My experience finding a job as a programmer abroad: UPDATE 2
UPDATE 1
UPDATE 2
I think that many will benefit from my experience of finding a job as a programmer abroad. Especially since it is completely different from the one described in the publication “How to work as an IT person to go to Germany. Part 1 " .
I must say that I am married and have two children, 5 and 11 years old. I say this to the fact that the requirements for the conditions of moving for a family man are higher than without children or without family at all. For example, it is necessary to take into account the increase in expenses for a minimum of 3 apartments, utilities for 4 people, paid education and its level. Transportation is also important, as every day children need to get to and from school. Another important criterion for choosing a country for relocation is the level of medicine and ecology. And finally, the cost of maintaining a family of 4 is much higher than for two, and even more so for one. All this sets a rather rigid lower bar for wages.
')
Considering all the above, it may seem that moving abroad with your family is on the verge of unreal. But it is not so! And although I will not deny that it is much easier for a bachelor to move around the world, but I will emphasize that my experience has shown that this simplicity consists solely in the absence of the worries inherent in family people (I described them above). Another advantage of bachelors (theoretically) is that they can accept lower salaries than they would like, but with the prospect of growth.
In total, the job search took me 9 months. I chose Germany as the destination country, since IT is at a high level there, a huge number of start-ups, especially in Berlin, a high level of free education and strong medicine. Besides, I more or less knew German.
Mistake number 1 - choose one country and look for work only in it.
As it turned out, there is a huge demand for programmers in the UK as well. I also received offers from Switzerland, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Poland and Hungary. The wider the search range, the greater the chances. Personally, I moved to a country from which I received only one offer, although I did not consider it at all, and I knew about it only by hearsay. It can even be seen on Google maps only at near maximum zoom. This is Malta. And life here is beautiful!
A proposal for Malta was made to me by a recruiting agent from London.
Mistake number 2 - to think that you need to look for jobs directly from the employer.
My experience has shown that it is much more profitable to work with agents, since they have a lot of offers and their services are free for the applicant. Moreover, they can offer countries that you don’t even think about, and these same countries can give you more than you dream. As it happened to me.
Mistake number 3 - to represent yourself as a jack of all trades.
I am a programmer with 6 years experience. I know PHP and JavaScript and a whole bunch of companions. In addition, I have 2 large projects behind my back and one and a half years experience as a CTO. It seems to be a cool dude with a cool CV. I decided that I would look for work as a frontend, backend and fullstack developer. But the interviews showed that even though I can do any task and everything will work, and I confirmed this with test tasks, the employer will expect you to have a high level of knowledge - so that the teeth fly away. And I’m just not so strong in this matter and I had to spend about 4 months to bring my theoretical knowledge to an almost perfect level. But this was made possible by the choice of a clear specialization - Frontend developer.
I advise you to represent yourself as a specialist in a clear area and confirm your knowledge not only by deed, but also by word!
Mistake number 4 - to think that a successful technical interview is almost 100% guaranteed.
After about 5 months of finding a job, I reached a level where technical interviews were the subject of my pride. Only after conversations with HR managers, I was politely denied. In a number of cases, I only then realized what questions I could answer incorrectly. It is worth noting that different companies evaluate answers to the same questions in different ways, some of them do not even ask them.
So the questions of a different (non-technical) nature should be answered as you really think. Trying to guess what is expected of you is pointless!
There are a number of points about cost estimation, determining the minimum wage, etc. I will write about it if there is interest in this topic.
UPDATE 1
Where to look for a job
Since I initially aimed at Germany, I was looking for German job sites, I posted my resume wherever it was possible. So now I don’t remember all the sites, but most often there were vacancies with Monster.de and theItJob
For UK there is a version of the site
And on this version of the site you can choose other countries.
Soon I started writing and calling. These were agents. For all the time there were 2 or 3 direct employers. It turned out that British recruiting companies are very actively working with the German IT market. So I started getting a lot of offers for Germany from England. Most often, agents work in specific cities, for example: Berlin, Stuttgart, Frankfurt. And I needed Munich and sometimes they redirected me to agents who work in Munich. But since I not only posted a resume, but also sent my resume for specific vacancies from Munich, I had agents with a lot of offers from this city and its suburbs. But soon I expanded the geography of the search to the whole of Germany, and even later - to the whole of Europe. And even though I am in love with Munich, I was ready to consider all cities and the whole of Europe in order to increase my chances.
By country choice I want to add that in addition to Germany, in my opinion, it is worth considering the UK, Holland, Switzerland and Ireland.
But keep in mind that taxes and rental housing in London, for example, is much higher than in Germany. If you rent an apartment in the suburbs, then it is at least an hour on the train.
I have not been to Switzerland, but I suspect that it is also expensive there. But according to the proposals that I had, they assured me that the salary was consistent with the expenses at that level of living. But all this is subject to study.
Ireland is interesting because there is one of their offices Google. And the country is taking steps to attract IT companies, benefits for start-ups, etc. I will not go into details, because I was there in November 2013 and since then there may have been changes, obviously for the better. But in Ireland, sad in terms of climate. There are often overcast and rainy. But my friend has been living there for more than 13 years and says that he is used to it already. Although he is thinking of moving to London or Munich, because after 6 years of work at Google, he quit to work on his own project.
I know about Holland that a startup culture is also actively developing there.
What do the agents ask?
After you send your resume to agents in English with a link to your LinkedIn account, and preferably to your examples when, for example on GtHub,
they usually ask when they can call to ask a couple of questions. You need to be prepared for a variety of accents - this applies to agents from England. Sometimes it's hard to understand but you get used to it.
A very important question is the level of the desired salary. This is an unexpected question for the unprepared. The agent expects to hear approximate numbers, but still less real. But if you have not determined for yourself exactly where you want, then I advise you to take the cost of living in Germany as a guideline. This is about 45-50 thousand euros per year before taxes (gross). After payment you will have about 2800-3000. Taxes include medical insurance. But these are approximate amounts, since taxation in Germany is carried out according to classes, which depend on whether you have a wife or common-law wife, whether she works and whether there are children (if you remember correctly, there are only 6 classes and the tax is the highest for a bachelor ). But for such a salary you can live normally even with children. Children pay an allowance, something in the region of 140-170 euros per month for each. Salaries of 60-65 thousand - this is a high level, but quite real.
For the UK, in particular for London, the family programmer must focus on a salary of 50 thousand pounds a year gross.
Of course, in the course of obtaining specific proposals, you will be voiced clear amounts, and even then you need to finally recheck all the costs for specific countries and cities.
There is another category of expenses - this is spending on the move. If the company pays for relocation, then you are lucky. But if not, the flight and baggage at your expense. Another major expense is considered to be a deposit for the apartment’s arneda + agent’s commission (where applicable). When I found out, in Germany the pledge was for 3 months. + payment of the current month. Also, apartments are often rented without furniture and without a kitchen. But I found everything on forms or thematic sites and did not check it in practice. But it is worth being prepared for such costs. For more details on the example of Gremania, I'll sign for the next update.
If the agent sees that you know English or German, he begins to offer you a job. There, you already agree on the time of Skype interviews or telephone familiarization calls from employers.
Do I need a diploma?
I am a self-taught programmer. Consequently, I do not have a diploma confirming my knowledge of programming. I do not want to say that nobody will ask you for a diploma. I was asked a couple of times, but the lack of a diploma did not affect. For example, one of the companies, which in the job description required a profile diploma and asked me about it, invited me to a personal meeting after a technical interview. From my experience I can say that the diploma was asked very rarely. Everything was decided at interviews, in which, I recall, technical questions were often only half important.
Perhaps this is due to the fact that very few people take diplomas from the post-Soviet space seriously in the west.
UPDATE 2
Now about the costs.
First I will talk about the costs of moving (in my example).
The first item of expenditure is rental housing. Before calculating these costs, you need to understand which country you will be moving to and what are the conditions for renting housing in this country, since This is the largest item of expenditure. For example, in Germany, apartments are rented most often without furniture, the maximum that can be there is a built-in kitchen (it means + the cost of buying furniture, pots, spoons, plates and other trifles or transportation of their own). In addition, when concluding a lease agreement, a “guarantee payment” is paid in the amount of 3-month rent. This money goes to the landlord’s deposit, as a guarantee that if you ruin something in the apartment, then the guarantee payment will be used for repairs. In fact, landlords are very reluctant to part with this guarantee payment, and try to keep it in every way possible. But this is a lyrical digression. We see that the cost of renting an apartment is usually composed of: payment for the 1st month + guarantee payment (in my case for 1 month) + broker services. Try to find out in advance what are the terms of renting an apartment in the country where you are going to go. We figured it out through local forums. In principle, everything came together. By the way, it is necessary to take into account the moment of seasonality of rental prices. In the summer, as a rule, more expensive. In winter - cheaper. Moreover, the price, which will be indicated in the lease agreement, is unlikely to change throughout the term of the agreement. Consider this moment;) it is better to move in the winter! )
(my case: 800 + 800 + 400 = 2000 Euro)
It must be borne in mind that rental costs may vary in different countries due to the fact that the advance payment may be charged for more than one month. Also, the agent's commission is somewhere 50% and somewhere more.
The second item of expenditure - travel and transportation of baggage. We were lucky, and the company-employer paid us tickets and transportation of baggage for the whole family. But if in your case this will not happen, then I recommend immediately finding out the cost of additional baggage from the airline. For example, one extra bag at Lufthansa cost us 70 euros. We had 7 bags, here and consider ...
(my case: 0)
The third item of expenditure - accommodation, until you find an apartment. Then we were lucky again, and the company-employer paid us 2 weeks of living in apartments. For 2 weeks we found an apartment and moved there. But if this is not the case in your case, look in advance at the suitable accommodation for you on the Book. In our experience, apartments for rent are more convenient, because you can cook yourself, and this is cheaper than eating in cafes and restaurants.
(my case: 0)
The fourth item of expenditure
The cost of room and board until you get the first s / n. It is necessary to take into account the fact that in European countries the advances to which we are used to are not always paid. Most likely you will receive your first salary after a month of work. And this whole month you will have to live, eat, get to and from work, etc. for something. Probably, this article is for everyone. We were without children for the first month.
(my case: 200 / week = 800 euros)
Fifth item of expenditure
Expenses for school / kindergarten. We have two children, 11 and 5 years old. On the Internet, it was possible to learn that a school in Malta starts at the age of 5. Also, through the Internet, we found several schools, reviews of which we liked. Arriving at the place we went to these schools to get acquainted with the administration and find out about the places. At school we were given an invoice for the payment of the registration fee first, and then for the payment of the first 3 months. I draw your attention to the fact that not all schools in Europe are paid. There are free options. If they suit you - then this expense can not be considered. Kindergartens are almost everywhere paid and almost everywhere for half a day. In Germany, in general, a separate story with gardens. If necessary, information can be found in local forums.
(my case: 700 (reg. fee for 2 children) +815 = 1515 euros
The sixth item of expenditure:
Language school ... For a child, for a spouse, and maybe for you ... Most likely it will be necessary. Prepare for this in advance. Our daughter went to a language school for 2 months. before primary school)
(my case: 800 euros)
It seems to be all that concerns the FIRST expenses on arrival. I got more than 5,000 euros.
UPDATE 2
I think that many will benefit from my experience of finding a job as a programmer abroad. Especially since it is completely different from the one described in the publication “How to work as an IT person to go to Germany. Part 1 " .
I must say that I am married and have two children, 5 and 11 years old. I say this to the fact that the requirements for the conditions of moving for a family man are higher than without children or without family at all. For example, it is necessary to take into account the increase in expenses for a minimum of 3 apartments, utilities for 4 people, paid education and its level. Transportation is also important, as every day children need to get to and from school. Another important criterion for choosing a country for relocation is the level of medicine and ecology. And finally, the cost of maintaining a family of 4 is much higher than for two, and even more so for one. All this sets a rather rigid lower bar for wages.
')
Considering all the above, it may seem that moving abroad with your family is on the verge of unreal. But it is not so! And although I will not deny that it is much easier for a bachelor to move around the world, but I will emphasize that my experience has shown that this simplicity consists solely in the absence of the worries inherent in family people (I described them above). Another advantage of bachelors (theoretically) is that they can accept lower salaries than they would like, but with the prospect of growth.
In total, the job search took me 9 months. I chose Germany as the destination country, since IT is at a high level there, a huge number of start-ups, especially in Berlin, a high level of free education and strong medicine. Besides, I more or less knew German.
Mistake number 1 - choose one country and look for work only in it.
As it turned out, there is a huge demand for programmers in the UK as well. I also received offers from Switzerland, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Poland and Hungary. The wider the search range, the greater the chances. Personally, I moved to a country from which I received only one offer, although I did not consider it at all, and I knew about it only by hearsay. It can even be seen on Google maps only at near maximum zoom. This is Malta. And life here is beautiful!
A proposal for Malta was made to me by a recruiting agent from London.
Mistake number 2 - to think that you need to look for jobs directly from the employer.
My experience has shown that it is much more profitable to work with agents, since they have a lot of offers and their services are free for the applicant. Moreover, they can offer countries that you don’t even think about, and these same countries can give you more than you dream. As it happened to me.
Mistake number 3 - to represent yourself as a jack of all trades.
I am a programmer with 6 years experience. I know PHP and JavaScript and a whole bunch of companions. In addition, I have 2 large projects behind my back and one and a half years experience as a CTO. It seems to be a cool dude with a cool CV. I decided that I would look for work as a frontend, backend and fullstack developer. But the interviews showed that even though I can do any task and everything will work, and I confirmed this with test tasks, the employer will expect you to have a high level of knowledge - so that the teeth fly away. And I’m just not so strong in this matter and I had to spend about 4 months to bring my theoretical knowledge to an almost perfect level. But this was made possible by the choice of a clear specialization - Frontend developer.
I advise you to represent yourself as a specialist in a clear area and confirm your knowledge not only by deed, but also by word!
Mistake number 4 - to think that a successful technical interview is almost 100% guaranteed.
After about 5 months of finding a job, I reached a level where technical interviews were the subject of my pride. Only after conversations with HR managers, I was politely denied. In a number of cases, I only then realized what questions I could answer incorrectly. It is worth noting that different companies evaluate answers to the same questions in different ways, some of them do not even ask them.
So the questions of a different (non-technical) nature should be answered as you really think. Trying to guess what is expected of you is pointless!
There are a number of points about cost estimation, determining the minimum wage, etc. I will write about it if there is interest in this topic.
During the search, I had contacts with agents who often ask me if I know good programmers who are ready to move to work abroad.
If there are any interested people among you, let me know if I will put you in touch with agents (although you yourself can find them if you want), and then everything depends on you. Maybe I can help with advice, but to find a job - it takes 100% of your sincere desire and a lot of work on self-improvement. Agents will introduce you to employers and agree with you the date and time of the interview - and then only you!
UPDATE 1
Where to look for a job
Since I initially aimed at Germany, I was looking for German job sites, I posted my resume wherever it was possible. So now I don’t remember all the sites, but most often there were vacancies with Monster.de and theItJob
For UK there is a version of the site
And on this version of the site you can choose other countries.
Soon I started writing and calling. These were agents. For all the time there were 2 or 3 direct employers. It turned out that British recruiting companies are very actively working with the German IT market. So I started getting a lot of offers for Germany from England. Most often, agents work in specific cities, for example: Berlin, Stuttgart, Frankfurt. And I needed Munich and sometimes they redirected me to agents who work in Munich. But since I not only posted a resume, but also sent my resume for specific vacancies from Munich, I had agents with a lot of offers from this city and its suburbs. But soon I expanded the geography of the search to the whole of Germany, and even later - to the whole of Europe. And even though I am in love with Munich, I was ready to consider all cities and the whole of Europe in order to increase my chances.
By country choice I want to add that in addition to Germany, in my opinion, it is worth considering the UK, Holland, Switzerland and Ireland.
But keep in mind that taxes and rental housing in London, for example, is much higher than in Germany. If you rent an apartment in the suburbs, then it is at least an hour on the train.
I have not been to Switzerland, but I suspect that it is also expensive there. But according to the proposals that I had, they assured me that the salary was consistent with the expenses at that level of living. But all this is subject to study.
Ireland is interesting because there is one of their offices Google. And the country is taking steps to attract IT companies, benefits for start-ups, etc. I will not go into details, because I was there in November 2013 and since then there may have been changes, obviously for the better. But in Ireland, sad in terms of climate. There are often overcast and rainy. But my friend has been living there for more than 13 years and says that he is used to it already. Although he is thinking of moving to London or Munich, because after 6 years of work at Google, he quit to work on his own project.
I know about Holland that a startup culture is also actively developing there.
What do the agents ask?
After you send your resume to agents in English with a link to your LinkedIn account, and preferably to your examples when, for example on GtHub,
they usually ask when they can call to ask a couple of questions. You need to be prepared for a variety of accents - this applies to agents from England. Sometimes it's hard to understand but you get used to it.
A very important question is the level of the desired salary. This is an unexpected question for the unprepared. The agent expects to hear approximate numbers, but still less real. But if you have not determined for yourself exactly where you want, then I advise you to take the cost of living in Germany as a guideline. This is about 45-50 thousand euros per year before taxes (gross). After payment you will have about 2800-3000. Taxes include medical insurance. But these are approximate amounts, since taxation in Germany is carried out according to classes, which depend on whether you have a wife or common-law wife, whether she works and whether there are children (if you remember correctly, there are only 6 classes and the tax is the highest for a bachelor ). But for such a salary you can live normally even with children. Children pay an allowance, something in the region of 140-170 euros per month for each. Salaries of 60-65 thousand - this is a high level, but quite real.
For the UK, in particular for London, the family programmer must focus on a salary of 50 thousand pounds a year gross.
Of course, in the course of obtaining specific proposals, you will be voiced clear amounts, and even then you need to finally recheck all the costs for specific countries and cities.
There is another category of expenses - this is spending on the move. If the company pays for relocation, then you are lucky. But if not, the flight and baggage at your expense. Another major expense is considered to be a deposit for the apartment’s arneda + agent’s commission (where applicable). When I found out, in Germany the pledge was for 3 months. + payment of the current month. Also, apartments are often rented without furniture and without a kitchen. But I found everything on forms or thematic sites and did not check it in practice. But it is worth being prepared for such costs. For more details on the example of Gremania, I'll sign for the next update.
If the agent sees that you know English or German, he begins to offer you a job. There, you already agree on the time of Skype interviews or telephone familiarization calls from employers.
Do I need a diploma?
I am a self-taught programmer. Consequently, I do not have a diploma confirming my knowledge of programming. I do not want to say that nobody will ask you for a diploma. I was asked a couple of times, but the lack of a diploma did not affect. For example, one of the companies, which in the job description required a profile diploma and asked me about it, invited me to a personal meeting after a technical interview. From my experience I can say that the diploma was asked very rarely. Everything was decided at interviews, in which, I recall, technical questions were often only half important.
Perhaps this is due to the fact that very few people take diplomas from the post-Soviet space seriously in the west.
UPDATE 2
Now about the costs.
First I will talk about the costs of moving (in my example).
The first item of expenditure is rental housing. Before calculating these costs, you need to understand which country you will be moving to and what are the conditions for renting housing in this country, since This is the largest item of expenditure. For example, in Germany, apartments are rented most often without furniture, the maximum that can be there is a built-in kitchen (it means + the cost of buying furniture, pots, spoons, plates and other trifles or transportation of their own). In addition, when concluding a lease agreement, a “guarantee payment” is paid in the amount of 3-month rent. This money goes to the landlord’s deposit, as a guarantee that if you ruin something in the apartment, then the guarantee payment will be used for repairs. In fact, landlords are very reluctant to part with this guarantee payment, and try to keep it in every way possible. But this is a lyrical digression. We see that the cost of renting an apartment is usually composed of: payment for the 1st month + guarantee payment (in my case for 1 month) + broker services. Try to find out in advance what are the terms of renting an apartment in the country where you are going to go. We figured it out through local forums. In principle, everything came together. By the way, it is necessary to take into account the moment of seasonality of rental prices. In the summer, as a rule, more expensive. In winter - cheaper. Moreover, the price, which will be indicated in the lease agreement, is unlikely to change throughout the term of the agreement. Consider this moment;) it is better to move in the winter! )
(my case: 800 + 800 + 400 = 2000 Euro)
It must be borne in mind that rental costs may vary in different countries due to the fact that the advance payment may be charged for more than one month. Also, the agent's commission is somewhere 50% and somewhere more.
The second item of expenditure - travel and transportation of baggage. We were lucky, and the company-employer paid us tickets and transportation of baggage for the whole family. But if in your case this will not happen, then I recommend immediately finding out the cost of additional baggage from the airline. For example, one extra bag at Lufthansa cost us 70 euros. We had 7 bags, here and consider ...
(my case: 0)
The third item of expenditure - accommodation, until you find an apartment. Then we were lucky again, and the company-employer paid us 2 weeks of living in apartments. For 2 weeks we found an apartment and moved there. But if this is not the case in your case, look in advance at the suitable accommodation for you on the Book. In our experience, apartments for rent are more convenient, because you can cook yourself, and this is cheaper than eating in cafes and restaurants.
(my case: 0)
The fourth item of expenditure
The cost of room and board until you get the first s / n. It is necessary to take into account the fact that in European countries the advances to which we are used to are not always paid. Most likely you will receive your first salary after a month of work. And this whole month you will have to live, eat, get to and from work, etc. for something. Probably, this article is for everyone. We were without children for the first month.
(my case: 200 / week = 800 euros)
Fifth item of expenditure
Expenses for school / kindergarten. We have two children, 11 and 5 years old. On the Internet, it was possible to learn that a school in Malta starts at the age of 5. Also, through the Internet, we found several schools, reviews of which we liked. Arriving at the place we went to these schools to get acquainted with the administration and find out about the places. At school we were given an invoice for the payment of the registration fee first, and then for the payment of the first 3 months. I draw your attention to the fact that not all schools in Europe are paid. There are free options. If they suit you - then this expense can not be considered. Kindergartens are almost everywhere paid and almost everywhere for half a day. In Germany, in general, a separate story with gardens. If necessary, information can be found in local forums.
(my case: 700 (reg. fee for 2 children) +815 = 1515 euros
The sixth item of expenditure:
Language school ... For a child, for a spouse, and maybe for you ... Most likely it will be necessary. Prepare for this in advance. Our daughter went to a language school for 2 months. before primary school)
(my case: 800 euros)
It seems to be all that concerns the FIRST expenses on arrival. I got more than 5,000 euros.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/285694/
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