Come to Czechia! I am working in an academic institute at my Uni. Besides experienced candidates we sometimes take students and post graduates (local and international) and we are always short on engineers. Pay is not much but the health and social benefits are worth it for a start. This is probably applicable in any EU state, more developed countries than Czech Republic will have higher salaries, higher living standards (ie Germany, Netherlands, France, etc) but also more expensive services.

Tl;dr: in EU you can work in academia, you get standard employment benefits, but “government” pay, still worth it tho