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They pay in Germany can be pretty good but I don't think your chances of successfully landing a job will be all that high with foreign credentials only and limited knowledge of German.
Is that actually true, I was reading that Germany is actually looking for engineers because they have alot of people nearing retirement and my education is from a top tier US school not a run of the mill state school. In the USA it does not make much difference but I would hope it would help me if I were to ever decide to go someplace like germany. I also understand the language of buisness in germany is english and that someone going there only needs to know german at a conversational level?
That is a good point, how did you go about identifying these opprotunities. I had a few of these offered to me but the pay was fairly paltry, certianly not stop working level of income. The contract shop I was at about 7 years ago wanted me to go to Lybia for 180k a year and I laughed and asked if they were serious, this was right before Lybia turned into a war zone. I know people that make 180k locally, I am certianly not going to a post war zone for 180k.
I mean how much money are we talking? Did you get to sort of pick and choose your over seas assignments? I would not mind Russia, Norway, Scottland, etc. I did not know that China had oil, or are you talking about their assets in indonesia area?
Also is it possible to get jobs in these places direct without relying on the blessing of the large engineering firm. How long did you have to do this to basicly retire early?
You can make $250-450K and if you work in countries that don't tax, you can exclude the first $100K from taxes (also want to get to a state with no state tax). I've worked in mostly crappy locations so that's a big sacrifice. Basic rule is the better the country to live in, the lower the pay.
There are countries (not the USA unfortunately) that don't tax any income if you work in countries like Saudi or UAE and I've heard that might also be true for Puerto Rico but I don't know how feasible that is.
I've stayed with the same company that had projects internationally.
One of the young engineers that works for me is getting ready to go back to work in Netherlands and the pay scale for engineers is much lower than the US and the tax burden is higher so our engineers in Amsterdam take home about half our engineers at the same grade in Houston....so I'm not sure you're going to be happy with the deal you get in Europe unless you don't mind a lower income.
You can make $250-450K and if you work in countries that don't tax, you can exclude the first $100K from taxes (also want to get to a state with no state tax). I've worked in mostly crappy locations so that's a big sacrifice. Basic rule is the better the country to live in, the lower the pay.
There are countries (not the USA unfortunately) that don't tax any income if you work in countries like Saudi or UAE and I've heard that might also be true for Puerto Rico but I don't know how feasible that is.
I've stayed with the same company that had projects internationally.
One of the young engineers that works for me is getting ready to go back to work in Netherlands and the pay scale for engineers is much lower than the US and the tax burden is higher so our engineers in Amsterdam take home about half our engineers at the same grade in Houston....so I'm not sure you're going to be happy with the deal you get in Europe unless you don't mind a lower income.
If they had offered me that much I would have went and suffered in the desert for a few years. Who were you working through and are there still opportunities like that?
At 180k for a senior chemical engineer with a professional license we were way to far apart. What were the circumstances for the 450k?
If they had offered me that much I would have went and suffered in the desert for a few years. Who were you working through and are there still opportunities like that?
At 180k for a senior chemical engineer with a professional license we were way to far apart. What were the circumstances for the 450k?
Highest pay working in Iraq 84 hours a week. Not going to get too personal about my employer but it's one of the largest 10 engineering companies in the USA....I'm guessing they all would have opportunities internationally from time to time. Timing right now isn't great due to low oil price and low mining metals prices.
Highest pay working in Iraq 84 hours a week. Not going to get too personal about my employer but it's one of the largest 10 engineering companies in the USA....I'm guessing they all would have opportunities internationally from time to time. Timing right now isn't great due to low oil price and low mining metals prices.
What kind of work do engineers do over there there require them to be physically present. Isent most of this stuff fabed up at a fab shop and then shipped off or are they fabricating stuff over there? Or is it pretty much just doing interconnects?
What kind of work do engineers do over there there require them to be physically present. Isent most of this stuff fabed up at a fab shop and then shipped off or are they fabricating stuff over there? Or is it pretty much just doing interconnects?
Most engineering is done remotely and it's primarily Project Engineering and Project Mgmt at site but some clients want technical people at their location.
I also understand the language of buisness in germany is english and that someone going there only needs to know german at a conversational level?
The language of business in Germany is German, unless you work in a very international context/specific company. For most jobs you won't get by just knowing a little German, though decent but by no means bilingual should be enough, at least at the beginning. I've worked in Germany for a bit in a research center where most of the research workers were foreign and the working language was still German.
The language of business in Germany is German, unless you work in a very international context/specific company. For most jobs you won't get by just knowing a little German, though decent but by no means bilingual should be enough, at least at the beginning. I've worked in Germany for a bit in a research center where most of the research workers were foreign and the working language was still German.
Thats good to know, is it true germany actually needs scientists and engineers from the USA/other parts of europe and that they are making it easy to immigrate there?
Thats good to know, is it true germany actually needs scientists and engineers from the USA/other parts of europe and that they are making it easy to immigrate there?
I don't know how easy it is in general to immigrate to Germany, you probably can if you can find a job. The question is, can you find a job where you don't need to speak German? Is your degree similar enough to a German engineering degree? You need to convince an employer to employ you instead of a German or other EU citizen with more compatible credentials, language skills & an already existing work permit.
I don't know how easy it is in general to immigrate to Germany, you probably can if you can find a job. The question is, can you find a job where you don't need to speak German? Is your degree similar enough to a German engineering degree? You need to convince an employer to employ you instead of a German or other EU citizen with more compatible credentials, language skills & an already existing work permit.
The article I was reading was saying that Germany (ie german companies) were having a hard time finding capable engineers and scientists and that they have drasticly relaxed immigration requirements so that german companies can recruit people outside of germany.
Now I dont know if they are simply able to recruit from neighboring switzerland or austria or where ever but the article I was reading flat out said germany was expereincing an aging work force for techncail people and the number of young people qualified to take their place is not even in the same solar system in order to keep germany on top in the EU. The older generation are rapidly retireing out as I write this post, according to the article.
However, who knows if that is really true since we keep reading articles that the US needs more stem as I sit here unemployed having applied for 16 engineering jobs that I am qualified for in the last two months and nothing. On this note everyone will say yada yada yada you need to be in certian areas with ceritan niche skills ad nausium but if there were a true genuine shortage of stem people companies would be accepting people who have a strong technical back ground but who are not quite the purple squirl they are looking for and simply train them on what ever weird software they have or specific task, if they are strong techncial people they will pick it up quick. They would also be willing to do remote work or flexable schedules to acomodate people who either cant afford to live in million dollar appartmenets because the company has been there 100 years and now no one but rich people can live there etc etc.
In short if there were a true shortage I would be getting cold calls and employers would be highly flexable. But thats not happening thus there is no shortage, as the companies are obviously able to fill rolls without making these sorts of concessions.
So the point of my post was to see if there are nations where there is a true shortage and they are accomodating people come there and not making it a nightmare like we do here in the USA. Based on articles I have read Germany may be that place but I wanted to confirm.
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