Made the big move from Southern California to The Netherlands

E Double U

So I went from doing information security for a bank based in Long Beach to information security for a bank based in Amsterdam. This is my 4th week on the job and I am enjoying it so far. Got my hand on a few tools I didn't have before (Splunk, ArcSight) which is cool. I need to work on my Dutch so I can understand all of my colleague's jokes, but English is the official business language so I'll be ok for a while. My favorite perks so far:

- 20 days of vacation plus an allowance to purchase more days off or keep the money
- Train card paid for in full (I do not miss driving on LA highways)

The weather definitely takes some getting used to after growing up in constant sunshine, but no other complaints.

shodown

How were you able to get into the EU? Where you already a dual citizen?

E Double U

My employer submitted an application for me to get a highly skilled migrant permit. I only have U.S. citizenship.

danny069

Wow! I would love to work in Amsterdam! Lucky you.

E Double U

It is a nice city indeed.

infield13

That's awesome!

shodown

Check your PM, I have some questions.

gespenstern

Nice! I hope they pay you well!

What about homes over there? In general EU housing has less living space per capita so I'd speculate that you don't have that much space as you had in Cali? Do you have a car at all? Even if you use public transportation for commute having a car still can be handy in so many ways. And EU cars are smaller on average as well, less power, less space, etc.

iBrokeIT

Congrats! Thanks for sharing your experience with us.

Verities

Wow! Congratulations. I find it fascinating that you moved outside the US for a tech job. Please continue to update this thread on your experiences over there.

CMalon02

Congrats That's awesome!!

TranceSoulBrother

Stay away from the brownies! LOL.
My first morning in Amsterdam, a Jamaican immigrant tried to sell us some **** outside a Starbucks. It was a fun weekend when I lived in Germany.
Enjoy your time there and definitely try to learn some of the language.

jeremywatts2005

Congrats on moving overseas. I could never get my wife convinced to move. I have had several offers to go to different countries. I even had one in South Africa that was really good. The wife however did not like the idea that they provided arm security outside of our home No clue why her and the kids would not want that. No really there are some great jobs overseas and with the current economics situation it may not be a bad idea to work overseas.

E Double U

Thanks guys!

I actually didn't move to NL for a job. We wanted to move to NL to be near my wife's family and friends so I applied for jobs here.

My wife is Dutch and she was living in Amsterdam when we met in 2007 (met in a bar while on a vacation with friends). I wanted to move to be with her back then, but she didn't have the income to support me at that time (college student) and no company would get the work permit for me. So I moved her to Long Beach in 2010 since I was already established. We always said that we wanted to raise our children in Holland and we would move before they turned 5 so they can start kindergarten here instead of starting school in Cali and moving later (we thought that would be harder on them). I've been applying for jobs here for years, but after a few years in security along with some certs (plus high profile breaches that makes all companies want security guys now) I was able to land something.

I was initially told no for this role because I didn't speak Dutch. I told the HR/internal recruiter I understood, but still wanted to have my CV forwarded to the hiring manager which she agreed to do. She did and came back saying the hiring manager said no again. I received an email from the hiring manager the day after saying he wanted to interview me. Had a phone call with him and a tier 3 analyst the week before Christmas. Left LAX on 12/26, arrived in Amsterdam 12/27, face-to-face on 12/28 and accepted their offer, flew back home on 12/29.

@ gespenstern - We live with my wife's parents right now. She wants to buy another house right away, but I'm enjoying being debt free. I am in no rush to get that monkey on my back again lol. We shipped our 2010 Toyota Matrix which should arrive next week.

@ TranceSoulBrother - Mijn Nederlands is niet goed, but I am working on it. My sons speak it better than me since my wife only speaks Dutch to them.

@ jeremywatts2005 - My wife was only ok with it because we were moving back to her homeland lol. No way we would live outside of California or Holland since we want to have family close by.

GirlyGirl

That ArcSight knowledge is huge. I was an "ArcSight Engineer" for a bit. As long as your understanding grows past just reading traffic and building queries and making/populating/generating reports in the ESM, its a promising career. I know everyone on my team made over 100K, easy. Some people were closer to 200K. I wish you the best

tedjames

Here you go: https://www.hackread.com/language-translation-earpiece/

E Double U wrote: »

I need to work on my Dutch so I can understand all of my colleague's jokes, but English is the official business language so I'll be ok for a while.

E Double U

GirlyGirl wrote: »

That ArcSight knowledge is huge. I was an "ArcSight Engineer" for a bit. As long as your understanding grows past just reading traffic and building queries and making/populating/generating reports in the ESM, its a promising career. I know everyone on my team made over 100K, easy. Some people were closer to 200K. I wish you the best

Then I will learn everything I can before they make the switch to IBM QRadar which is the plan. I also plan on sending questions to your inbox.

wayne_wonder

Glad it's worked out for you the weathers like it is here in the uk!

We're about to get Qradar in ourselves I've never used it before

E Double U

wayne_wonder wrote: »

Glad it's worked out for you the weathers like it is here in the uk!

We're about to get Qradar in ourselves I've never used it before

It has gone from sunshine, to rain, to hailstorm, and back to sunshine in one day lol. This definitely takes some getting used to.

If you get QRadar before me please share your experience. Our project is taking a while to get off the ground.

coffeeluvr

Congratulations on the move!

powerfool

Fantastic!

I have been trying to get closer to a job in Germany for a while and recently met a new German acquaintance that is moving to Amsterdam for work. I started practicing Dutch and got rather frustrated because it was so similar to German that I could understand it... which means I probably wouldn't try hard enough to speak Dutch. Definitely a weird situation.

From what I have looked at, it would be a cool place to be. Glad things worked out for you.

E Double U

powerfool wrote: »

I started practicing Dutch and got rather frustrated because it was so similar to German that I could understand it... which means I probably wouldn't try hard enough to speak Dutch.

It is becoming easier for me to read Dutch and my pronunciation is good, but when people speak it to me I get lost. Well, I can understand children sometimes haha.

wayne_wonder

E Double U wrote: »

It has gone from sunshine, to rain, to hailstorm, and back to sunshine in one day lol. This definitely takes some getting used to.

If you get QRadar before me please share your experience. Our project is taking a while to get off the ground.

Yeah the dutch have the same weather climate like we have in the uk its supposed to be summer here but it rains a lot or very cold you'll end up with multiple cold's haha

Will do just waiting on the sign off

E Double U

wayne_wonder wrote: »

Yeah the dutch have the same weather climate like we have in the uk its supposed to be summer here but it rains a lot or very cold you'll end up with multiple cold's haha

Same here! I definitely miss the Cali version of summer

E Double U

Thought I would update this:

Been here 2+ years now and things are still going well both personally and professionally. At the job, I've taken on a new role within my team where I do very little BAU/operations work and spend most of my time on several projects. Pros: very flexible schedule. Cons: too many meetings. Still happy with my job overall.

Outside of work has been my usual husband/father routine. Got the boys in swimming lessons which is common (almost required) for all children here and my older son just started soccer. Won his first game on a technicality, but we'll take it lol. We bought a house last year and it really is a home now. Just got our 65" Samsung so the home is complete for me

One major change I am not thrilled about is the change to the 30% tax ruling for those on a highly skilled migrant visa. When I came here the agreement was for 8 years, but now it will be reduced to 5 which really sucks. I'll have to find a way to make a lot more money to balance out the three additional years I planned on paying less than 49% of my salary in taxes.

MeanDrunkR2D2

That's awesome.... How do you feel your work life balance is compared to when you lived in the states?

E Double U

@ MeanDrunkR2D2 -

My current work-life balance is better at my current role in Amsterdam than my previous role in Cali because I have twice the amount of vacation and unlimited sick days. But I feel like I had it pretty good back in home too because I've been able to work remotely in all of my jobs since 2010. A few years back I worked for a British company's LA office that gave five weeks of vacation plus an extra week every five years (service splash). I do come and go more freely here than back home though. Running late or leaving early for any reason - no one asks why, no one cares.

I have noticed I feel a lot less pressure here than any other job I've had back home. That might have largely to do with California being an at-will employment state where you can lose your job in a moment as opposed to here where people with permanent contracts are very hard to let go. There also seems to be a real laissez-faire attitude here. Haven't noticed any micro-management and when you don't complete things no one seems to think it is a big deal.

Life outside of work is a lot more relaxed too because there's a big different between Los Angeles and the small city that I live in. It is slow paced which is very calming. My city is also very kid friendly with so many play areas and kid events going on.

I made a good choice.

MeanDrunkR2D2

Thanks for that feedback. That's a selling point to me about much of the EU to be honest. I'm just working on my sales pitch to my wife after we had an amazing trip to Germany. Here even though I just had a great review I still worry that one day they could decide that they are cutting jobs and I'll be out of work. I've had other jobs in the past where they lost a Gov contract and since I was the "new guy" I was the one laid off. And that was of course during the recession in 2009 which really sucked for me to get back on my feet.

I haven't been to the Netherlands, but had a Dutch roommate in the States back about 15 years ago. He really opened my eyes about what he missed there and what was better there and why he chose to go to the US. He's all about the money though and left his kids behind to make a more impressive career. That's not a choice I would have made.

E Double U

I have a Dutch wife and when she lived in the LA with me I constantly had to hear about what she missed about back home (food, safety, etc) lol. She enjoyed being there, but she definitely didn't want to raise our kids there and had me convinced.

MeanDrunkR2D2

Totally understand that feeling of safety. I don't live in a big crime area and there are shootings pretty much every day. Schools have active shooter drills even for my Kindergarten aged son. There is a fear that something bad could happen to them here due to the culture of violence that is here, and with the increased agitation by people it just feels more real to me. I'm personally working on convincing my wife that we need to go to a safe place and the place that has been a dream of mine to live in since I was young was Germany. I'm a history buff and have family blood lines that go back to NE Germany prior to the first unification of the country.

shochan

E Dbl U - there is an App for that - Duolingo, which may help you on learning your Dutch! I have been learning some Swedish because I want to visit there next year.