[deaddabe]

> Many digital nomads are skilled knowledge workers who earn well beyond the €2,000-€3,500 monthly income requirements of most European digital visa programs—a big reason so many countries and towns are trying to lure them.

So, what gives as an European SW developer in this income bracket?

1. Go to US 2. Negotiate US salary 3. Come back to your native village, hopefully with "well beyond" money 4. Profit?

Or just directly work for an US company, I guess.

[danwee]

It's quite difficult as a European SW developer living in Europe to work for US companies. It's either one of these options:

1. US company has an office in EU, so you can work as an employee. Chances are the company is not paying you the US wages, but European ones... at this point, what's the benefit of working for the American company?

2. US company doesn't have an office in Europe. So either you work as a contractor for them (and that's a lot of hassle for a lot of people who are used to work as an employee) or the US company uses a third-party company to hire you as an employee (and that's a hassle for the US company, so many don't offer this)

3. US company is willing to hire contractors living in Europe... but then you have to be a contractor (personally, I don't like it) and you have to adapt to their TZ (personally, I don't want that).

As many have said before, in Europe the salaries for software engineers come in different "tracks". You have the usual 25K-40K-60K EUR/year for junior-medior-seniors, but you also have the 50K-80K-100K EUR/year (becoming more common at least in western europe), and the not unheard of 90K-120K EUR/year for seniors in some companies.

[Balero]

As someone in Western Europe working for a US company, the Timezone thing is the biggest issue for me. My company is actually really good with it, but I still often finish work at 7-8pm local time, sometimes with little notice. Everything else can be worked around, or smoothed out, but this is the biggest intractable pain.

[skinnymuch]

Are you getting paid a US wage? OP salaries are very low in that last paragraph.

It would be great to get paid US equivalent salary and be able to be in EUrope.

[badpun]

I am an European and was making $170k at my latest remote US job. Still, the time zones difference made it not worth it. I don't want my work days to start at noon and end at 8 pm...

[q-big]

> Are you getting paid a US wage? OP salaries are very low in that last paragraph.

This is the goal: decrease salaries.

[skinnymuch]

I agree in general, but what is the context of your comment?

[Balero]

Yes, though this is probably due to a unique situation rather than anything else.

[tiagod]

That's right.

I've lived in Portugal pretty much my whole life and don't want to leave, working in software development for almost 10 years now. If I had left before 2019 and decided to return now, I would pay IRS taxes on 50% of my income for 5 years, and get access to an exclusive credit line.

If I was a foreign citizen and had never been to Portugal and I had a "profession of high cultural and economic worth", I could purchase a house here, register fiscally as a non-habitual resident, and also get a bunch of discounts on foreign income, national income, rent income, capital gains among other things.

This strikes me as quite unfair, not only for giving people who are in a better financial state all these benefits, but also by putting more pressure on the already inflationed housing market. The Golden Visa programme also "helped", along with many other things. Some of these benefits were or are in the process of being reduced, but many still remain.

I understand this grows our economy, in principle, but mostly seeing negative consequences on the lives of my mostly non-tech friends and family is hard to ignore...

[zemvpferreira]

It is what it is. It would be unfair if we (I'm Portuguese as well) were suddenly taxed at a higher rate than foreigners, but the truth is we've lived with higher taxes and lower wages for a long time. Anything that brings rich/skilled people into the country will be a good thing in the mid-to-long run.

As far as the housing market goes I've always seen blaming foreigners as a very convenient excuse. Truth is our market follows the price of mortgages and those haven't been this cheap ever. Blame your fellow countrymen whose parents can loan them 50K to get a foot in the door instead.

[tiagod]

It is an excuse to blame the foreigners, agreed. These measures were not decided by them, I just think the government hasn't invested enough on affordable housing, and this helps.

About we not getting a tax raise... true, but we do have price indirect cost increases, mostly in housing. Right now most of my friends outside tech here in Lisbon are making ~800€ a month. That's around the cost for a tiny 1 bedroom within 45min of their workplace, a lot of them have to share a house with people they don't know.

Bringing skilled people is good, but will they be retained once time is up for the benefits? Is the government actually investing in high-tech or just picking up the scraps from foreign business?

[Arubis]

If it’s any consolation, Rebase.co, a service that advises folks on moving to Portugal to take advantage of the NHR program, has been discouraging non-EEU citizens from doing this for a couple of months, citing https://www.linkedin.com/posts/tiago-cassiano-neves_pta-inte...

[badpun]

> I understand this grows our economy, in principle, but mostly seeing negative consequences on the lives of my mostly non-tech friends and family is hard to ignore...

Perhaps the positive consequences are just harder to see? If these people grow the economy, then everyone benefits to a degree.

[tiagod]

They might benefit somewhat, but I'm not sure it's net positive.

[rizach8]

I was in process with a few us companies but they just refuse to give 6-8 payed vacation weeks :/

[TremendousJudge]

Yeah if you are going to work for a US company with US salary, be prepared to take US "vacations". They'll look at you weird if you ever mention that you want to take three weeks off.

[toyg]

That's a lot of time even for European standards. In the countries I've been, typically it's 3-5 weeks plus national holidays.

[rizach8]

Minimum number of weeks in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland is 5 weeks. Many employers are offering 6-8 as a perk. Since salaries are gutted by tax, other ways to compensate are used.

[toyg]

Those countries are the very top end of the European market, in terms of worker rights - and a pretty small minority in terms of population.

[atlasunshrugged]

Why would a European SW developer need one of these visas for Europe? Also, I think plenty do make more than this, no? At least in Berlin I'm sure many of the people I worked with netted at least double this.

[lm28469]

1. Be a local 2. Paid min wage or close to 3. techbros flood your city because it's cheap 4. the prices of everything explode 5. profit