I successfully applied for a work visa here in Berlin, and I was blown away by how quick the process was, especially in contrast to the stories I hear about the same process in the US. From submitting all the paperwork to getting word that my application was approved, it took a grand total of 7 days. I was expecting to wait at least a few weeks, but it seems that the new Blue Card legislation has really streamlined things.
For anyone considering working in Germany, I would definitely recommend looking into the Blue Card, which offers some advantages over the normal work permit:
- It's initially valid for 4 years. For limited contracts, it's valid for the length of the contract plus 3 months.
- After 36 months with a Blue Card, you can apply for permanent residency (as opposed to 5 years with the normal work permit). This is lowered to only 21 months if you can prove B1-level German proficiency.
- You can leave the EU for up to 12 months without losing your visa status (versus 6 months with the normal work permit).
- After 18 months, you're free to live and work in any other EU country.
Quote:
"What preconditions need to be met in order for an EU Blue Card to be issued?
1. Applicants must provide proof of a completed university degree. If the university degree was not awarded in Germany, it must either be recognised or comparable to a German university degree.
2. Applicants must either provide proof of a concrete employment offer or present an employment contract that has been signed or that already exists.
3. This offer or contract must be based on a minimum gross annual salary."
This might only applys in France in the eu each state implements directives from the EU as it sees fit there can be wide discrepancies
For example the way the Spanish implemented TUPE (how employees are treated in take over) is basically a big f$%k you to the EU as it makes no attempt to implement even anything close to the spirit of the directive.
I suspect that Germany might be stricter on the university Degree.
Also not all Eu states implemented it Uk Eire and Denmark did not.
The Blue Card requires that you have a job contract or very concrete job offer with a minimum salary, and will more or less be tied to that job: If you lose your job, they apparently can give you some time to find a new one, but you may get kicked out if you fail in that endeavor. Also, if you want to change jobs away from the one that originally got you the Blue Card, you'll have to get formal approval. (Edit: this would probably apply to a regular work permit, as well. I'm German, so I never had this problem. Still, you can apparently even apply to get a work permit as a freelancer, which would then make life much easier for you if you don't want to tie yourself to a Blue Card job for that long.)
Other than that, there seems to be no catch - the Blue Card is meant to attract highly skilled workers, so once that hurdle is cleared (>> minimum salary, university education, easier for certain high-in-demand sectors), the EU countries seem pretty happy to have Blue Card holders stay - as they should be.
Yep, the permit is tied to a specific job for the first two years[1]. From what I understand, it's pretty easy to get approval for a different job, as long as the job description is similar. Interestingly, my residence permit also says "selbständig Tätigkeit gestattet" (self-employment permitted), so it seems I could freelance here without needing a different visa.
I think the blue card is only for some restricted occupations (in tech, science, mathematics, etc.) and has a minimum salary requirement (of about 46k euros/year). Which shouldn't be a problem for the HN demographic.
Do you think it will continue to be this simple to get a Blue Card? I currently live in the US but Europe is "the dream" for my wife and I. We just don't move now because my wife is going to college here, so we want to wait for her to graduate first. But we fear by the time she graduates (probably 2 years from now), it won't be so easy to get to Europe anymore.
German labor law has some features that might interact in interesting ways with startups.
Germany lacks employment-at-will; it appears that disputed terminations can easily become lawsuits there (but German law also seems to have orderly mechanisms for resolving these disputes, which boil down to mandatory severance).
German law has what appears to be a strict policy on hours worked per week and per day, and on working over weekends.
German law has statutory maternity leave (which I think is unproblematic) but also a statutory 3-year(!) parental leave, during which time employees aren't paid but are entitled to their job on return. Are startups exempt from this?
On the at-will thing, in addition to it being easier if the company has demonstrable financial problems as someone else mentioned, one thing that makes it less of an issue is that usually when you start at a company in Germany you're given a fixed-term contract. It's only after your third contract (i.e. usually after two years) that you're required to get a permanent contract. In most cases if there's a real clash it's going to be sussed out in the first two years of employment, and during the first six months employees can be fired with no notice.
The working hours thing, for better or worse, is broadly ignored in software companies. That said, hours aren't as extreme as in many American companies.
For the parental leave, that only applies for companies with more than 15 employees, so the startups that it would affect are going to be more established. And while taking a year off is common, it's very rare for more to be taken with intent to return to the job.
Fixed term labor contracts can last for up to four years for startups, actually (whether chained or as a single contract). See §14 (2a) TzBfG. Whether you'll find employees willing to agree to this is a different question, of course.
Small companies (ten people or less) are exempt from some of these laws, but if a startup grows to a certain size it's not exempt.
They are, however, less of a problem for a startup then they may appear.
While a company can't easily fire employees who've been employed for many years, new employees who turn out not to be a good fit can be let go within 3 to 6 months.
Furthermore, it's much easier to fire people if your company is not making profit. A lot of the laws intend to protect jobs that would be cut to increase margins (e.g. outsourcing, hiring younger/cheaper workers, ageism, ...). If you can proof your company is financially in trouble, then this is enough reason to let employees go, and you don't have to proof they did something wrong.
Work hours, as required by law, are usually ignored by startups (though one could argue that this is not a good thing...).
Parental leave is a IMO a good thing, besides that career-driven employees who would want to work in a startup will not take a 3-year leave.
I will embrace each of the supposedly problematic things you mentioned in your post any day. They seem rather fair to me. Do you have a different opinion? Why would you want startups to be exempt from this?
I think he wants to make sure people know what they're in for when they leave the US to start a company. In the US, as soon as you pay someone a salary, you basically own them. You can work them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with no vacation or minimum wage. You don't have to provide benefits, and you can fire them for absolutely any reason at any time. You even own everything they do in their free time.
That's simply not the case anywhere else in the world, and it may be surprising to people from the US.
At-will employment and salary basis are orthogonal issues. At-will is not a feature of overtime exemption.
No matter what kind of job you have, hourly or salaried, you can be severed at any time for no reason virtually anywhere in the US. At-will employment increases labor mobility and, very notably, makes entrepreneurship less risky by mitigating the problem of every termination being grounds for a lawsuit. At-will has social costs in other sectors where negotiating leverage isn't as balanced between buyers and sellers, but it is probably a significant net benefit for the tech sector.
The swap that is supposed to take place for salary-basis employees is that employees exchange their right to overtime pay for an assurance of full salary payment regardless of hours worked. If you dock an exempt worker's pay for leaving early or coming in late, they revert to overtime-eligible status; that's something that came up at a company I once worked for. Obviously, the other swap that salaried employees make is higher compensation; salaried employees out-earn non-exempt employees.
I'm not sure that everything you said is correct, but the beauty of at-will employment is that it allows most of these problems to be solved by people looking to their own best interests. I don't know many companies that would try anything like that because their entire workforce would likely just give notice and quit. That's not in anyone's best interest, so labor conditions (at least in reasonably in-demand fields) tend to be sane.
Of course, it's true that there are differences in the social contract you usually get working in the US compared to other places -- for instance, there is less expected vacation time here than in a lot of EU countries. But that's a tradeoff that people choose to make.
The entire workforce can give notice and quit in those conditions in Europe, with better unemployment insurance, free health insurance and much more chance of being able to extricate a financial settlement from their employer for unfair treatment.
I'm not saying nothing about at-will contracts filter down to benefit employees: US companies can often afford to pay higher salaries which on some occasions even correspond to higher hourly rates, and they can take more gambles on marginal job candidates. But it would be foolish to pretend it's a balanced tradeoff rather than a massive shift - fairly or otherwise - away from the interests of the median employee and towards the interests of the company.
Free in this context usually means free at the point of purchase (with contributions being based upon ability to contribute; which, in particular, means that for the unemployed it can be entirely free). Employers contributing is actually pretty common (see e.g. Germany or the UK). The key part is that healthcare is not contingent upon employment (or being able to pay for it independently).
It sounds even more surprising to me even though I have never been to US. Although I always dreamt to...
Thanks for your post. I mean no disrespect, but could you please link to any references. Specially about the working hours, minimum wage and vacation etc. If it is true then I am going to do myself a favour and trash my US visa right away. I am not much of a traveller but I can always assume that grand canyon doesn't exist or that I can see it in a different life....
Bear in mind that no one is forcing the employee to accept this. You can leave a job at any time, for any reason with absolutely no notice just as easily as the employer can get rid of you.
If I'm hired to work 40 hours/week for $100k year with 3 weeks vacation, I am entitled to all of that. If the employer then decides that I should work 80 hours a week and he will cut my pay to $60k/year and not let me take vacation, I can simply get up and leave and in most jurisdictions, that will be sufficient grounds for me to receive unemployment insurance while I look for my next job.
> Bear in mind that no one is forcing the employee to accept this.
That doesn't quite absolve the employer e.g. if I am stuck in sahara desert and bump into a man starving for days. At this time if I offer him food in return for his soul, would you consider it a fair trade? Even though the poor guy has a choice to reject my offer?
So, trading away one's soul might be considered short sighted and there's a whole argument to be had with regards to the state preventing us from making short sighted decisions, so lets say that the desert rescuer was demanding the starving life savings or something.
It would certainly be a horrible person who would demand that much for saving a person's life. But if the only reason that this or other person was holding rescue patrols in the desert was that they were hoping to strike it rich exploiting lost souls, then as a society we either ought to allow this or use taxpayer money to fund our own rescue patrols.
And remember that as a laborer you're not in anything like this situation. There's a lot of charity out there and though this won't make your life pleasant it will make you far better off than starving in the Sahara. And there is more than one potential employer out there bidding for your labor. And you can see that the system works because very few jobs only pay the minimum wage. If we were somehow to get into a situation where there was only a single employer in the country than I'd say that at that point some sort of government intervention might be called for.
>So, trading away one's soul might be considered short sighted
Starving to death instead of trading away your soul is more short-sighted; the metaphor has nothing to do with deferring pleasure or information asymmetry. It's about power asymmetry.
Being in a weak position while negotiating a deal doesn't imply either being less informed or having less self-control than the person on the other side.
Absolve him from what, exactly? A potential employer is in no way obligated to "give you a job." It is expected to be a fair trade of skill for pay. If you don't like the terms you're offered, you can go somewhere else.
Absolve him from what, exactly? A potential employer is in no way obligated to "give you a job." It is expected to be a fair trade of skill for pay. If you don't like the terms you're offered, you can go somewhere else.
I know it may sound illogical, but no decision is taken in isolation. Years ago I decided not to do anything with middle eastern countries for what they did to non-muslims, immigrants or to their own women. I still go fill gas in my car knowingly fully well how hypocritical it is, but I pray everyday for Elon Musk to succeed and for us to be off this hook. If US, a country made by immigrants, treats immigrants badly, thats enough for me to make a choice. It doesn't matter if it will have an impact or not. I really couldn't afford to care....
Having said that, if I were starving, I will go anywhere to make a living..and that really explains a lot of misery. I don't have any answers...sorry...
> German law has what appears to be a strict policy on hours worked per week and per day, and on working over weekends.
If it's anything like over here in The Netherlands (and I have no reason to believe otherwise), this will have very little interactions with startups: you simply work regular hours on paper, but simply make a lot of hours in the evenings / weekends at home.
Thats the way it works, usually. Lawsuits can happen, though, but I wouldn't exaggerate the risk.
Also, let me be quite open: if you hire someone for 40 hours and expect him to work more then 40 hours, don't be surprised if some come back and sue. You broke contract.
Are the German rules around labour hours any stricter than the EU Working Time Directive? Which applies here in the UK as well and which everyone (in my experience) simply opts out of:
At-will employment seemed like a terrible idea when I worked in the US, at least from the employees point of view. It's essentially enforced opt out of many protections you'd receive in other countries.
The only benefit to at-will employment for an employee is you're not tied into things like 'you must work here for 2 years / give 6 months notice', over/under of 15 years for those protections to start being weakened.
Typically these laws would be biased towards the employee. At-will employment pretends there's some sort of symmetry and/or market forces. Social labour laws are about protecting employees, not employers.
Forcing someone to work for two years at a certain place or give 6 months notice before they leave would be considered a violation of their human rights in most places. I'd be really surprised if Germany requires employees to give 6 months notice before leaving...
It depends on your contract. The longest I ever had was 3 months to the end of a quarter. Theses conditons always go both ways. But which employer would insist in keeping you when he knows you want to leave? What level of motivation could he expect?
Many of these rules only come into affect once a company has reached a certain number of employees, which I think is around ten. So small start-ups should be fine, but will have to observe this once they start growing.
As someone who is a non-US citizen going through the tortuous process of acquiring permanent residency in the US (estimated time: 8-10 years), I will advise any international people looking for their first job -- if you can get one in Berlin, Canada, or elsewhere, take it.
The US immigration system is fraught with bureaucracy, and is structured such that employers have strong incentives to delay your application for permanent residency for as long as possible. This, combined with per-country caps on green cards, makes for a process where you spend a decade or more in a country as an "alien" when you are working there and paying large amounts of taxes towards a Social Security system etc. that you have no chance of using in your present state.
(To be fair, there is a fair bit of reform in this system that has been proposed by Congress, but with the current state it is in, it could be years before those bills are passed and made into laws.)
The best part is that the immigration officer assigned to your "case" can repeatedly ask for additional evidence (called RFE - request for evidence), and ultimately reject it for the most ridiculously superficial reasons.
The way my lawyer explained it to me made perfect sense: USCIS's job is to reject visa applicants, not to accept them. The more visas they reject, the better they look in the eyes of an electorate who by and large hates foreigners "stealing" jobs from Americans.
I worked in canada for a year and was offered to stay, my permanent residency would have been granted after 6 months and citizenship in 2 years.
After 5 years in the US, I'm on this situation, even after obtained a Software Engineering master degree in the US from CMU, my application is being dragged.
That's why there's no rational reason experienced developer who have a wife and kids will choose USA over Germany. In USA he would first need to wait at least one year until his family can arrive, then wait for 5 or more years to get permanent residency (Green Card) in which period his wife will not have permission to work, and he would be unable to plan his future in any significant way because he would live on the edge of deportation if his current employer decide he doesn't work (good/hard/long) enough. That's at least six years of limbo in someones' life. It might be ok for singles with no kids, but noone else.
Compare that to Germany where it takes at most 3 months to be completely settled with the family where wife also gets work permit, and children can start getting child benefits and going to state subsided kindergartens from the get go.
I would start thinking about moving to US if and only if I would get Green Card from the start, but even then I'm not sure I would change EU(ropean) way of life for 50+ work weeks, one week of vacation and no payed sick or parental leave, super expensive education and no universal health care.
I'm not sure I would change EU(ropean) way of life for 50+ work weeks, one week of vacation and no payed sick or parental leave, super expensive education and no universal health care.
No paid sick leave? One week of vacation? Super expensive education (for kindergarten???)?
Where in the US are you talking about? While we don't tend to have laws mandating sick leave, nearly every company that you'd immigrate for gives it. I've never worked anywhere that didn't offer at least two weeks of vacation.
Working 50+ hours is really a personal choice (as long as you work for an ethical employer) since it isn't legal to require someone to work more than 40 hours/week.
I'm not sure about super expensive education. Out of state tuition is typically expensive if you want to go to a top university, but the average community college is downright cheap.
| Where in the US are you talking about? While we don't tend to have laws mandating sick leave, nearly every company that you'd immigrate for gives it. I've never worked anywhere that didn't offer at least two weeks of vacation.
No offense, but your proof here is purely anecdotal. I've worked for employers who offer less than two weeks. My first STEM job offered 5 days your first year, with 5 more each additional year, capping at 20. 2 weeks may be thought of as the norm, but since there is no actual law about it, its only a suggestion.
|Working 50+ hours is really a personal choice (as long as you work for an ethical employer) since it isn't legal to require someone to work more than 40 hours/week.
This is only true if you are hourly, and dont fall under a salaried exception. Its also only true if your employer is ethical, as you say. Since the US is largely at-will, you can be fired for most any reason. They aren't even required to tell you why. So, if you turn down your unethical boss insistence on a 50 hour week at a 40 hour weeks pay, you can be on the street in an hour. You can try to fight it, but the laws in the US are stacked in the employers favor.
|I'm not sure about super expensive education. Out of state tuition is typically expensive if you want to go to a good university, but the average community college is downright cheap.
This is generally true. JC are comparably cheap, but contrast this against someplace in the EU that has "high" tuition. A 4 year degree from a good school in England will set you back about 30k. Here, an equivalently prestigious degree can cost you 150k, easy. While you may learn the same at a 2 year JC, which will still cost you 15k by the by,you lack the prestige that a University degree gets you. Sadly, thats what gets you in the door. So, to be equally prestigious, you need to have 150k in debt in the US, and only 30K in debt in the UK. Thats not the same at all.
No offense, but your proof here is purely anecdotal. I've worked for employers who offer less than two weeks. My first STEM job offered 5 days your first year, with 5 more each additional year, capping at 20. 2 weeks may be thought of as the norm, but since there is no actual law about it, its only a suggestion.
For professional jobs in the US, the average paid vacation after the first year of service is 10 days (2 weeks)[1]. Sadly they don't have statistics for 0-1 years so I don't know if your package was atypical.
That said, we certainly don't match our European counterparts, but then again, we don't even use most of the vacation time we are given every year[2]. The US simply doesn't have a culture of taking vacations like Europe.
I've often wondered about this. Given how many Americans move cross-country for work, does that mean large numbers spend only a day or two a year with their immediate families?
If you are coming to the US to work in a professional position (Green Card or H1B1 etc) then you should be in a position to negotiate your sick time and vacation days. If an employer is not willing to work with you on these concerns then you might want to think twice about going through the financial and emotional hurdles of uprooting and moving to a different country.
If a hiring company is playing by the immigration rules then they should be paying at least going-rate for the position they are hiring you into (as well as having to pick up substantial legal fees). If you are just cheap labor then they will abuse you - but why would you take a job knowing you are not being valued from day 1?
> I've never worked anywhere that didn't offer at least two weeks of vacation.
Anecdotal, and also, in most of Europe one is legally obliged to have at least four weeks. I'm pretty sure I'd just burn-out quite quickly only having two weeks a year, myself.
Anecdotal, but I personally don't know any engineer having less that 6 weeks of paid vacation here in Germany. Add to that 12 days of public holidays, a pair of days of "company holidays", and ability to actually get to (fully payed) sick leave whenever you get actually seek.
Now, compare that to parent comment which obviously considers two weeks of vacation per year a good deal for the USA.
I'm on 3 weeks a year in the US and it feels entirely insufficient - 3 weeks is fairly standard for a senior role in a "good" company, btw.
I work far away from where my family lives, meaning the only time I really get to see them is over Christmas. Simply going back to visit them eats up 2 weeks out of my 3 weeks.
So each year I effectively only have one actual week for actual time off. It sucks. I am seriously considering negotiating for 5+ weeks at my next job, but this is basically unheard of in the USA.
> Out of state tuition is typically expensive if you want to go to a top university, but the average community college is downright cheap.
Studying at Germany’s best public universities (e.g. LMU Munich, FU Berlin etc.) will set you back about 250 € per term (6 months), which includes a public transport ticket (or about 50€ if said public transport ticket is not mandatory for all students).
California Community College tuition is about $1,100 per year and another $1,700 in books and supplies. That excludes room and board, personal expenses, transportation and the like. That's not quite as low as Germany, but very doable.
California State University system by comparison costs $6,600 in tuition for the year while the University of California system is around $13,000. Of course both of those are probably located nowhere near your home, so you'll end up spending a far greater amount on room and board if you need it.
They vary dramatically in quality (similar to high schools) and they are typically two-year colleges. For training mid-skill workers, they do a decent job. It is hard to really compare them to four-year colleges because they have open enrollment (anyone can go regardless of previous grades).
They also provide an affordable way of transitioning to a four-year college for the highly motivated and in some states, top-ranking high school students can enroll in community college to earn an associates degree their high school pays for putting them on an accelerated path.
Are you really required to buy the books?
I've only bought CLRS and never really needed it.
And there's always the library, bur unless you want to go more in-depth than the lecture, your* lecture notes and the slides would suffice to get through the test.
[*] fortunately I had a friend who was dedicated to producing beautiful lecture notes in LaTeX
You can actually get an immigration (green card) visa from outside the country from the start. You could work for Google Berlin/Zurich for example, and then move over when its all processed for a green card on arrival. One co-worker for the startup I work for came from Chile that way.
You can also just work for Google in Europe for a year or two, and then get transferred over on a L1/L2 visa where your wife can also get a work permit/visa as part of the package.
Also if you work for a company like google/facebook, you get very good health care, can send your children to decent public schools, you have decent working hours, good amount of vacation time, far more pay than you would get in Europe, free meals and I think google offers on site kindergarden too. Also while you just have a work visa, you can still change employers through more paperwork, but no practical ill effects in the end.
I'm here on an L1A visa with my spouse. She quit her high paying job and followed me here after our lawyers said that getting the visa was the hard part.
We have been waiting on her L2 work permit since May. Processing time is supposed to be three months. We called, scheduled an appointment with the USCIS, all that. They say it's being processed, and the lawyers say there is nothing to do but wait.
If you search the internet, you'll find plenty of people waiting to hear back from the USCIS for trivial stuff. Apparently, sometimes they even sit on your application for years, wait for the visa to expire, and then reject on that basis.
I'm talking about the USA. I work for one of those VC funded smaller companies, and they provide comparable services by just hiring immigration lawyers. The fee per employee are around several thousands of dollars and $10-20k for green cards. The new hiring firm also hires the lawyers to switch you over to make it relatively painless on your side. Compared to getting a new H1B visa hire, the switchover employees are much easier to hire.
A smaller startup company will ask more hours of you and wont provide such things as an on site kindergarden, but the benefits can be fairly comparable. Some of those startups also have a foreign office you could work at for a year or two and do the L1 visa thing for you too.
If you define pay as something that you can spend when you deduce tax, health, pension, rent/mortgage, education of children I'm not sure that US offers double. And even if it were double in absolute numbers, so is the number of working hours per year of software engineer in US compared to Germany.
>If you define pay as something that you can spend when you deduce tax, health, pension, rent/mortgage, education of children I'm not sure that US offers double.
I define pay the way most people define pay. The gross amount paid to you by your employer per pay period.
>And even if it were double in absolute numbers, so is the number of working hours per year of software engineer in US compared to Germany.
Unless the average German software engineer works 20-25 hours a week, I'd love to see some statistics on this. According to OECD stats, US workers work 30% more hours than Germans. There's no reason to believe that's different for software devs (in fact, especially on the west coast, it probably trends in the opposite direction).
I worked in canada for a year and was offered to stay
After 5 years in the US
If I am reading this correctly, you came to the United States even though you had an opportunity to stay in Canada. What was the appeal of coming to the United States?
Software engineering salaries in Canada are half what you get from a top-flight US company (e.g., Google, Facebook, etc).
Cost of living isn't that cheap either. Vancouver is an enormously expensive city to live in, and Toronto while cheaper also suffers from low software wages.
Let's say you knew someone who was granted an H1B1 visa based on a combination of some university education (but without getting a degree) and years of relevant experience in the field. Would this person stand a chance of being granted permanent residency?
If your company is prepared to sponsor you for a Green Card (permanent residency) then yes your chances are likely very good.
However, be prepared to be in process for a number of years - if the H1B1 expires and you are in Green Card process then you can get extensions, but if your application is then bounced for any reason you are visa-less.
The process is stressful, but mostly just paperwork. Get a good immigration lawyer and make sure they do their homework . Good luck!
There are routes to permanent residency that don't require a degree - basically the only routes that absolutely require it are EB2 'advanced degree', or using a degree as evidence of 'exceptional ability', EB3 'professional' and EB1b 'outstanding professors and researchers'. Admittedly EB2 is probably the standard route for H1B holders, but there's also EB1a and EB1c if you qualify, and there's always good old EB3 'skilled worker', if you have time on your hands, or EB2 'exceptional ability' based on non-academic evidence. Or try getting married to an American.
What do you do while waiting for a permanent residency? do you have a visa sponsored by your employer or do you go out and back in every 3 months?
(I'm a non-US looking to come to the US to launch a business)
Yep, your employer sponsors you using an H1-B. Not sure how this works out when you are the employer, but I think it depends upon level of investment or something.
This is controversial but it is my personal experience: As a non-white, living in Germany is hard; the level of bigotry and racism in my opinion makes the nuisance of the US visa system negligible. Most tech immigrants are non-whites so I think a debate over immigration should take into account the quality of life for the techies and their family. Sure the US still have a lot to do to improve its visa system, but the American way of life and its people, makes the US the most attractive place to go for non-whites techies.
Same can be said for Canada. As a non-white, I have not faced any discrimination yet in Canada ever since I moved here ten years ago. Sure there may be racism but at least not in the everyday life and certainly not in the tech sector.
Same can be said for West Germany. The horror stories are overwhelmingly from the former East Germany and Berlin.
I'm not trying to defend what is going on "over there", but you have to realize that Germany is, in many respects, still not one country and will remain so for a very long time.
Whenever you hear people speak of German unification, keep the following in mind: While we were incredibly lucky that there was no bloodshed, the people of East Germany were completely screwed in the process. More than twenty years after the beginning, it is misleading to speak of unification.
What happened was an annexation.
Every part of East German society was uprooted, down to the most minuscule. Massive labor migration to the west completely changed demographics, with many young women leaving but fewer young men doing so.
Wherever you have conditions such as these in any European country, Skinheads and the like will start appearing. As if it was some perverse rule of nature.
Maybe we're screwed. Maybe it is an emergent trait of European culture. I hope it isn't.
I honestly find that surprising. Germany is the place in Europe where there is the most white guilt. I stayed there for a few months and experienced zero problems.
I have a lot of (brown) Asian family relatives who've spent decades in Germany, they tell me America is basically a heaven in comparison. Canada is pretty much the only country that comes close to America (according to them -- and my experiences ring true here as well), in not being racist to non-white individuals.
That doesn't prevent a latent racism in big parts of the population.
Simply growing up with almost no non-whites makes everyone who looks different stand out a lot, and the step from standing out to shunned out is quite small, I'm afraid.
I'm sorry about that. As an also non white developer my personal experience has been the extreme opposite. Even my pathetic attempts at German were held in good humor.
And getting the visa was amazingly easy too. Got it within a week, but go with a native speaker.
seriously ? even in Berlin Africans and Asians get taunted on the street, beat up and occasionally killed. An Asian guy was killed last year just off of Alex. There were a series of u-bahn attacks on Africans last year.
Very multi-kulti here but you still have to be watchful.
If you are traveling in eastern Germany while black you will get quite strong harassment and in many towns you would be unwise to travel at night by yourself.
source: black people told me so
But statistically speaking its still safer than many US cities. And as a Nigerian born, Moscow raised guy told me, Moscow is way more racist.
Visas deter US-based startups from hiring foreign talent, but on the flip side, US taxation laws deter US-based talent from leaving the country.
I would love the idea of working for a startup in Berlin, but to make financially comparable, I'd have to be paid about 30% more[0] just to offset the cost of paying double taxes (both to the US, and to Germany). I'm ignoring factors like COLA, other expenses, etc., but for a US citizen this is a major deterrent to living abroad, even temporarily.
I guess a cynic would say that this is just the system "working as intended", though that just raises the question of whose intentions it's working for.
I would love to live in a foreign country for a few years in my 20s (the easiest time to do it), and assuming I eventually move back, the US will already get a cut of any foreign income I made via sales tax (when I spend it), capital gains (when I invest it), and (eventually) the estate tax.
[0] Edit: Apparently this figure is off - see discussion below. The tax/financial implications still do appear to be a hurdle, it's just (unsurprisingly) even more complicated than I realized.
If you are a U.S. citizen working in Berlin and paying German income tax, you will not be double-taxed on the income. The USA will give you credit for the tax paid in Germany. See Form 1116. Others have mentioned the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion. See Form 2555.
You will, however, pay two metric shit-tonnes in professional fees getting your U.S. tax returns prepared because the international tax rules are so ridiculous. The operating principle in U.S. tax law is "If you are doing something abroad, you must be Mafia ^H^H^H^H^H a drug lord ^H^H^H^H^H a thieving bastard tax cheat ^H^H^H^H^H^H terrorist." (The Poster Child of Evil has changed over the years, but the pig-headedness has remained constant).
> You will, however, pay two metric shit-tonnes in professional fees getting your U.S. tax returns prepared because the international tax rules are so ridiculous
So, instead of getting shafted by paying Uncle Sam, I'll get shafted by paying a tax attorney. :)
Either way, there is a financial disincentive to working abroad, and that's not taking into account the fact that this is a disincentive to look for jobs abroad (speaking for myself, I'd want to figure out the financial implications before seeking employment abroad, and this creates yet one more hurdle).
There is an extreme financial disincentive for Americans to work abroad. If you travel frequently to Dubai (as an example) as I do, it will astonish* you to discover very few Americans working there, but tons of British, Australian, South African, etc. people busily making a living, building a business, etc.
The reason is taxation. Americans working in Dubai (no income tax there) must still pay U.S. income tax and pay a ton to get the tax returns done correctly. A British citizen working in Dubai pays nothing to Inland Revenue and does not file a U.K. income tax return.
Question: who is cheaper to hire, if you are an employer in Dubai?
Hint: that's why all of the international bankers are NOT American.
-------
* Sarcasm.
EDIT: this is one reason why our law firm has a booming business in expatriation -- people giving up U.S. citizenship/green cards.
This effect is biggest in low tax countries because of the credit US citizens end up paying the HIGHER of US and local income taxes (more or less - rules are complex).
Also see relatively few Americans in Hong Kong and Singapore which have low tax rates like Dubai. Unlike almost everyone else in the world there is no benefit for Americans to work in low tax countries because they still end up paying US tax rates. If a company hires an Austrailian and an American in Hong Kong the American ends up with less after tax income. So the draw to these places is much less for US citizens.
There is still a benefit, because you pay only federal income taxes, but not state taxes and you do not pay various other taxes such as medicare surcharge on investment income. So if you are from a high tax state in the U.S. ( California or NY ), it may still make sense.
>there is a financial disincentive to working abroad, and that's not taking into account the fact that this is a disincentive to look for jobs abroad
If you don't want to do something, you can always rationalize it. If really wanted to work in Berlin or elsewhere, you'd do it, and it wouldn't be a big deal.
> If really wanted to work in Berlin or elsewhere, you'd do it, and it wouldn't be a big deal.
This is simply getting at the notion of the premium - how much I value working abroad.
A more formal way of asking this question, assuming for simplicity a $100K/year salary:
"How attractive (measured in dollars) is the idea of working in Berlin?"
If it's worth $30,000/year, you'll do it as long as you can make 70% of your US salary or more. Otherwise, it's not worth it.
It's not a matter of "not wanting to do something" - it's a matter of the opportunity cost. In this case, the opportunity cost of working abroad for US citizens is high (see philiphogden's comments), so the only people who will do it are the people who can rationalize taking a financial hit.
So yes, the answer is "you want it, just not enough". But the following question is, "how much should someone have to want to work abroad in order to do it?"
Berlin is much cheaper than most of western europe or germany because of the long term economic effects of being part of east germany. A more apt comparison then would be frankfurt vs seattle or detroit vs berlin. Also expatistan just uses the expensive part of town
> You will, however, pay two metric shit-tonnes in professional fees getting your U.S. tax returns prepared because the international tax rules are so ridiculous.
Really? All I did in my tax returns was say "I made this much outside of the US and paid this much in taxes". As long as the percentage is higher than you would have paid in the US, than you owe nothing. In the case that you don't...well then you might want to hire an accountant to "get creative".
Did you make sure to file the FBAR report on all your foreign bank accounts and other financial accounts such as any mandatory retirement accounts? I believe the basic part of filing taxes (such as that) is pretty easy, the hard part is when you have to disclose every account that you may be considered to have control over and in some cases pay taxes on it. I think I saw somewhere else that you may have to pay US income tax on the gains in your German retirement account, even though its similar to social security and you have no access to it.
It's interesting that you've found it so easy, first hand antecedents are always useful. Everything I've read about living in another country and having any sort of investments or tax deferred retirement accounts in that country seems like it turns into a paperwork nightmare, especially if you invest in foreign mutual funds.
When you are done backspacing, take a look at international tax rules in Brazil, specially regarding the taxes you must pay if you are an employee working for a foreign company.
Oh wait, you won't find any, because you are not allowed to. The way to do it is to create a company, even if it just you. Then you'll be able to receive international transfers from foreign companies, provided you have signed a contract.
And, after that, we can start talking about taxes. Considering that brazilian companies spend, on average, 2600 hours per year dealing with (domestic!) taxes, as opposed to 325h on average in the US, well...
> US taxation laws deter US-based talent from leaving the country
They do? I know Americans still have to pay taxes while living abroad, but they can exclude up to $97600 per year from their US taxable income which is a nice start.
(And that "Earned Income Exclusion" is rising every year: http://taxes.about.com/od/taxhelp/a/ForeignIncome_3.htm)
Mind you that the cost of living in Berlin is nowhere near the cost of living in the Valley. A 40 square meter flat here costs just around 500€ ( less than 700$). I hear it's about three times as expensive in the valley.
You get plenty of restaurants around for less than 10€.
Other note: medical insurance is mandatory and covered by your taxes. It just doesn't make sense to compare salaries like this, you need to compare what you get for it.
Note: I'm working for a young startup in Berlin, my girlfriend might have to refuse a postdoc in the states as I wouldn't be allowed to follow her because of VISAs problems.
NYC & SF are silly compared to the rest of the USA. I can go live in Seattle for that rent when I was there 3 years ago. I don't get state income tax either, which further increases my income. I have cheap, quick, direct flights to NYC & SF from Seattle too. Austin is probably a similar situation.
It is propertinal to your income up to a limit (Beitragsbemessungsgrenze 2014: 48.600 EUR). It is capped there around 600€ per month. Half of it is payed by the employer and not deducted from your income before taxes. If you reach that limit you may also apply for a cheaper so called private insurance.
> I'd have to be paid about 30% just to offset the cost of paying double taxes (both to the US, and to Germany)
This is plain wrong. The US and most (all?) EU states have agreements for the avoidance of double taxation in place. I live and work in Ireland as a German and US citizen. I pay my taxes here, and have to file in the US, but can deduct all my Irish taxes as "foreign taxation credits" or some such, effectively paying nothing to Uncle Sam.
Are you sure you'll be paying taxes twice? AFAIK, countries signed on mutual tax treaties only tax you for the difference between the domestic tax rate and what you paid in the other country. Being that US has a lower tax level than Germany, this difference will be negative, so effectively zero US tax.
I think the problem with US tax codes is that as a citizen you need to pay tax for any revenue you collected regardless of where you are physically located, but taxes you paid in treaty countries are subtracted from the total.
That may be the case; but the documentation aspect (where you have to document every bank account, every investment, every property ownership, etc.) is a royal PITA from what I've heard.
This is a weak article. The headline exaggerates the content of the article as is often the case. Based on anecdotal opinions of two Berlin techies who probably have an incentive to promote Berlin's tech scene. The conclusion is that the German visa process is still intolerable. Yet somehow the application process is better is some ways. Some details of the process would be nice as well numbers of visas granted and time frames would be very helpful.
There are currently several big PR effort around US immigration reform[1]. Could this article just be part of that effort directed at Silicon Valley? Am I being paranoid?
Edit: I'm for easier immigration and work visas but would like a more transparent and fact based discussion.
The submitter of this article, pg, is in fact a major contributor to the FWD.us intiative [1]. But it's probably better to assume there's a good faith basis in the submission of this article, since we've no reason to believe otherwise. You're very right that Berlin in recent years has been aggressively pushing itself as the next Valley (and I guess to some extent it is succeeding -- you're seeing a few big players emerge from there, Soundcloud being one that everyone knows about).
The reason why it'll never be the next full-on Valley though, in my opinion (as another poster has already mentioned) is the racism there. As a brown guy who's been to a lot of places, let me tell you that there is racism basically everywhere but in America (and Canada). It is of a particularly sharp type in Berlin (and the rest of East Germany). It really puts a burden on you mentally when you have to make everyday life decisions (should I take the train at this time? alone? at $X place?) in efforts of just escaping harassment. For as much as I rail on America for the eroding civil liberties and all, I can not imagine leaving this place for any other.
One day I will write about the tragi-comedy that was my route to being able to start and run a startup as an immigrant.
Meanwhile, I want to highlight two things:
(1) My wife, who has a graduate degree from one of the best schools in the U.S. and has been living in the U.S. for a decade, is currently stuck in Canada indefinitely because on her 3rd visa stamping they decided that she may be a security risk and they need to investigate her because she took an information security class in grad school 8 years ago.
I am not exaggerating when I say indefinitely. They will literally not provide an expected timeline by which she will get an answer. She has met at least 3 individuals who have been stuck in this kind of limbo for over a year.
The cherry on the cake: this is the 2nd time this is happening to her. The first time, after 2 months, they decided she was o.k.
If you are going to use basic keyword filtering on an applicant's resume to flag them, at the very least you should learn from the false positives!
(2) For all the bad press that the H1B program gets, at least 50% of the people I know who got an H1B after going to grad school in the U.S. have actively tried to start a startup. Most gave up on it because of the high risk of being kicked out in the U.S. since there is no startup visa.
Would you start a startup if every time you left the country you risked not being let back in indefinitely? Most of my rational friends think I am crazy for taking that kind of risk.
Think about it - even anti-H1B advocates who think these H1Bs are stealing their jobs should be happy to let these guys get a visa to start a company so that they are not "stealing jobs"!
Having built the first version of LayerVault in Berlin, it was remarkable to see how many expats were building companies there. It's also much more affordable than your more traditional hubs.
I can't recommend Berlin enough, especially for building an MVP.
I don't get this obsession with moving to a startup hub before there's even most remote proof of your startup's viability. To me, it always raises the suspicion that one's less interested in actually building the business and more interested in living inside the movie The Social Network.
I think is the same phenomenon that happen to a lot wannabe-writers or painters; they would move to Paris or New York, just to feel they were real Van Goghs or Proust's :)
>I think is the same phenomenon that happen to a lot wannabe-writers or painters; they would move to Paris or New York, just to feel they were real Van Goghs or Proust's :)
It's nice to be around people who value the things you value. It's nice to have friends you can talk to who understand what you are going through. I know for me, it's nice to be around people who are impressed when I do things that I feel are impressive, and it's nice to be around people who are better than I am.
I mean, yeah, there is a tech scene in davis and in sacramento... but it is a much 'smaller pond' - it really is pretty cool to be able to rub shoulders with the leading voices of your industry, and that's way easier to do here.
In a very real sense, you /can/ come rub shoulders with Van Gogh or Proust here, I mean, figuratively speaking. Many of the leading figures in the industry. Maybe you think wanting that is silly, but... yeah, some of us are really into that sort of thing.
I am in silicon valley, mostly for the social reasons you mention. I think that's valid, and it's worth the extra money for me. It's not worth the extra money for some other people, an that's fine too, but this is what I want to spend my money on, and I feel that I'm getting a reasonable value out of the deal.
(There is also monetary advantages... but if I'm being honest with myself, I'm mostly here for the social advantages.)
How is the language situation? I'm bilingual English/Chinese, and I've always been put off by thoughts of working in non-UK Europe.
I've heard a wide range of stories - some claim speaking English exclusively doesn't pose any major obstacles. Others claim that knowing only English makes your life pretty rough.
> The amount of talent that I need for the problem that we're trying to solve
NumberFour has an incredibly high turnover of talent, both from what I anecdotally hear from people who workED their (apparently no one sticks around for longer than a year...) and when looking online at their ratings: http://www.kununu.com/de/be/berlin/in/numberfour1
So, if you you want to emigrate to Berlin, please do so, but be aware that there are great and ... not-so-great companies here (like everywhere else).
[Disclaimer: I shortly considered applying at NumberFour, but quickly dismissed it ]
I clawed and scratched my way into Europe (Ireland) because I was sick and tired of my taxes supporting drone warfare and I didn't want to have to pay $2500 per month for an apartment so I could ride a bike to work. It's awesome.
By all accounts Germany is even nicer, with a stronger economy, better cycling infrastructure, and cheaper rents. Honestly I'm not sure why you'd move to the US if Germany is an option.
You need to be willing and able to learn German in addition to simply working in Berlin. Depending on your ability to pick up new languages, this can be quite a lot of extra work in the evening and/or weekends (it was for me).
Not everyone can, or is willing to (e.g. in banks) speak English, or you may sometimes find yourself on the wrong railway platform, or having a long wait in the wrong queue when you cannot understand German.
The big German cities I know well: Berlin, Hamburg and Munich are all very nice places to live and work.
Sure, things are nicer if you speak even a little German. I don't, and have been doing fine in Berlin. Other German cities on the other hand are a different story.
Oh, and on banks... At least Sparkasse got me an English-speaking rep when I asked for one.
I didn't see any official statistics in this Bloomberg article, which is unusual for articles on public policy issues from that publisher. Such statistics would be helpful for putting the individual statements by business owners in context.
What do we know about the total number of immigrants who arrive in Germany each year under the visa status described in the article? How does that compare to the total number of immigrants who arrive in the United States each year under its visa categories mentioned in the article? As a matter of country-to-country net immigration, does the United States gain immigrants from Germany, or does Germany gain immigrants from the United States? (In net immigration between the two countries, do different categories of immigrants have differing net preferences for one country or the other?) It's really hard to figure out how generalizable the statements in this article are without more context like this. Statistics trump anecdotes, even though anecdotes are more compelling to the human mind.
As a matter of country-to-country net immigration, does the United States gain immigrants from Germany, or does Germany gain immigrants from the United States?
It is hard to find comparable statistics, but Germany claimed to have about 100,000 US citizens living there total in 2011[1]. In 2011, over 600,000 people who were born in Germany resided in the US[2].
Even Boerries says it will still take a long time for a 'techie' to acquire a Visa, Germany just offers a simpler application process and is fastER than that of Americas.
And even if the time it takes to get a Visa is close to similar, it comes down to a debate between being in Silicon Valley vs. Berlin...despite the so-called saturation of startups in the valley, the reality is opportunity is far greater in the valley than anywhere else. Silicon Valley wins IMO.
as an aspiring foreign entrepreneur (to US), i have personally been through visa hell the past year. i spent almost an entire year going through the horrible visa process, and til today i'm still yet to receive one. i've been denied 3 times already and i highly doubt i will ever get one. i don't understand why america is so hostile to foreigners these days.
for the record, i have a bachelor's degree from a respectable american university (the only visa i've ever gotten), i have no criminal convictions and i come from a wealthy 1%-er family from my country. i cannot see how i pose any risk at all to america by letting me in. i've very recently made my last attempt to return to US, and if this fails again, i will not try again and will be looking to canada instead where i will bring all the resources i have and try to start something. i hope to succeed, if only just for the chance to be in the news and say something to the effect of "America, you could have had all these taxes paid to you and all these jobs created by my company, instead you shut your doors to me and so fuck you"
This article prompted me to look into something I've been interested in for a while - what's the skilled vs unskilled breakdown in immigration for various countries?
Canada and Australia, as far as I understand it, do emphasize skilled immigration, though not exclusively (Australia has a points test that I think the US would do well to emulate). I read a lot of praise for Germany's startup visa, but I'm also reading about hostility toward immigrants, boats of poor, uneducated (and most likely) migrants sinking off the coast of Italy or the shores of Australia... there's a lot of anecdote here (stories like that attract a lot of attention - but are they typical?). A really broad look would be interesting to read about.
I actually haven't been able to find much about this, though - at least not on a nation-by-nation basis. It does sound like a difficult bit of data analysis, because the numbers themselves are tough to interpret (for example, would migration within the EU count as immigration, whereas Californians moving to Texas wouldn't?).
I moved to Tübingen, Germany from the South Bay this week to move closer to my wife. I was able to establish a company and I'm currently working for my company. While I needed to work with a few German lawyers to navigate the legal processes, the whole thing was surprisingly painless.
I was on an H1B in the US and it would have taken me close to a decade to get permanent residence and start a company that I could work for. For some context, I'm an ex-Googler and I've been part of the founding team of a successful startup previously. Despite all the above it would have been difficult for me to found a startup in the US and work for it.
However, after a few months of applying to Germany I now have a registered GmbH, an approval for a Blue Card and I'm paying my bills through consulting. I should be able to start work on my startup in a short while once I have sufficient run-way to pay my own salary for a year or so.
I just signed a lease for office space yesterday and I'm looking forward to exploring the German startup scene.
Are there any Berlin startups in here willing to write a "Letter of Intent"? If so, I'd love to send you an email and explain more!
(Basically, a Letter of Intent is a non-binding letter used to get a freelance visa that shows the applicant is capable of building connections - I intend to actually work on my own projects once I get in the door.)
Just to chip in on the Berlin train. As OP stated, it's fairly easy to get a visa, but you might not even need one. I know tons of people who have no official visa whatsoever, are just there on a tourist visa, which really is just a simple stamp at the border. No one really cares.
Usual talking points include the low living costs but relatively high standard of living, making it the ideal ground for people in their 20s-30s trying to get something off the ground.
Can't really comment on what happens once you get off the ground, generally Germany is just a bureaucracy if not worse than the US.
Also, it's super hip to hate on all the newcomers to Berlin and how Berlin becomes no hip no more. Funny thing is that most of them have barely been a year or two in Berlin. As born-and-raised Berliner, I reserve myself the right to shit on the influx of people.
If I were seeking citizenship in Germany but had only been in the country on the tourist visa, does the (5 year?) timer start from when I arrived in the country, or from when I get an official visa?
Added to the fact that people coming from India and China don't have options like DV list, O1 and are sort of ill-treated and are looked down upon, etc., - I owe a lot of gratitude to the outsourcing and loan staff boom. Thanks Infosys, Wipro, etc.,
Can someone comment on how London compares with Berlin?
What is the Big Data startup scene like in Berlin?
I am about to graduate with a PhD in Machine Learning from a US university. I have talked to several Big Data startups in the valley but being a foreigner, the visa is a hurdle. But if this article is true, maybe I should look at the Berlin scene.
There are lots of startups in Berlin, and the tech scene is flourishing. However, I always feel that companies here are behind the state of the art. There might be exceptions, this is just my impression when I go to meetups, presentations, or talk to colleagues (they have worked for quite a few different companies here in Berlin).
That being said, there are quite a few companies that are into the big data business. Having a PhD will certainly make it very easy for you to get a good job here.
As a argentinian programmer with italian citizenship that is considering leaving the country for Europe, are there any sites / forums or communities where I can contact startups or companies residing in Berlin?
I'm a web developer with experience in Ruby, Rails and Javascript
Contact the Ruby Berlin Community (either through RUG::B or Ruby Berlin e.V.). We have members that are in a similar situation like you and will definitely be able to help you out.
Also, there is a surprising number of Berliners going to RubyConf AR. That would be a nice place to meet people.
The immigration policies in Berlin/Germany might be better than they are in the US, but they are _far_ from perfect.
As someone from Berlin who went through the whole process multiple times from an employer perspective, these are my experiences:
When you hire someone from the EU: No problems at all.
When someone is from another “western” country (USA, Australia, etc.): Things take some more time and are a bit of a hassle, but are basically OK.
Everything else: Big problems. Unless you are formally really well qualified, a work permit is pretty hard to attain. If it is even possible at all, it definitely takes a lot of time and energy from everyone involved.
One negative is if I want to immigrate and get citizenship, I would have to give up my original citizenship. It's too bad that the EU's start up hub is in a country without dual citizenship.
If your own country allows dual citizenship, you are not legally prohibited to get your original citizenship again after taking German. Germany doesn't explicitly prohibit their citizens to take another country citizenship, it just doesn't want to grant its own if you don't renounce all your old citizenships. IANAL, but know many people who did just that.
Unless your from the UK or EU which just lets you get it again relatively easily or the consequences very minor, many countries make you go through the green card song and dance all over again. It's a pain in today's international world.
Plenty of startup activity in London, though immigration there is apparently an absolute effing nightmare. The fact that they drive vans around saying to get the fuck out (I paraphrase) is worrisome.
I find it ironic that Germany emigration policy is considered friendly. I live in Czech Republic, but it was easier to move to Ireland than to neighboring Germany.
Germany is very nationalistic state, it had number of exceptions from EU open space. Even now German Police searches vehicles with foreign registration plates (search is nearly disassembly).
German law is VERY unfriendly to startups, and the taxes for companies and workers are very high. I would choose Ireland, Czech Rep or Poland over Germany any time
If you are a expat and want to create a startup in Berlin, how hard is it? what would you need? how hard is to get the visa?
I've seen that France was creating a "startup visa" to help foreigners founders to create companies there. Is there something similar going on on Germany?
Im realling looking over this, and was thinking about Berlin, Paris or Rio (on my own country)
Edit: I also can go for the Polish citizenship as a polish descendant and get into the EU that way as another option
Edit: I also can go for the Polish citizenship as a polish descendant and get into the EU that way as another option
That seems like the obvious choice. Do that. Then you can do this like any other EU citizen, and if it fails you're not worried about getting kicked out.
It is a bit off topic, but do people have a good reference to German government policy around self employment visas and laws? Realistically, via the wife (a German national), I could arrange necessary permits when we decide to move there. That said, I'd like to know what the self employment/self funding routes might be just to be better rounded in the whole approach.
I remain surprised that the US hasn't adopted more of this sort of attitude toward immigration. Historically it's a country that's always been about taking the best talent from elsewhere, so I remain baffled that it's so difficult in modern days. Especially with 'silicon valley' being located in America.
Take note of the caveat at the bottom of the article:
*"The Germans appreciate their visa-application process in comparison with America’s, but in the end, it’s still a slower process than many techies are willing to tolerate."
German bureaucracy may not be the worst in the world, but it is significantly more convoluted than the United States.
US Visa laws are certainly hard, but there is a positive side (for the US at least): only those that are highly motivated to move here make it through the process.
This really does bias the types of immigrants we get. As much as people might complain about immigrants coming in and then going on welfare, it just doesn't happen with any frequency. Instead, we get immigrants who come here and start companies at twice the rate of natural born citizens.
Our labor laws also select for people who really want to work - at least compared to our European counterparts. I don't mean to say that people who emigrate to Europe don't want to work, but the perception that you have to work longer hours in the US certainly does weed out the people who are overly concerned about working too much.
As long as we continue to have people who want to come to the US, I can't see why we'd want to make the process easier unless we can continue to keep these filters in place.
>As long as we continue to have people who want to come to the US, I can't see why we'd want to make the process easier unless we can continue to keep these filters in place.
Our onboarding process is hard, but there is a positive side: only customers who are highly motivated to pay sign up.
As long as our customers continue to pay, I can't see why we'd want to make the user experience easier unless we can continue to ensure we get paying customers.
[If you can't spot the folly in your logic, your false dichotomy suggests that the U.S. is getting all the motivated immigrants it can get. In reality, even the motivated immigrants who do end up in the U.S. on an H1B end up working semi-rote jobs at large companies when many of them would start job creating companies if they were allowed to. ]
Or: weeding out everyone who believes forms and bureaucracy shouldn't constitute a significant fraction of one's mental landscape, or who is offended by the extent to which the difficulty of the process makes it seem like the government doesn't want you here in the first place, or whose opportunities in other countries are close enough in attractiveness for the annoyance to tip the scale (presumably precisely the people you should most try to attract).
Though "weeding out" or "filtering" to any real extent clearly isn't all that much of a priority when a large part of the system is a lottery.
Though "weeding out" or "filtering" to any real extent clearly isn't all that much of a priority when a large part of the system is a lottery.
The green card lottery (Diversity Immigrant Visa) makes up less than 5% of the total green cards issued in the US. I'd hardly call that a large part of the system.
Your argument is the kind of comment I can imagine being said by an army sergeant. "Only the strongest survive the training". followed by: "Wearing a skirt is asking for rape."
It's things like this that make me wish Silicon Valley invested less energy and resources in nutty utopian schemes like artificial islands and more in lobbying for liberalization and modernization of U.S. immigration policy.
What about language barriers? Many German companies officially use English as their business language on paper at least, but how true would this be for startups?
English will get you by in Berlin. If the startup has international employees, then English will be spoken heavily inside the startup (usually).
Outside of your startup, you'll want to at least learn enough German to be able to ask for things in a shop, order at restaurants. Though even if you were to speak in English, you'll find most people will be able to respond in English and help you out, but that depends on how far you travel. Once you start getting out beyond the ring (metro system), you'll find the level of English degrade.
One tip when you start out here: Genuinely apologise to someone that you do not speak German in German, ask if they speak English in German, and they will almost always be happy to speak in English. Start blurting out loudly in an American-English accent and you may not receive the same level of hospitality.
Source: Live and worked for a few startups here in Berlin, speaking from anecdotal evidence based on experiences from both German and expat friends
Standard in university groups is English if necessary (i.e. at least one person doesn’t speak German) and German otherwise. I would expect it to be roughly the same for highly technical startups.
because Germany has good laws and Berlin is a big city, yet EXTREMELY cheap.
The visa doesn't have all that much to do with it really. Most of the people in the US don' need a US visa, and guess what, more of the Europeans are close to Berlin. Crazy I know.
I'd say about half of my friends in the US are not US citizens, and their most frequent topic of conversation is visas. If you want to just show up in the US and work illegally, that's fine. But if you want to do it legally, visas are a big deal.
For anyone considering working in Germany, I would definitely recommend looking into the Blue Card, which offers some advantages over the normal work permit:
- It's initially valid for 4 years. For limited contracts, it's valid for the length of the contract plus 3 months.
- After 36 months with a Blue Card, you can apply for permanent residency (as opposed to 5 years with the normal work permit). This is lowered to only 21 months if you can prove B1-level German proficiency.
- You can leave the EU for up to 12 months without losing your visa status (versus 6 months with the normal work permit).
- After 18 months, you're free to live and work in any other EU country.
Further details: http://www.bluecard-eu.de/eu-blue-card-germany/