Daan(29)

After my master's in computer science at the University of Groningen, I worked three years at a cloud company in the Netherlands. A recruiter from Amazon Web Services approached me via LinkedIn. I turned down the first offer -- I wanted to understand the H-1B lottery first. The chance of being selected is about 25-30% per year. My first two attempts failed. Only on the third round, in April 2024, did I get the confirmation: selected.

The transition to Seattle was overwhelming. My employer arranged a relocation package of $15,000 plus temporary housing for two months. The first thing you do upon arrival: go to the Social Security Administration for your SSN. Without that number you don't exist in America. No bank account, no credit score, no phone plan. I lived on cash and a prepaid SIM card for three weeks.

Seattle is a tech city, but it's no Silicon Valley. The culture is more relaxed, the nature is overwhelming -- Mount Rainier on the horizon, the Puget Sound, endless pine forests. But the rain is real. From October to April it rains almost daily. After three Groningen winters I thought I was used to it, but Seattle rain is a different category: a constant drizzle that never seems to stop.

Financially, Washington State is attractive: no state income tax. My salary at AWS is $165,000 base plus $40,000 in RSUs (Restricted Stock Units) per year. That sounds enormous, but after federal tax, Social Security, Medicare and the sky-high rent ($2,600 for a studio in Capitol Hill), I keep less than you'd think. My W-2 at year-end was an eye-opener: gross vs. net differs dramatically in the US.

The workload at a Big Tech company is intense. We work with on-call rotations where you must be available 24/7 for a week for production incidents. The PIP culture (Performance Improvement Plan) is real -- colleagues who miss their targets get three months to improve or are let go. That doesn't exist in the Netherlands. But the learning opportunities are phenomenal: I work on systems serving millions of users.

After a year I'm considering converting my H-1B to a green card via the EB-2 NIW (National Interest Waiver) track. My employer also offers PERM sponsorship, but that takes longer. The advantage of NIW is that you don't need labor certification. My advice: start building your credit score from day one. Get a secured credit card, pay everything on time, and within a year you'll have enough score for a regular credit card or car loan.