r/germany•
usbrexpat

I was offered a great job offer in Germany, but am nervous. Americans that moved to DE, how do you feel?

Immigration

As the title mentions, I was offered a great job in Berlin. I'm an educated young male and absolutely love to travel and explore new places, but moving abroad (again) does me me nervous.

Again because I am originally from Brazil. I came to the U.S.A. about 6 years ago and fought hard to go through the current immigration system. Unfortunately, my options to reach a green card are now limited and will probably take me an extra 10-15 years until I can reach citizenship. I started considering moving somewhere else, to a country where the system is more accepting to highly skilled workers as myself and was able to explore a few options in Europe, mostly in Germany.

Now, to give more context, this job is in the tech industry and the official language of the company is English. They have assured me not knowing German shouldn't impact my ability to do good work. Nontheless, I have always been found of the German language and have taken quite a few classes in the last year. German is my 4th language I will be improving, and am very excited to reach proficiency.

The reason I am writing this thread is because I have done this before. I have my doubts. When I came from Brazil to America, I thought (naively) that it would be the greatest country in the world, almost blinded by the Brazilian media as the USA is seen on very high standards. In the past 5 years, I have seen the ugliness of America (as every country has their ugly side) and am now reluctant to achieve permanent residency. I seek stability, and am not sure if America can offer that now.

Don't get me wrong -- I have been lucky enough to achieve amazing things in the U.S., but after visiting Europe a couple of times in the past few years, I've felt as my culture aligns more closely to European values. The work/life stability, the ability to enroll in higher education without going thousands in debt, a more open minded immigration system, and the metric system are some of these values.

My question to you all -- and hopefully some of you expats could give me a hand -- is how happy are you in Germany? What are some of the biggest challenges you've faced compared to home? Do you think moving to Europe was a mistake, if so, why?

I thank you all for your time. :)

Edit: whoa! I wasn't expecting so many helpful responses. Thank you very much! You are all the best

Posted Jul 30, 2017, 12:01 AM UTC · edited

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