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by Andrew Dalke.
Original Post: Work in a Swedish company? Self-employed American in Sweden needs your helps
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I'm looking for immediate written offers for short-term work in Sweden to
provide evidence to the Swedish Migration Board that there is work for
me in this country. Can you help? Email me. The work does not
need to be done immediately, only a piece of paper, backed with
serious intent, which I can present to the Migration Board. Here's my
CV.
Some potential ideas are:
Python training (Intro. to Python, Django, Python/C extensions, PLY, Stackless,
and all the other things I've talked about on these pages)
Code review and coaching for how to improve your Python code
Algorithm and performance analysis
Parsing and domain-specific language development
Porting between different Unix architectures
Integration of command-line, database, and web-services tools
Training on how to develop MySQL user-defined functions in C/C++
Django development
and of course, custom software development
This essay is different from my usual mixture of Python, chemistry and
algorithms. I am an American living in Gothenburg, Sweden. I've lived
here for almost four years. I really enjoy my life here. Last year I
applied for an extension to my temporary residency permit. Without
this permit I am not allowed to live in Sweden. I have to renew it
every year until I get a permanent residency permit. That's supposed
to happen with this renewal.
After waiting for 9.5 months I got a notice that it was the intent of
the Swedish Migration Board (Migrationsverket) to deny my renewal, on
the grounds that I have not had Swedish customers ("av brist på
svenska uppdragsgivare") for the previous two years. They have not yet
decided.
I want to show to them that getting such clients is easy, and the
reason I have not done so is that I stayed in my specialization of
computational chemistry rather than in my more general competency of
software development.
The thing is, I have had work for the last two years. In 2010 I worked
for clients in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and the US. For 2011 I'm
projecting the best income of my consulting career, which makes up for
the economic difficulties I've had while making the move over to
Sweden and Europe. I've committed 50% of my time to a foreign client,
which means I don't have much free time to work on other
projects. That client is understanding, and if it will solve my
problem with Migrationsverket then I can provide less work to them and
more for a Swedish client.
I was unaware that that was a requirement for Swedish clients. No one
I've talked to knows that it's a requirement. It's not posted
anywhere, there's no guidelines on how much work must be done in
Sweden, and to the best of our knowledge, it's not based in Swedish or
EU law, and may even go against EU law. The lawyer I talked to today
hasn't heard of this before either, and will be researching the case
law.
I own and am the sole employee of a Swedish aktiebolag. I pay taxes. I
am making a profit. It makes no sense.
This is exteremely frustrating, and it's made worse that my American
bride - I got married 4 months ago - is in the US. She's applied for a
Swedish residency permit as my wife and she isn't allowed to be here
while it's being processed. I, on the other hand, have no residency
permit in my passport and thus no guarantee that I will be allowed
back inside the Schengen countries should I leave. I've overstayed my
otherwise acceptable "can be in Schengen for 3 months out of 6"
permission. My wife has another two months that she needs to be
outside of Schengen, so it's not even like we can meet in Denmark or
Norway while we wait.
If you know of relevent Swedish laws or case history, please let me know.
Please be aware that I'm casting a very wide net. I do not know if
this strategy will work. While I will try my best, I do not know if I
can actually commit to any offers. Especially if I am denied continued
residency here.
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