

Ask HN: Countries easy to emigrate to, with tech opportunities? - winter_blue

What are some countries that are fairly open to immigrants, and have opportunities in tech?
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versusio_berlin
Germany is fairly open to immigrants—depending on your nationality and
education it can be quite easy compared to the US. And Germany's capital
Berlin is Europe's tech hub with most career opportunities.

More infos about Berlin taken from another thread:

Top 5 reasons why you should move to Berlin:

1\. Lowest livings costs with highest quality of living. Stay in gorgeous,
perfectly renovated apartments in pre-WWII residential buildings with high
ceilings, right in the middle of the center and pay a fraction of costs of any
other capital (even cheaper than any Eastern European capital). No need for a
car—Berlin has one of the densest subway nets and wide streets make biking
fun. In addition, Germany has an amazing social health care system including
health, unemployment and pension (when working as an employee).

2\. A vibrant and fast growing ecosystem of smart people. A vast number of new
software talents, founders, software companies and VCs are moving to Berlin,
every day (Twitter, Google, Soundcloud, Early Bird and many more).

3\. People here are open-minded, outgoing, mix well and international—no need
to learn German, everyone speaks English! Making new friends is a matter of
days. Visit tons of networking and startup events, every week.

4\. Easy work permissions—Europeans do not need any and can work from day one
and the rest applies for the hassle-free Blue Card.

5\. Berlin's night life is unmatched, huge and changing every day (plus
ridiculously cheap). Berlin has got some of the most dazzling, naughty, and
original clubs on the face of the Earth.

(posted by [http://urge.io](http://urge.io))

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ig1
Berlin is Germany's startup hub. I'm guessing Munich is where most of the
developers are.

~~~
smartician
I think it's more spread out:

Frankfurt is heavy in the banking industry

Hamburg, Berlin and Munich are media and publishing hubs

Hamburg also has aviation industry, Berlin has most government agencies

Heavy industry and car manufacturers cluster in the south

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mrmekon
Sweden has a pretty easy immigration path, is fairly friendly to immigrants,
most natives speak English, and has a large tech community with not enough
local talent.

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codemonkeymike
A friend of myne who recently moved to Sweden said it was quite easy to move
there and get working papers. On the other hand though he said that most non
Europeans/North Americans will have trouble getting working papers.

~~~
winter_blue
> non Europeans/North Americans

Did you mean: "non (Europeans/North Americans)" or "(non Europeans)/North
Americans" ?

If you meant the former, does that mean that Sweden extends special
immigration benefits to people from the U.S./Canada?

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codemonkeymike
The former, they are preferential to western Europeans and Americans/Canadians

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forward_number
The easiest for a professional to immigrate to are Canada, Australia and New
Zealand. These countries have a fairly objective, points-based system that
allow capable educated engineers to immigrate within a reasonably short period
of time. The only minus of their immigration policy is that they do not allow
you to immigrate if one of your family members is sick.

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facorreia
Brazil fits the criteria. If it would be a wise decision, that's another
story. Many Brazilians would like to emigrate to the US to work in tech.

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icebraining
Don't you need to speak Portuguese fairly well to get a longer visa (more than
90 days) in Brazil?

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malandrew
For any tech opportunity you would actually want to be involved in, everyone
you work with will speak decent enough English for you to get by without
Portuguese. This is pretty much a universal rule for software development and
applies to most if not all software opportunities in any country. If you are
going to work somewhere where many if not most of the team doesn't speak
English, be very very wary of taking that opportunity.

I can count the number of great, productive software engineers I've met that
don't have a decent command of English on one finger.

~~~
icebraining
Oh, I don't mean to get the job, I mean to get the visa itself. I heard the
Brazilian authorities required applicants to speak (some) Portuguese.

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beagle3
Tel-Aviv would be an excellent place, but it's only fairly open if you are
Jewish -- otherwise, immigration policy is tight.

Stupid, I know.

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wallzz
also there is racisme against the non jewish in Tel-Aviv, speacilly against
arabs !

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beagle3
Tel-aviv is as tolerant as any major city gets, including towards Arabs.
Outside of tel-aviv things might be different, but all in all, despite what
you might read in US media, Israel is not a racist country (with the huge
exception of immigration laws, where it is horribly racist, or rather
religousist)

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winter_blue
Thanks for the comments so far.

I just want to clarify that I'm non-European. I'm Indian, but have lived
outside the country for most of my life. How open are EU states to non-
Europeans?

I also hold a degree in CS from a fairly highly-ranked American university, if
that makes any difference.

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jamesjguthrie
Scotland might be a good choice. Everybody seems to think our borders are
pretty open.

There's a bit of a revolution starting with lots of startups popping up in all
areas from motorsport and travel to energy and biotech.

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fibbery
I made this app a while ago that lets you search for jobs in multiple
countries at once. Maybe it will provide some inspiration:
[http://leavethe.us](http://leavethe.us)

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mmq
Any idea about Canada? Vancouver seems very interesting tech hub.

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mcrider
Its easier if you've a) gone to school there and b) have family/significant
others that are Canadian. I'm on my second immigration attempt (the first one
was nullified because I moved out of Canada and its a different process
depending on whether you live in or out of the country).

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jlengrand
Netherlands, Sweden are good candidates.

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wallzz
any africain country ?

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Irishsteve
UK

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joshux
Can you elaborate more? I'm considering moving to London to bootstrap my
startup.

~~~
Irishsteve
If you are a skilled worker (degree etc.) and have a job lined up the visa
process is rather simple and painless... or at least as painless as these
types of processes can be.

If you are going over with nothing lined up then the UK will be far less
welcoming.

