- The largest internet exchange in the world, which means very cheap and high quality colo
- Several large universities with CS departments in the vicinity should you need team members
- Excellent quality of life
- People speak several languages, including English
- A great startup scene
- Tax breaks on innovative (software) products
Downsides: not cheap and hard to get a working permit if you're from outside the EU. Don't go there if you get offended by a very liberal value system.
Can you elaborate on that great startup scene? I'm only aware of companies with relations to "thenextweb" and their founders, but don't hear a lot about other Amsterdam based startups that much. I'm not aware of any regular meetups or stuff like that.
There's STIKK (http://www.stikk.nl), and a bunch of Ruby/Python/Haskell/JavaScript meetups. What's maybe lacking are a couple of big companies that buy/invest in smaller ones (e.g., like Nokia in Berlin).
Regarding meetups I have been wanting to organize one for sometime, but I'm going on holiday for a couple of weeks, so I will think about it when I will come back.
- The largest internet exchange in the world, which means very cheap and high quality colo
- Several large universities with CS departments in the vicinity should you need team members
- Excellent quality of life
- People speak several languages, including English
- A great startup scene
- Tax breaks on innovative (software) products
Downsides: not cheap and hard to get a working permit if you're from outside the EU. Don't go there if you get offended by a very liberal value system.