Traveling over the hill and back: how not to get a job abroad

The theme of labor emigration in the IT community is one of the favorites. Who has not thought about going to where the grass is greener? The Internet is teeming with various success story. I want to show how your success story can spoil the bad choice of place to work.

In this article I want to share with you my story of unsuccessful emigration to Prague and work with a unsuccessful employer, and to help avoid making mistakes that I made. About me: my name is Alexey, I am a Java developer, moved to St. Petersburg from the Novosibirsk Academgorodok.

Xored Company

When all the pros and cons are weighed and the decision to leave is made, the next step is to choose where exactly. This choice, of course, a matter of taste, and mine for a number of reasons fell on Prague. And very recently, the Xored company opened an office in Prague not so long ago. This is such a company, which in Academgorodok is known by all as a company with large salaries, steep specialists and inadequate, but divine president. The office manager at this office is my old friend, Nastya. I wrote to her, found out if they have any vacancies, what conditions and if I can get there. It turned out there are vacancies, but there is a nuance: the company does not pay for the move . At that time I had a small stock of money, and I accepted this nuance. The conditions seemed very interesting (in theory):

• a company fundamentally without managers, essentially managed by developers;
• the scale of the level of skills with wages rigidly attached to it and the ability to move upward on it at unlimited speed, up to the company's vice-president;
• free schedule;
• Czech language lessons a couple of times a week in the office.

I sent them a resume, and after a while I was assigned a skype-interview. The interview passed, followed by a test task - write a plugin for Eclipse. I made the plugin, packed it, supplied it with a letter describing what was done and what I did not do due to the lack of need for setting the task, and sent it.

It was at the end of December, and I went to meet the new year with friends in Prague. They met with the guys from the Prague office Xored. After that, they sent me an offer. It turned out that the offer was made according to the results of the test, a person who knows nothing about my interview. For this test, I was rated at the level of E1 (the first of the 3 levels of the middle, that is, almost a junior), but I would not go to such a salary, so they threw another one up to E2. As it turned out, almost no one ever assessed the senior level. This is lower than the level at which I estimate myself, and the salary has come to what I would not have agreed to under other conditions (lower than at the previous place of work). As in a fight club, remember: bring a newcomer down to the entrance and get a loyal employee and rumors about how cool you are. But then I still believed in the possibility of rapid growth, so I agreed to this, the offer accepted.

Began preparing documents for the visa. It turned out that no one knows exactly what documents are needed (due to the fact that I never received a higher education), so I had to collect as much as possible:

• flew to Novosibirsk for a certificate of incomplete education, for a certificate,
• paid for a certain registration in Prague, made by the company (fictitious, without the ability to live there, but from the real owners of the apartment),
• received a certificate of good conduct, received a letter with a contract from Prague,
• gave all this stack of papers to the translator.

I was registered in Novosibirsk, so I had to go to Moscow to apply. Everything at his own expense, came out cheap, but then it still seemed that it was worth it. I filed it, it remains to wait for the decision on the visa - the limit is three months (until mid-July), but judging by the stories from the Internet, the decision was usually passed in a half or two. The contract was to enter into force on the day after the visa was issued. The company asked me to start working as soon as possible, so we agreed that I would leave from the beginning of May, and at the time of issuing the visa I will be registered in the Novosibirsk office .

Collected things, moved to Prague, on a tourist visa , some time before work began. Since the visa was not long-term, and I spent a lot of money on the move, I had to settle with friends, literally on bags. I started looking for an apartment. And then the surprises began. Two days before the first working day, Nastya reported that the President of Xored, Andrei Platov, wanted to phone me, and why it was not known. Phoned, it turned out to be something like an interview, as he put it “to find out if I didn’t bother **”. Also in the course of the conversation I heard complaints that I didn’t do anything interesting, like my DBMS or my programming language. Another nonsense in the style of fighting club. As a result of the conversation, I received an "offer": so be it, we take for a trial period. Despite the fact that I have already invested in the relocation, I have an employment contract in my hands, signed by Andrey personally, and an official offer from Xored, sent to me several months ago.

Went to work. I came out illegally , because it turned out that the company had some difficulties with getting me to Novosibirsk. But I went to the meeting and agreed to work before the visa without formal employment (in vain I trusted them).

Further more. I started working without a working computer: they ordered it only after my release, and the company again had bureaucratic difficulties with the order - it turned out that the working computer needed to wait about a month. I had to work on a personal laptop. Here was another interesting point: knowing that the standard RAM for enterprise work is not enough, I asked for more. The employer refused to pay her price, and we agreed that she would be deducted from my salary.

He began to get acquainted with the project, and it quickly became clear that no one had yet worked in the Prague office, there was no infrastructure, there were huge lags when working with dev-servers. And because of the specifics of the project, development is possible only through remote debugging, each step of which takes tens of seconds. The whole team is in Novosibirsk, because of what the time difference with it is 5 hours. For some reason, I was not assigned to the Prague team that was working on another project. As a result, it was rather difficult and nervous to benefit the company.

The technological stack turned out to be old, without the ability to update it (customer requirements). Office courses in the Czech language were only half paid by the company, I refused them - there was simply no money. What you need to know about managers, and what I could have guessed beforehand: for a “company without managers” there is a short name: “body shop” (this is when you are sold to customer managers).

Then the most interesting thing began, about the money: two weeks after the start of work, both under the employment contract and by verbal agreements I had to be transferred an advance payment, for which, of course, I had big plans. But problems started again - this time there were some difficulties with transferring money to my bank card. And as Nastya, mentioned above, said, Andrei Platov (the president of the company, the one who spoke with me a couple of days before starting work) suddenly connected to the accountant and gave me a “great idea” - since there are difficulties with money transfer, then the company simply will not pay me an advance on probation. And this, I note, happened after the fact: three days after the stipulated advance day.

The only thing that stopped me from leaving the company on the same day was that too much had already been delivered: I had already left my previous job, had already spent a lot of effort and money on the move and had already been in Prague.

Police

Worked a month. Because of the settings of the environment, the fight against lags and familiarity with the project, of course I did a little, but I still closed several tasks. And then an interesting story happened: the police came to the office. It was evening and at that time only I and my French colleague Vincent remained in the office. At that moment, my Novosibirsk colleague and I discussed the details of the task on Skype, when he appeared frightened in the negotiations and said, “The police are here and they are looking for you.” Not understanding anything, I went to the office entrance, and began to understand by their questions that, apparently, Vincent was mistaken and they are not looking for me, but they are checking the company in connection with my visa application. Their questions were about the characteristics of the office and the company, so we called Nastya and let them talk. When the police left, I phoned Nastya and it turned out that I was very lucky that they didn’t recognize me - otherwise there might have been problems due to violation of visa conditions, up to deportation and a ban on entering the EU for 5 years . By the way, it turned out that Vincent was officially appointed as a contractor, and not as an employee, and in theory, he also does not have the right to work from the office. We agreed to the company that in order to avoid such problems, I will continue to work from home until I receive a working visa.

Salary

Before the long-awaited salary was a few days. On the day when she was supposed to come, Nastia wrote off, asked if everything was as planned. I received the answer that yes, the money has already been sent, but since it was sent from another bank, on Friday evening, there may be a delay of a couple of days. The weekend has passed, I'm still out of money, still without a visa. The computer has not been seen yet, but it seems that it has already been delivered and is waiting for me at the office.

Monday was also a day off, June 12th. I thought it over, and decided to complete the probationary period and return to St. Petersburg. It did not work out, it happens.

Wrote first to Nastya, explained all the reasons. The next day, I phoned her and HR Olya, discussed the details: how to cancel a visa request, etc. Everything is peaceful and friendly. My salary for the worked month, at that time, according to them, was still on the way. I wrote a letter to the team, that I was leaving, and that I did not leave unfinished business. Nastya asked to stay in Prague for a couple of days, just in case. I went to the meeting and this time, waited for these few days. There was no money. Spat, flew to Peter.

The final

Returned to Peter, a few more days passed. There was no money. I wrote to Nastya - there was no answer. Then Nastya and Ole wrote to the general chat - and received an incredible answer: nobody actually sent the money . And then a full circus began: I was accused of “setting up everyone very much with my care, because the project is very important and I was warned about it”, that “Platov was very unhappy and wants me to fly to Novosibirsk for a salary personally". By that time I had no money left at all, and the experience of interaction with Xored and Platov prompted me that I would only spend money on a ticket and waste my time. So I refused to fly to Novosibirsk. Then it turned out that “there was no labor contract, and that means there was no probationary period”, and that “there are internal company rules”, according to which, if an employee leaves in the first month, he receives only half of his salary. I think to list here all the evidence that the probation period was previously explicitly stipulated, including with Platov personally, and that these rules are invented unnecessarily on the fly. It was a common scam.

Platov

It was necessary to do something, and I sent a very polite letter to Platov with a detailed description of the situation and explained that I was waiting for my salary. In response, I received an invitation to talk on Skype. Now I regret a little that I did not record this conversation, I had to hear it! From the conversation I learned that

• "He likes me $%"
• I am "an ordinary programmer to write such letters",
• my salary is “not in my favor,” because “suddenly I jerked off and did not work,”
• and in general “this is not a trial period, but acquaintance with a company”.

As a result, in response to a direct question “whether I was an employee of Xored this month,” Platov sent me $% and hung up. It did not make sense to talk further with him on the phone, so I wrote another letter in which I explained that the further conversation would only be in writing, because I hadn’t heard anything constructive from him verbally, but only muddling, and that I was still waiting for my salary for the month worked.

findings

It's been two months since I returned to St. Petersburg. Salary I still have not received. Naturally, no one has sent that half, which was laid out according to the fictitious rules. That is, I did not receive any money from Xored at all, and apparently I will not get it anymore. But I remembered Platov's lesson for a long time.

As for emigration in general, having received a little experience of living in Europe, I decided that I like more in St. Petersburg. But in this regard, this is a personal matter for everyone, and I don’t want to give any advice on this. Something better to live there, something worse, it's a matter of taste.

In this story I made a lot of mistakes, but in the process I gained a useful experience, and made conclusions that I want to share:

1. Do not tolerate violation of agreements
Salary delays, changing working conditions, blatant cheats, etc. - An indicator of the level of the employer, and if such calls began to appear, do not hope that it will be better further. The trial period was invented precisely for this: to identify such features and save time and nerves. Both sides.

2. More to find out about the new place of work
No matter how famous the company is, no matter how well you know it, this is no reason not to err. A couple of hours of googling, and a couple of hours of phoning with friends and colleagues who know about your new company more than you, can save you from such adventures.

3. Do not settle for expenses at your own expense.
Even moving to another city, and even more so to another country, is a long and difficult process. And even if you plan every little thing, you can be sure that unexpected circumstances will surely appear and will definitely hit your pocket. There are many serious companies, among which the normal practice is assistance with moving. This and temporary housing, and lifting, and of course the cost of paperwork. If your potential employer does not offer this, it is better to look for another.

4. Do not start working without a work visa.
This clause is applicable for work without a labor contract / with a gray salary. It is 2017 in the yard, and all at least some serious companies work legally, even in Russia. It is easy to guess that in Europe the situation is not worse. Most likely, if you do not have a law degree, if you disregard this item, you will find many unobvious risks.

5. Ask about project infrastructure
Even if the project is interesting and the technology stack is modern and modern, all these amenities can be easily undone by such an elementary thing as the inability of the company's infrastructure to this project. And potentially interesting work will turn into torture. Can save a couple of simple questions at the interview stage.

6. Do not work for Xored
I know that there are many guys in Akademgorodok who dream of working there because of the image created around the company. Having been there, now I can say with confidence that in fact this is just another small provincial outsourcing company of the "horn and hoof" level, with all that it implies.

I sincerely hope that after reading this article, in such a situation you can do the right thing and not get into the same story. Deciding on such serious steps be extremely careful!

UPD (For those who are not completely bothered by this story):

In the comments often repeated the same questions. Apparently, I formulated these moments in the text quite badly, so I want to answer them here:

Q. How can you be such a chode that you can go to work abroad without a visa, even under such conditions? Why did he quit so early, was he impatient to leave soon?

A. Just give the chronology of events:

• the beginning of December: I will talk to the company. It's cool there. Platov "retired." Employment official. ZP is not clear yet what, but apparently higher, than I receive at the moment. The company just went to Europe and plans active growth. Encouraged by the future opportunities to participate in the life of the company, to help its development. An old acquaintance is in charge of the office, who will certainly warn you if something goes wrong. The visa will be tentatively in March, then the work will begin.
• mid-January: collect documents, focus on getting a visa in about three months, in April. If the design suddenly drags on - there is an option to work remotely.
• February: the company wants me to start working remotely. I do not want, because initially it was about the Prague office.
• mid-March: after long collections of documents almost at random, unsuccessfully submitted vacancies and a succession of sudden cash costs, the documents were filed. Visa judging by the reviews on the Internet will be the beginning or middle of May. They ask to come in April, I answer that I will come in April, but on personal matters. I want to start working not earlier than May. We agree to start work from the first of May. If by that time there will be no visa - prior to receipt, they will register me as a remote employee of the Novosibirsk office.
• May: go to work. It is here that I make a huge mistake by starting to work without a visa. A few days after the start of work, it turns out that with registration for the remoteness of complexity (now we know what, see the screenshots of Platov's letters: if anything, it will be harder to throw), and still the visa will be literally from day to day. I aggravate my mistake with the fact that I naively believe, I go forward.

Q. Why did you go to an office in Prague when I was supposed to work in Novosibirsk?
A. About the work in Novosibirsk for this story it only came about the remote, and only until the visa application was completed.

Q. Why did not go to the police, did not solve the question of the law?
A. When it was over, I was without shelter, without money and without work. The goal was to first of all come after this story in itself. Both financially and morally. If I went to court, having neither the knowledge and experience in the field of law, nor money for lawyers, it is possible that I also remained total in the red. Instead, I wrote this post, and as a result, though I did not return my salary, but (judging by the comments) saved so many people from falling into the same scrape.

UPD 2
On the morning of 30.08, Xored transferred me a full salary. Many thanks to all who remained indifferent and supported me in this story!