Have you considered moving abroad? I’m a mediocre engineer compared to the rockstars in my field and I regularly get interviews at startups, and medium to large companies here in Germany.
I feel as though the jobs are for me to take or the interviews are for me to fail.
Honestly think about it. I do interviews for the company I work for (though I’m a senior data engineer I really like being people facing and meeting folks) and the market here is hungry for talent.
The larger companies might be laying off like their American counterparts but smaller (less aggressively tech focused) firms (like real estate, banking, manufacturing, pharma, etc) are hiring like crazy and so are startups.
As jselysianeagle points out in response to this it seems it's tough here, too. I guess that's the case. I had a former colleague who is very much a stronger Data Engineer than I am take about 3 months to find their ideal role. The thing is when the layoffs happened at his old firm he got the 3 months notice period that is common here plus some severance that held him over for a few months on top of that which meant finding new work was not a stressor.
But as the OP points out if you're a competent person and interview well and are good at what you do (and one would hope someone at the highest tiers of the industry working at places like Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, etc. are) then finding work here in the EU is not hard.
From what I have seen EU companies would all but kill for really strong US talent. They can't get this talent because would be folks be they in the US or abroad want to go or stay in the US for those bonkers high salaries. But if living and working in the EU is appealing then the perks are really, really nice. ~30 days of vacation time on top of public/bank holidays. Family leave for the birth of children. Really long notice periods in the case of being fired or laid off. Good severance. And then all the perks of social welfare states like subsidized or social medicine, good public transit, good travel to other countries etc., etc.
So to answer sneed_chucker's question:
A few years ago while perusing the Who's Hiring here on HN I saw that a startup based in Hamburg (I didn't know where that was at the time) was hiring for a Python engineer. I applied (only having taught myself Python to an beginner+_level but was eager to learn) and I got the role!
They handled all the visa paperwork and for a while my visa was tied to my employer. It's called a blue card here. Think of it like a green card. And as long as I was making > 50k euros and such I could live in Germany. When I changed employers I had to get my blue card updated. Since I've been here about 5 years now I have an open ended one so when I change employers I do not have to get it updated.
I really do like it here a lot.
Small plug: DeliveryHero, based in Berlin, -- the company I work for currently -- regularly (well we used to, let's see when hiring picks up again) hired folks from abroad and upon the first salary was often a relocation bonus of 5k euros or more to help folks get settled here. It's based on where you're coming from so if you were coming from the US I'd think it'd be closer to 7.5k or 10k even.
Hope that helps!
> But it seems like first you need to get a company that's willing to hire you and wait for you to relocate before starting, no?
Yes. DO NOT JUST SHOW UP IN GERMANY ON A 90 DAY VISA HOPING TO FIND WORK. Most apartments won't even give you a lease without a job and it's hard to get a job without a proper visa. Do the work before hand.
Someone elsewhere in this very thread is claiming that the market for Senior/Lead level roles in EU right now is in fact tough. In your experience is getting a visa sponsorship in Germany as hard and limiting as it is here in the US?
I’m not too familiar with the H1B visa situation in the US but from what I understand if you lose your job there’s a clock to get another one or get deported.
In Germany for example there’s a longer lead time to getting laid off or being fired. And the bigger companies often help, especially those on visas, find work. I’d say the only “easier” thing is the time and that you don’t lose healthcare and such. And there’s an unemployment insurance that taps out at some 2500 or so euros a month that you can tap into.
I feel as though the jobs are for me to take or the interviews are for me to fail.
Honestly think about it. I do interviews for the company I work for (though I’m a senior data engineer I really like being people facing and meeting folks) and the market here is hungry for talent.
The larger companies might be laying off like their American counterparts but smaller (less aggressively tech focused) firms (like real estate, banking, manufacturing, pharma, etc) are hiring like crazy and so are startups.
Good luck to you!