Perhaps a perception that people in western Europe will be a closer cultural fit? Perhaps timezone proximity? Perhaps because executives want an excuse to travel regularly to Berlin or London or Paris or Barcelona?

More similar culture and laws.

And timezones. Western/Central Europe works fine especially from the East coast of the US. Asia is much harder.

What other people said, plus also if you open an office in Western Europe, you are also proximate to a new set of advertisers in relatively high-income countries.

I believe it's a good compromise on timezone (8-9 hours is manageable), political stability, safety and reasonable talent pool. You can still relocate people from cheaper countries yo richer ones. You can convince Romanian to move to Germany, but you can't convince German to move to Romania.

The funny thing is, from what I noticed there might be more US companies hiring talent in Romania because of the big local talent pool willing to grind, low corporate taxes, lax regulations and bureaucracy, than they're hiring in Germany due to the high taxes, strict labor laws and complex bureaucracy. I could be wrong, but that's my anecdote.

Immigration to Germany was big 10-20 years ago, but now, most Romanian devs these days, unless they get offers that go above six figures, aren't rushing to move to Germany as most take home dev wages have almost caught up, but the CoL and housing is way cheaper than in Germany.

From what I saw, they open a small office in Germany when they either want to tap some university/research institution or open a big office when they want to bring a lot of Indian/Turkish/non-EU devs here who want to move to EU, and low-ball them, as Germany is a preferred immigration destination.

Interesting insight. Thanks!

> but you can't convince German to move to Romania.

I think nobody is trying, but with the right salary I'd love to. Some acquaintances did something like this: they moved from France to Poland and have a salary that's locally really good. There's more companies that hire like that on the basis that a certain salary gets you further somewhere east.

Are there any left ? I heard anecdotes that tech salaries in places like Bangalore are now on par with of Western Europe.