[jressey]

I am not posing the following question in a critical manor, I am genuinely curious. How can moving to Northern Europe from the US benefit one's career? Is it feasible to immediately compete for work against locals as a junior dev? What about senior?

[frankhn]

Yes, in the tech-industry there's a very high demand. It's much easier to do this as junior than senior (hard with a family). The benefits are: work experience, international experience, expanding your social network, nearly free university education (germany only). There's also cheap health care and 4-6 weeks holiday. There are many downsides too, as the other commenter said (salary, culture shock and many more). The main benefit is work experience and possible debt-free university degree. If I were American I'd first try other states/Canada first though.

[et-al]

Yeah, I feel Europe cares about the degree more than America does. We're the land of self-reinvention here, whereas Europe generally requires some sort of training/schooling to switch careers.

[frankhn]

In tech they're often less strict. Degree is more important here, but it's not impossible to land a job in tech with another background. Also, university education is nearly free in Germany (less than 1000$ a year)

[et-al]

True, tech in general seems much more accepting of different educational backgrounds. And affordable education is a really good point.

[p0nce]

That's definately important in France where some important tax cuts depends on your degree.