Software and IT Jobs Abroad: Visas, Boards and Pay Data

Software and IT jobs are offered by many kinds of employer: product companies and startups, banks and payment firms, consultancies and outsourcing companies, governments, and remote-first firms with no main office. The work covers backend, frontend and mobile development, data engineering and machine learning, cloud and DevOps, security and testing. Contracts range from permanent employment with relocation to freelance work found through talent marketplaces, and remote employment through a company’s local entity or an employer-of-record service.

What sets the field apart is that there are two quite different ways to work for a foreign employer. One is to move, through a skilled-worker visa that the employer supports; the other is to stay at home and work remotely, which depends on whether the employer can hire in that country. Most ads checked for this directory said which they offer, through tags such as “visa sponsorship available” or a list of countries a remote role is open to. Pay differs widely by where the employer and the worker sit: in Stack Overflow’s 2025 developer survey, the median back-end developer reported US$87,011 a year in Germany, US$22,086 in India and US$175,000 in the US.

This directory covers four visa routes used for software jobs, the boards that tag visa sponsorship and remote eligibility, three employers that hire across borders, the forums where developers compare offers, and official pay figures from five countries. Every site below was opened on 30 October 2026. Individual vacancies are kept in a separate list of current open positions, checked regularly.

Four visa routes used for software jobs

EU Blue Card, Germany

Germany’s EU Blue Card requires a job offer paying at least €50,700 a year in 2026, or €45,934.20 for shortage occupations and recent graduates. IT specialists without a degree can qualify at the lower figure if they have at least three years of IT experience at university level within the past seven years and a job lasting at least six months. The card runs for the contract plus six months, up to four years, and permanent residence is possible after 21 months with B1 German.

Strength: A named route for IT specialists without a degree, with the experience test spelled out.
Limit: Job changes in the first year must be reported to the local foreigners office, which may issue a different permit.

Global Talent Stream, Canada

Canada’s Global Talent Stream lets employers hire for occupations on a global talent list with a labor market decision in 10 business days, 80% of the time. The occupation list includes software engineers and designers, software developers and programmers, data scientists, cybersecurity specialists and web developers, all paid at least the prevailing wage. Employers must agree a labor market benefits plan.

Strength: A published processing standard of 10 business days for the labor market decision.
Limit: The employer applies, not the worker, and must take on reporting obligations, which smaller firms may not.

Employment Pass, Singapore

Singapore’s Employment Pass requires a qualifying salary of SGD 5,600 a month at age 23 or below, rising to SGD 10,700 at 45, and then 40 points under the COMPASS framework, which scores salary, qualifications, nationality mix and the employer’s local hiring. Tech roles on the Shortage Occupation List earn bonus points, and a five-year pass is available for some specified tech occupations.

Strength: Salary is the main test, and a monthly salary of SGD 22,500 or more skips COMPASS altogether.
Limit: The nationality-diversity criterion gives fewer points where a nationality is already common at the employer.

Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services, Japan

Japan’s main work status for software engineers, known as gijinkoku, requires a university degree or proof of related work experience, and accepts passes in certain information technology exams as supporting evidence for IT engineers. Periods of stay are three months, one year, three years or five years. Several Tokyo ads checked for this directory state that Japanese is not required. Graduates already studying in Japan have a separate job-hunting route, covered in Asian post-study job-hunting visas.

Strength: Recognized IT certifications can support an application without a computing degree.
Limit: The documents needed vary with the employer’s category, so small firms face more paperwork.

Five job boards and what their pages state

Arbeitnow

Arbeitnow showed 13,040 open positions in Germany on 30 October 2026, 392 added that day, with filters for visa sponsorship, English-speaking jobs, relocation packages and four-day weeks. It runs sister sites for the UK, France, Switzerland and the Netherlands.

Strength: The visa sponsorship filter pulls out employers that state they sponsor, many of them in Berlin and Hamburg.
Limit: Most ads opened showed no salary and gave posting age only in hours, not dates.

Relocate.me

Relocate.me lists tech jobs with relocation packages and publishes guides to visas, tax and salaries in 19 countries, from Japan and Singapore to Portugal and Canada. On 30 October 2026 it showed 26 jobs, most in Amsterdam and Tokyo, and it claims a community of 300,000 developers.

Strength: Each ad lists the relocation package, such as flights, temporary housing, language courses and visa services.
Limit: The job count is small, and one listing on its home page was a paid third-party job list rather than an employer.

We Work Remotely

We Work Remotely listed 81 full-stack programming jobs on 30 October 2026. Each ad carries a region tag such as “Anywhere in the World”, “EMEA Only” or a single country.

Strength: Region tags show at a glance whether a remote job is open to someone outside the US or Europe.
Limit: Several of the programming ads seen were restricted to the US, and individual ad pages refused automated access, so they could not be checked.

TokyoDev

TokyoDev describes itself as a site for international developers building careers in Japan, with a job board and interviews with foreign engineers at Japanese companies. It grew out of one developer’s blog about working in Tokyo.

Strength: Aimed specifically at developers who do not speak fluent Japanese.
Limit: Its job list did not load for this check, so no count or salary data could be read.

Wellfound

Wellfound, formerly AngelList Talent, is a job board for startups. On 7 November 2026 it claimed more than 27,000 startups hiring, and some listings showed salary ranges, one of them USD 180,000 to 240,000.

Strength: Some ads state a salary range.
Limit: Salary is shown on some listings only, and the startup count is the site’s own claim.

Three employers that hire across borders

GitLab

GitLab’s job board showed 237 openings on 30 October 2026 and states that all its roles are remote. Its public handbook lists employing entities in 15 countries, including India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Germany and Canada, plus employer-of-record providers elsewhere.

Strength: Remote roles are tied to named countries, so eligibility is clear before applying.
Limit: The ads opened stated no salary, and some roles carry location rules that only appear in the application form.

PayPay

The Japanese payments company PayPay says its staff come from about 50 countries and regions and that it hires mainly mid-career engineers and designers, through a Greenhouse job board with an English version. Its ads on Relocate.me offer visa sponsorship and relocation.

Strength: A Tokyo employer that recruits abroad in English and states that Japanese is a plus rather than a requirement in some ads.
Limit: The careers page states no salary range or language policy.

Picnic

The Dutch online grocer Picnic showed 230 jobs across Amsterdam, Paris and Düsseldorf on 30 October 2026 and says its staff come from more than 80 nationalities. Its software engineer ad on Relocate.me states that Dutch is not required and lists a relocation package that includes visa services.

Strength: Language and relocation terms are stated in the ad itself.
Limit: The job count covers all roles, including warehouse and delivery, and the careers page gives no tech-only figure.

Four subreddits where developers compare jobs

Reddit refused direct access, so member counts below come from GummySearch, a third-party analytics site, on the dates shown, and are rounded.

r/cscareerquestions

About 2.4 million members, up 120,000 in a year, as of 27 October 2026, per its GummySearch entry. Advice requests and complaints about job hunting are the most common posts.

r/ExperiencedDevs

About 424,000 members, up 96,000 in a year, as of 27 October 2026, according to GummySearch. Posts from inexperienced users are kept to a weekly thread.

r/cscareerquestionsEU

About 179,000 members, up 24,000 in a year, as of 15 October 2026, per GummySearch’s page. Discussion centers on European job searches, CVs and pay, with the UK market a frequent topic.

r/cscareerquestionsIN

About 24,000 members, up 9,000 in a year, as of 18 October 2026, per its GummySearch entry, covering tech careers, jobs and internships in India.

Software pay from five countries, plus visa salary floors

Official figures come from national statistics or career services; the survey rows are self-reported by developers who answered Stack Overflow’s survey. Visa floors are legal minimums, not typical pay. Currencies are not converted, and pay bases differ.

Role	Figure	Source with date
Software development (package software), Japan	¥5,785,000 a year, average age 37.1; job offers average ¥364,000 a month	Official: Japan’s job tag site, 2025 wage survey; job offers for fiscal 2025
Software developer, Canada	C$30.00 low, C$48.08 median, C$76.92 high per hour	Official: Job Bank, updated 19 November 2025, reference period 2023 to 2024
Software and applications programmers, Australia	A$2,496 a week median, full time, before tax	Official: Jobs and Skills Australia, ABS survey of May 2023
Software developer, UK	£30,000 starter to £75,000 experienced a year	Government career guide: National Careers Service, checked October 2026
Software developer, US	US$135,980 median a year	Official: US Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2025
Back-end developer, Germany, France, UK, India	Medians of US$87,011, US$71,929, US$108,913 and US$22,086 a year	Survey: Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2025, self-reported, published in US dollars
EU Blue Card minimum, Germany	€50,700 a year; €45,934.20 for shortage occupations, recent graduates and IT specialists without a degree	Official floor: Make it in Germany, 2026
Employment Pass minimum, Singapore (all sectors except finance)	SGD 5,600 a month at age 23 or below, rising to SGD 10,700 at 45	Official floor: Ministry of Manpower, current to 31 December 2026

The Australian figure dates from May 2023 and is the oldest in the table. Canada’s figures cover NOC 21232 across all provinces, and the US Bureau of Labor Statistics projects 10% growth in software developer jobs from 2025 to 2035. The survey medians are not official statistics: respondents choose to answer, and pay is reported in US dollars rather than local currency.

Missing pay data, and the salary floors changing on 1 January 2027

No official software pay figure could be read for Germany, Singapore or India in this check. Germany’s federal pay atlas did not load, Singapore’s occupational wage tables are downloads that could not be opened, and India publishes no occupation-level software pay series that was found. The survey rows above are the closest substitute.

Singapore’s Employment Pass minimum rises to SGD 6,000 a month at age 23, and SGD 11,500 at 45, for new applications from 1 January 2027, with renewals following from 1 January 2028. Germany states its Blue Card thresholds “as of 2026”, so the 2027 figures should be checked in January.

Software and IT Jobs Abroad: Visas, Boards, Employers, Pay