math handwriting recognizer), SQL Server spatial library and few other products are coming from Belgrade. http://www.microsoft.com/scg/mdcs/default.mspx

On the other side, I think it's great to stay in Serbia (generally in any foreign contry), to get known with foreign cultures and people...

http://www.serbia.travel/

Answer 13

If you're thinking of the UK then consider looking outside London. Up here in Scotland we've got a traditionally strong IT community with a considerable number of software companies based here. We're particularly strong in game development, have lots of financial companies employing developers (Edinburgh is the 4th biggest financial capital in Europe) if you tastes are towards more commercial IT, and a couple of world class CS University research centres as well.

Advantages are that it's a lot less crowded than London and consequently cheaper. The people are friendly and the craig in the pubs is second only to Ireland. Edinburgh has the biggest and best arts festival in the world and you're only a couple of hours drive at the most from some of the best wilderness and mountain scenery in Europe. It's perfectly possible to finish work on a Friday summer's evening in Edinburgh and be sinking a pint while watching the sun set over the Hebrides before bedtime. Oh and the malt whisky is pretty good too!

Disadvantages are that our climate is often pretty cold and wet (good for winter climbing tho!), and the winters are dark as we're a long way north. We're also quite a way from Europe so getting to the continent involves hassle than from London - although Edinburgh and Glasgow now have a lot of cheap flights and it's only an extra 40 mins or so extra travel that way - and a little over 4 hours to London by train. We also used to feel quite peripheral to the rest of the UK, but since devolution (our Parliament handles most domestic matters) there's a certain 'can do' buzz about the place. You might also find the language a bit of a challenge at first!

Answer 14

You should check out the Philippines. Nice Dollar to Peso conversion ratio (average about 50 to 1), most everyone speaks english, great beaches, and some of the most beautifull women in the world.

Answer 15

If you want a nice salary and cold weather, go to the Scandinavian Peninsula countries.

If you want a moderate salary and warm weather, go to the south of Europe. (Portugal, Spain, Italy)

The rule is this: The more north you go in Europe, the more expensive things get. South is the cheapest.

The amount of English speakers is higher in Northern Europe. But you will likely find them in all countries here.

Edit:

Also, this is both personal opinion as the one of others to whom I've spoken with. Ppl from the north of Europe are a bit more cold and seems to be harder for them to be friendlier than the ones from the south.

Costs:

• Food is equivalent price thought it does raise a bit north, and lowers south.

• Housing price it's 2 subjective it depends on where you're going to, if it's a country capital, etc...

I can give my personal experience on it. In Portugal, Coimbra my city a room costs you arround 150€ and a house will cost from 400€ a T0 to 1000€ a T2/T3.

In Sweden where i am now it costs a room 350€ (4000SEK), and house will cost around 2000€ / 20000SEK I guess.

In Luxembourg my cousin pays For a small T2 in a city near the border with France 1900€ and in the Luxembourg Capital the same would go for arround 2500€

Unlike what I've heard about America (no offense here, it's what a friend living there told me). In most cities you can go around perfectly without a car as the EU countries invest a lot in public transports.

• Safety is no problem at all. It's also a bit subjective, but foreigners aren't bothered in most countries, so unless you go to the ghettos I guess you won't have much of a problem. For example here in Sweden (Goteborg) the amount of foreigners is so high, I hear more english than swedish

A visa is pretty easy to get. So I wouldn't see much of a problem there.

• Visa allows you to go to any European Union country. With some limitations on the amount of time you need to be there, but you only need to take one visa for all EU (except UK, see shengan space for more info on that)

• After you land here, just use ryanair is much cheaper to travel. Goteborg -> London -> Porto costs me arround 130€ to go and come back included.

Answer 16

If you were thinking of going to Germany, you'll have to know it will be very expensive and Microsoft technologies are strongly disliked beginning from universities up to working environments. Trying to find a job or at least an internship around MS stack is dead-beat challenge, takes months to years.

Most of the people speak English, it is quite safe on the streets but the social atmosphere is pretty non-existent. You will be communicating most of the time with other foreigners.

And I believe for a computer freak there is no more interesting place than America. The place of numerous ideas, interesting projects, very different people.

Answer 17

Brussels in Belgium, you are right in the capital of Europe and in the center of the 'old' Europe. Close to Paris, Amsterdam and London, but much cheaper than those capitals.

Small multicultural city, big enough but still a human size (1 million of nice people :), English is everywhere on the workfloor and there are a lot of expats from whole over Europe due to the European commission, NATO and a lot of international companies.

A lot of IT jobs but mostly consultancy, no real hyper tech startups, :(

Answer 18

Working abroad is a very good experience and I would recommend it to you. But in europe its all about the languages. Keep that in mind. If you only speak english then the netherlands, belgium, UK and ireland are good places to go. They have good jobs, good payment and lovely culture. I wouldn't recommend going to france, spain, italy or germany unless you speak their languages quite well. You might find a company in which people speak english on a daily basis but everyday life is very hard. Going to a restaurant, asking someone for help in a supermarket stuff like these. As a tourist you don't mind, but once you live there you will feel helpless very fast. But hey, there is nothing wrong in learning a new non-programming language...

Can't give you any hints about living in the eastern parts of europe. Haven't good a chance to visit them quite yet.

Answer 19

If you are considering moving to Spain there are quite a lot of IT jobs, specially in big cities like Madrid or Barcelona. Also salaries (and cost of life) is higher there. A specially nice place to live in could be Palma de Mallorca. In general if you're looking for a Java job there are quite a lot of openings.

The bad? side is that you will have to learn spanish, specially outside the workplace. Buy hey, it's one of the best things of living abroad, learning a new language.

Best job websites are:

infojobs

tecnoempleo

good luck !!!

Answer 20

With regards to looking for work in Australia there is an Australian Employment Community on facebook www.facebook.com/australianemploymentcommunity. This is a word of mouth community that provides support for people looking for work in Australia. There is a also a New Zealand Employment Community ( www.facebook.com/jobfill ) for people looking for work in NZ. This facebook page is moderated by http://www.jobfill.co.nz that allows free work wanted ads to be placeed.