I'm a European in the US and I bank with Schwab as well. One interesting thing is that they offer basically free and fairly fast international money transfer into your brokerage account through a German reference account:
http://www.schwab-global.com/cms/P-2...msid=P-2791907
Using SWIFT (IBAN/BIC), transferring money from Austria to Germany should cost the same as a money transfer within Austria (i.e. usually free).

I did this a few times and the money was in my Schwab account within 2-3 days.

I would definitely recommend getting a checking account in Austria (no idea how hard this would be to get), otherwise you'll have a hard time getting paid.
I wouldn't bother getting a credit card there, your Cap1 and SP should be good to go. I don't think the exchange rates are unfavorable, plus credit cards there usually have a fee and don't earn many rewards. Though this might have changed in the past five years while I was gone...