Yeah. It is much harder now than it used to be. I know a couple of people who came from the US ~15 to 10 years ago and they had it easy. It was still a nightmare with banks that don’t want to deal with US citizens, though.
As Americans, getting a long-term visa or residency card is not too hard, provided you have a good job. It’s getting the job that’s become more difficult. For other nationalities, it can range from very easy to very hard.
If you don't have a university degree, most of EU/EEA immigration policy wants nothing to do with you, even if you're American or have several YoE. Source: am a self-taught US dev who has repeatedly looked into immigration to northern/western Europe over the years. If anything it continually gets more stringent every time I look. Forget looking for jobs, there's not even visa paths for most countries.
But isn't the same true for the US? To me it seems it's pretty similar both for Europeans moving to the US and Americans moving to the EU: have higher education, find a job, get a work visa...?
No clue, I don't know much about US immigration policy other than that it is, by all accounts I've heard, a nightmare. I know (from past experience) that Canada has no-degree-friendly paths, but I have no reason to expect the US (with its current set of policies especially) would be that progressive/open.
Yeah it depends on which countries you're interested in. Netherlands, Ireland, and the Scandinavian ones are on the easier side as they don't require language fluency to get (dev) jobs, and their languages aren't too hard to learn either.
Strictly speaking, Finland is nordic, not scandinavian. And their language is entirely different. I was under the impression Fins and Estonians are happy when people try to learn. Am I wrong?
As Americans, getting a long-term visa or residency card is not too hard, provided you have a good job. It’s getting the job that’s become more difficult. For other nationalities, it can range from very easy to very hard.