Programming Jobs Abroad For a US Citizen?

An anonymous reader writes "I am a American citizen with a masters in Computer Science from a 3rd tier college and 4 years of work experience under my belt. I would like to work somewhere abroad in Europe for a couple years before I get too settled in life but have no clue where to start. I only speak English but would love to learn a second language. What sort of opportunities are there for American citizens to work abroad? What countries offer the best opportunity to balance a challenging work environment with enough vacation to explore the rest of Europe in my free time? Any hassles I should know about?"

Comments

Here are a few job boards for Canada and UK.

[houbou]

I live in Canada, but I'm being sponsored to work in the US, so I will more than likely be working on the US side in the next month or 2.

However, if you wish to work in Canada or the UK, you can try these job boards.

http://www.jobshark.ca/caeng/index.cfm
http://www.jobserve.com/

Now as for balancing pleasure with business, gee, I could always make a joke about working in a country where the "siesta" is mandatory :P but the truth is, I don't know. All I know is that in Canada, you could always challenge yourself to learn French. For me, being bilingual it obviously works well. But the truth is, if you had to learn a new language, I would suspect the following languages would be beneficial: spanish, mandarin, japanese, russian, german.

Re:Here are a few job boards for Canada and UK.

[Z00L00K]

For Sweden you have the official job agency ArbetsfÃrmedlingen.

As for being an American in Sweden it's no big deal. I have a workmate from Vancouver that has moved here. And on an earlier place there were a few too. Most people in Sweden speaks English too, so the language barrier isn't huge, and the cultural barrier is relatively small too. In fact small enough that some companies tests their new brands and products in Sweden before they release them in the US.

As for computer related work you do have a few of the international businesses like Accenture, IBM, HP, Logica over here too, but also a few local ones like Ã...F, Cybercom Group, Epsilon, Semcon, Sigma.

So there are a few to pick from. But the use for Swedish outside Scandinavia is very small, so if you want to do this for learning a new language it may be better to pick one of the bigger languages like German, Spanish, Italian or French. Maybe Switzerland is a good place, since they have four different languages in that country.

Just be aware that people in some countries or areas of countries are less welcoming to Americans and that you will have to expect them trying to get you into heated discussions about American presidents, especially Bush...

The Netherlands

[Njovich]

Sorry for plugging my own country, but I think Holland should be checked by anyone looking for temporary work in Europe:

• English is spoken by nearly everyone under 80 years old. There are many people that can deal with complex english conversation. Still, Dutch is available to learn as a second language, and people will love it if you can speak even a limited amount of it. Many people (immigrant and other) have gone before you in learning Dutch.
• Holland is welcoming to knowledge workers like you. Clearly, there still is an immigration procedure, and there will be hassles. But a lot is done to make things as easy as possible.
• Massive presence from international companies. For a number of reasons, many large US, Japanese, Korean and other companies have their European headquarters in The Netherlands. Also, companies like Philips, Shell, ING, ABN Amro are Dutch based companies that use lots of IT. Also, smaller companies in Holland tend to have a shortage of qualified IT personel.
• Working hours are short, with many free days available to you. Giving you time to see the country, travel Europe, learn the language, or do whatever the hell you want with the time
• Working culture tends to be (but isn't always, of course) efficient and supportive. Dutch workers don't put up much with hierarchies, and organizations are as flat as they get.
• Top notch infrastructure: in public transportation, trans-european rail, roads, biking lanes, internet access, mobile connectivity, water management (including drinking water), airport and seaports, Holland ranks among the best.
• Amsterdam - highly rated by tourists - is nearby wherever you live in the country.
• Paris, Brussels, Berlin and London are a short budget flight, or a slightly longer rail(/boat) ride away. Budget flights available to nearly anywhere in Europe, also very easy (but less comfortable) to take a bus to anywhere in Europe.
• In the case of the unfortunate: High quality health care, and you will never have to worry about the costs.
• Above all: open, approachable people, that are passionate about quality of life, freedom and having a good time

Anyway, whichever country you choose, I wish you a great time!

ps. for anyone that goes to Holland for a longer time, you might want to read The Undutchables to prevent any culture shock :-).

Re:Go to India

[truesaer]

This may not be a bad idea actually. Salaries in India can actually be pretty high, up to 2/3rds of what US workers are making. India is not the bargain it once was for outsourcing. If you can find a good job there in a specific area of technical expertise or in a leadership role for a US organization you can do well. And in India, my understanding is that tech workers speak English on the job as it is considered the language of business.

Re:Working Holiday Visa - Wrong countries

[belmolis]

It's easy to practice Dutch. Just ride your bicycle into the countryside and get lost. I guarantee that the person of whom you ask directions will not speak English. Or French. Or German. Not only that, although they will understand your Dutch, you won't be able to understand the response because it will be in some non-standard dialect. :)

Re:elect obama

[Lord Haw Haw Haw]

Come to India... Urban India speaks English with varying levels of competence. and being a white person will draw excellent salaries as well (I'm serious). Though it will not be in the 100K range. But then cost of living is much cheaper in most parts...

Switzerland

[LKM]

I guess I can shed some light on the situation in Switzerland.

There are four spoken languages here: German, Italian, French and Romanic. Typically, reasonably large companies in Switzerland have offices in at least two language areas, typically German and French or German and Italian. While the Swiss have their own version of German (which Germans don't understand when they first hear it), they will usually use the official version when talking to non-Swiss. So you can easily learn German, French and Italian in Switzerland.

All working-age Swiss speak English. There are some older people who may never have learned English, but you can easily get by even if you only know English.

I have a few American friends who live and work in Switzerland (Google has an office here, so there's tons of American Google programmers over here :-), and they seem to love it, so I guess I would recommend Switzerland. Also, we're always hiring good programmers :-)

When looking for programming jobs, I would start out in Zurich; there's a lot of software companies in Zurich.

I think admin.ch should have information on how to apply for jobs and such.