[devoutsalsa]

I see three paths here:

1. Get a degree. Sign up for something like Western Governor's University or anything you can complete at quickly as possible. Burn the the curriculum by working your ass off to get that degree. This path makes sense if getting a degree is, as you state, the only thing from preventing you from working locally.

2. Get a USA job. Update your CV to make it look like you've been doing something over the past two years (which could be going to school). Set your LinkedIn location to an East Coast USA city (e.g. NYC or DC). Interview for remote only positions. Get hired. Don't tell them you're working from Europe. Have them ship work laptop to some place in the USA where you can fly to pick it up. Fly home. Set your laptop timezone to be timezone of local office so you don't have to explain why you're 7 hours ahead all the time. Say you like to work early & simply avoid companies that have a lot of later afternoon meetings. Budget for flying back to get a replacement laptop if you have to. Make sure you pay your taxes in Europe. You don't want to get busted. Hire a tax professional to help you navigate the European tax system.

3. Fight to establish yourself on sites like Upwork & TopTal. Kind of a race to the bottom, but obviously people do it.

I didn't suggest becoming a self employed consultant because if you were wired to do that, you'd have already done it. You can of course develop this skill, but it takes time & isn't for everyone.

[codegeek]

"Don't tell them you're working from Europe."

Please don't do this. Honesty goes along way. It can also have legal, tax and compliance imitations for you and your employer.

[washedupsysadm]

Agreed. At my last job, we offshored all of our development to Belarus and Ukraine. One example we couldn't contractors living in Russia, and a few times we had to chew out our account manager at the offshoring company for being dishonest, and for risking us violating all of our largest customers.

[wittjeff]

> 1. Get a degree

Several of the fully-online Masters programs on edX.org are as low as $10K.

https://www.edx.org/masters

Disclosure: I work for edX.

[dmhmr]

Just want to note that suggestion #2 is easily detected by any org with even a whiff of security tooling in place. Quick way to get terminated.

[eatbitseveryday]

> Don't tell them you're working from Europe.

I’d argue they’d need to know due to income tax withholding for a given state.

[washedupsysadm]

They don't actually. I still own a home back in the states, and still pay local taxes. From the state's point of view, I just work remotely for Californian startups.