Ask HN: Is there a business for extracting US tech talent?

As both the economy and policy of the US shift rapidly and show signs of accelerating, I hear more and more of my colleagues voicing the desire to up stakes and relocate to somewhere more stable and in line with their own values--an opinion that I share. But getting visa sponsorship in much of the developed world is a scattershot effort; best I can tell, it's almost something you have to track down on a per-company basis, prioritizing the larger ones for access.

This feels like a hole in a quickly growing market--are there firms or orgs that help consolidate visa-sponsoring job info for high-demand professions, particularly in tech? Most of what I've seen out there is generic guidance and https://relocate.me, or is EU-focused for folks already in the EEU.

Comments (12)

drdunce · 1h ago

Unfortunately, there isn't demand and there's no such thing as a high demand tech professional anymore. The EU is way over saturated with tech talent and that's unlikely to change.

android521 · 2h ago

well, only if they are willing to lose 1/3 to 1/4 of US salary and willing to work on boring work.

dmitrygr · 4h ago

> somewhere more stable and in line with their own values

Where else other than USA does tech pay such a multiple of median salary?

“Huff puff I’m going to leave” is easy. Finding somewhere to actually go isn’t.

scarface_74 · 3h ago

Exactly and it’s not as if every other country and company in the world doesn’t value profits over everything else. They aren’t going to go on missionary trips feeding starving children.

keiferski · 3h ago

The Nomad Capitalist guy is basically doing this.

j7ake · 3h ago

Why particularly in tech? Find an industry where EU salaries are better than USA and you’ll have much better traction.

ldjkfkdsjnv · 4h ago

Yeah its called wipro/infosys/cognizant

throwawaysleep · 5h ago

There is a bigger one for research talent. Nothing really exists because until this year, people flowed the other way.

scarface_74 · 3h ago

So exactly why would I want to go anywhere else where the compensation is much lower without the cost of living being lower and have higher taxes?

nativeit · 2h ago

Better public services, free college, free healthcare, better urban planning, more robust protections for privacy, civil liberties, cleaner air and water, less caustic sociopolitical atmosphere, better quality-of-life metrics, better economic mobility, longer life expectancy, more cohesive communities, greater representation in the democratic process, more equitable pay standards, increased paid time off, literally any kind of standard maternal/paternal leave, better medical services, greater scores of general happiness and fulfillment, more stable economic policies, more stable legal frameworks, more like-minded cultural communities, increased freedom to travel to more diverse places with less costs and administrative burdens, stronger social safety nets, better retirement plans, nicer weather with fewer natural disasters, greater diversity in populations, expanded access to rich cultural experiences, more aesthetically pleasing architecture, greater access to "third places", more educated populations, less religious populations, less political polarization, and that's just the off-the-cuff obvious items. Some more subjective than others.

nativeit · 1h ago

Lower violent crime rates, lower property crime rates, lower drug addiction rates, lower homeless rates, literally any kind of standard mental healthcare, better retirement facilities, subsidized childcare, subsidized geriatric care, less expensive medication, fewer guns, more EV infrastructure, literally any kind of broadly complete passenger rail network, even partially functional immigration systems, better K-12 education outcomes, lower housing costs, more progressive tax systems, and last (for this list) but absolutely not the least for this context: even a vague whiff of the sort of dynamism that made the Bay Area such an exciting place to live in the 1970s-90s, that has since been eroded into a self-satirizing caricature of itself, currently grappling with the loss of 0% interest rates by reverting to creative accounting, layoffs, rent-seeking from users and customers, shameless AI feature-bloat, and increasingly astounding levels of brazen monopolizing, corruption, and fraud.

Why, indeed?

mc3301 · 58m ago

Shhh... don't tell them about Japan. We have most of the above!

In all seriousness, the language barrier among other things makes it a pretty big challenge to permanently move here.