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A comment on Ask HN: Who has moved from the U.S. to Europe?.

Re:Ask HN: Who has moved from the U.S. to Europe? by killdisk on Tuesday January 25, 2022 @10:58AM (#30073267)
I can't answer all these questions, but I'm doing this right now. Moving from Denver, CO -> Berlin, Germany. I start in May. I'm taking about a 50% pay cut on paper (for a Senior Software Engineer position), although what's interesting is Berlin has a lower cost of living, and in particular rental prices are actually reasonable. My plan is for this to be a ~5 year thing, just because it would be hard to leave my family. I already know I'm going to miss gaming with friends online due to the time difference.
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Re:Ask HN: Who has moved from the U.S. to Europe? by karaterobot on Tuesday January 25, 2022 @11:38AM (#30073931)
> I'm taking about a 50% pay cut on paper (for a Senior Software Engineer position)

A friend of mine moved from Seattle to Munich for work as an SSE, and his experience with respect to the pay cut matches yours. He was expecting that, but did not factor in the increase in taxes on top of that. He said he was broke and living off savings for the first time in his adult life, while working 40 hours a week for a major software company.

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Re:Ask HN: Who has moved from the U.S. to Europe? by Hamuko on Tuesday January 25, 2022 @11:45AM (#30074047)
How can you be broke as a senior software engineer? Even if the wages are lower than in the US, they're probably still in the better half of the wage pyramid.

(I'm a senior software engineer in Europe, doing alright)

Did he have massive student debt or something?

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Re:Ask HN: Who has moved from the U.S. to Europe? by Nextgrid on Tuesday January 25, 2022 @12:25PM (#30074698)
> How can you be broke as a senior software engineer?

Housing and taxes are both expensive.

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Re:Ask HN: Who has moved from the U.S. to Europe? by Hamuko on Tuesday January 25, 2022 @12:29PM (#30074776)
They're not that expensive, and if a senior software engineer can't put a roof on top of themselves while paying taxes, how can anyone expect a school teacher or a nurse to do so?
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Re:Ask HN: Who has moved from the U.S. to Europe? by Nextgrid on Tuesday January 25, 2022 @01:27PM (#30075821)
Those are not mutually exclusive. Both software engineers and school teachers can be in the shit. I'd argue that the tax impact is even worse for software engineers (as the top end of their salary is mostly consumed by the higher tax brackets) and their net situation ends up not much above that of a school teacher.
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Re:Ask HN: Who has moved from the U.S. to Europe? by karaterobot on Tuesday January 25, 2022 @12:51PM (#30075175)
He didn't mention debt. I kinda wanted to be vague, since I'm just recapitulating a breakfast conversation I had nine months ago, and don't know a ton of details. I believe that he had to continue paying U.S. taxes in addition to the higher German taxes.
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Re:Ask HN: Who has moved from the U.S. to Europe? by larkost on Friday January 28, 2022 @06:33PM (#30121983)
If your taxes wind up higher, then you have to file your U.S. taxes, but they wind up being minimal to 0, as the U.S. counts the taxes you pay there in lieu of paying to the U.S.. Mostly your extra expense should be in fees paid to one of the tax accountants who actually know their way around these tax laws/treaties.
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Re:Ask HN: Who has moved from the U.S. to Europe? by shetill on Wednesday January 26, 2022 @04:57AM (#30083617)
Senior Software Engineer in UK here, I can barely save anything after rent and bills. Honestly I don't even know why I don't just go US, have nothing here, no house, no friends, no family.
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Re:Ask HN: Who has moved from the U.S. to Europe? by holdenbruce on Tuesday January 25, 2022 @11:16AM (#30073586)
doing a similar thing this summer, moving from nyc to berlin
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Re:Ask HN: Who has moved from the U.S. to Europe? by shankr on Tuesday January 25, 2022 @11:26AM (#30073753)
Good luck with apartment search!
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Re:Ask HN: Who has moved from the U.S. to Europe? by bogomipz on Tuesday January 25, 2022 @07:27PM (#30080108)
I'm guessing this is still as insane as ever? Or has Covid actually changed that?
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Re:Ask HN: Who has moved from the U.S. to Europe? by shankr on Wednesday January 26, 2022 @02:21AM (#30082755)
Yeah same as before. But if you throw money at it, might get resolved.
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