Everyone remembers the buzz when the decision to block Telegram came out? How many comments and screaming saliva were that the little pig Peter was always right and it was time to pack a suitcase and look for work abroad?

So, someone ponil and calmed down, and I thought: 'Indeed, why not?'. In short, Petya, start the tractor, we leave!

This is a story about how I left everything and moved to live and work in Israel. I will tell you how it turned out for me, what are the differences from the fatherland, how much they pay and whether they often shoot.

Oh yeah, Habr and in Israel read.

Prehistory

Thank you for tapping on the clickbate entry, and now I’ll guide you on how it all was. Those who are interested in the bare numbers and facts - scroll to 'Job Search'.

I had planned to move to the Holy Land for more than a few years already, one may say, starting from the moment I visited the country on Taglit for the first time. This is a program where the state is looking for Jews in other countries of the world and arranges an unforgettable educational and entertaining journey around the country for 10 days. Beautiful glossy event with stops in comfortable hotels, Bedouin nights, camel rides, a visit to the Western Wall and a sea of ​​other entertainment. And, of course, it's all for free, which is just especially nice.

Of course, there is no charity here, as it may seem at first glance. The main goal of the entire movement is to interest and lure the young naive Jews to live permanently. After all, every future citizen is not only one and a half hundred pounds of meat, but also up to 50% of the most delicious taxes (auch!).

And so, over time, my circumstances in my country were formed in such an unexpected way that there was no longer something to hold and the opportunity to think about life appeared. Naturally, immediately throwing everything, even with some financial pillow, is a bit scary and risky, I still wanted some kind of corpus delicti that the country is really as good as it is painted.

Fortunately, even here we thought of everything.

Moving

The next great program is Masa. Not as sweet as Taglit, but it lasts from 4 to 8 months. Here everything is more serious, I had to prove to the consul with a bunch of papers that I was not a camel ~ Jew. To do this, you need to make an appointment for at least 4 months, then come on the appointed day and kill him (the day, not the consul) while standing in line at different windows.

Then you can go to a special agency and declare your rights to an educational grant. For the CIS, the maximum possible amount is $ 4,200 and $ 8,400, depending on the duration of the program. There is nothing interesting in the design: it is enough to strike a couple of checkmarks and attach a photo of the conclusion of the consul about my nationality.

According to the results of the torment, you are stamped on your forehead with a visa with a special note that it is impossible to work, and they are sent to study for up to one year. However, this does not mean that you this whole year must shine labor celibacy. Many even manage to arrange field work with this tag: clean up apartments, unload wagons and other guest workers classics. And when you get tired, you can become a full-fledged citizen with all rights, but exemption from a heap of taxes for three years.

By the way, Masoy is involved in many mixed companies. These are contractors from the state who take grants for the participants and must take these 4 or 8 months with them. They are all different, someone makes a bias in the religious direction, someone in the language or sport, but I went to the HiTech program, where I was supposed to make a mega startup. I can tell right away that the scoop is cruel there, at least in the Russian-speaking department. What is partly a plus, you can not sit down and relax, you have to understand everything yourself.

And so successfully coincided that the start date of my 4-month program fell on the Telegram lock. So it can be said that it took six months to complete the preparation with paperwork, obtaining financing and booking seats.

Of course, the entire flight and transfer to the point of destination is done under its own power. I was already mentally preparing for several hours in the gas chamber, because the thermometer needle showed 30 degrees Celsius overboard at the time of arrival, but it turned out that public transport here is somewhat different from what I was used to at home. Firstly, everywhere, just absolutely everywhere there are air conditioners. I have never met such a condo in the bus or train (although, by sight, an electric train). And not just anyhow, but so that he felt at home in the fridge. By the way, the trains here are double-decker, which at first was very unusual.
Secondly, if there are more than 30 minutes between destinations, then in this case full-fledged travel-bus with only seats is available.

Add a couple of points that will be of interest to drivers. Pleasantly surprised by the almost complete absence of traffic lights, everywhere on the roads circles, and not just under the eyes of the developers. And also the quality of asphalt: the absence of temperature fluctuations still affects, holes and cracks significantly less.

And there are cats like dogs. Threatening groups on the streets run hither and constantly demand to devour.

Photo near the nearest stop. Five cats lay on the lawn, but only two of them were in the frame:

Work searches

Having settled in a new place, me and the group were taken to get acquainted with the local HiTech College. So that you understand, college here is not like sharashkas in Russia, but specialized institutions that focus on one thing. In this case, it is software, hardware and some data science.

We were divided into two groups: QA and startup. It's funny that in Israel they say, not start-ups, but start-ups, that at first the hearing was fundamentally hurt. QA group sent to learn the basics of manual and auto web testing, and startup to comprehend the basics of marketing and business. But it would not be HiTech, if everyone who was fumbled in programming, would not be tried.

The dialogue with the director looked like this:
- Shalom. And what project do you plan to do in Israel?
- Outsourcing gash some. Or outstaff.
- ABOUT! And we know where developers can be sold! By the way, are you not looking for work?

At first, everyone laughed (we are such entrepreneurs), and after two months of the program, it became clear that the businessmen of us are the same as the birds - figs as much as possible, and life here is expensive and you have to look for work.

It all started with redoing resumes. The format is fundamentally different from that adopted by hh.

First, the resume is usually laid out on one page. Well, a maximum of two, no one will read the second one anyway. Based on the following template: first, a brief description of your talents in one sentence, then a list of skills and mastered frameworks, and then Work History.

Secondly , the ideas about jumpers between companies here are different from what we are used to. If in Russia it is still normal when you work for a year in each office, then here you will shy away from you as if from fire, if you have not paid at least 2 years to each employer.

Thirdly , if you are looking for a job as a programmer, and you indicate the experience of a manager in a resume, this is not a plus in your piggy bank. Moreover, the leaders here are almost always looked for by acquaintance and almost nothing else. If you are a project manager or team leader and expect to land in some abstract startup, it is better to forget about it. The same applies to more impressive companies.

By the way, college looks something like this from the inside:

Photos from the floor where we had lectures. Here you can see only three floors, but in general there are about seven of them.

Additional difficulty arose with the lack of citizenship. Headhunters, having barely heard that I was not only not 'sprechen ze doich' in Hebrew, but also illegally, immediately lost interest in any professional experience and rushed into the sunset.

Even though it is possible to issue a work permit for a specialist who is not nationally related to Jewry, no one burns with this desire. But there is such an option.

But, as they say, if you suffer for a long time, then as a result there will be a company of a wide soul capable of leaping faith into the arms of a migrant worker. And after preliminary communication, where we learned my social status, the standard recruitment procedure began.

Speaking about the technical side of the interview, it does not differ much from that adopted in the fatherland: tell me about yourself, if you worked with this and that, and so on. Is that more emphasis on practical test tasks, so that you can understand the level of the candidate in writing code. For example, I was in a company where I ended up being asked to make a fun control out of scrolling beads.

The communication itself takes place in Russian or English, but then how lucky. Many people in IT at the level of developers and junior management speak Russian. But even if you are lucky and communicate with you in the usual dialect, when the question touches the technical aspect, everyone switches to English.

Already within the company, everyone communicates in the language in which it is convenient, but there is always some generally accepted one that everyone must know. This is usually Hebrew or English.

The average English level is barely conversational. A really good level is found only in the business layer of the company, so if you are worried about your 'spoken English', then it’s completely in vain. You just did not hear the locals who speak and do not worry.

So, after a successful interview, the standard Odessa trade begins: "Oh, and let us pay you now% ridiculous amount, this is normal, and you have been here recently, and in general."
Immediately I remember a wonderful phrase: "Sonia, you still hang noodles!"

If the bargain does not come out, then the games start with the contract. For example, in my contract I found a line about '60 working hours per week', and then I listened to how it is customary to process here, watching the circus, how people are already actively gathering things home at 6 o'clock. In a word - Israel.

In general, comparing the revenues of IT and most of the population, the gap is huge (~ $ 2500 against ~ $ 7000). Programmers here are kings who can foot open the door of any club. Hunger for shots lifted salaries so high that you can jump from them with a parachute.

In the end, 40% of the country's economy is IT. The main thing is not to be deceived by too sweet median of salaries , it is always indicated before taxes. It's not like in Russia, that everyone pays 13% and that's it. Everyone has their own benefits and their own taxes: new repatriates, single fathers and mothers, families with many children, etc. Therefore, always write before deduction.
(Link in Hebrew, because Google translator to help)

Oh yes, in the gray here no one works, as we are often used to, well, or successfully hiding. The tax here, like an angry dog, does not close its eyes to anything.

Life if in one word

There is a wonderful joke:

Vasya repatriated to Israel, comes home to his friends in six months, and they say to him:
- You, Vasya, well done straight! Tell me how it lives in Israel in one word?
- Good.
- It's great how! And if two?
- Not good.

Despite the obvious advantages, life here is not the easiest. From trifles, it happens that often in stores you will not find the usual range of goodies, and the prices are just wild for everything. You can multiply by two the usual Moscow price tag (and not the Moscow one - by three) and get a real Israeli one. For example, kinder chocolate costs 160r.

To understand, honey is a delicacy and is sold in portions in tubes like shampoo:

A bank can also be bought, but will come out in the region of 1k rubles per liter of the simplest and unclear what quality.

But of the serious shortcomings and, perhaps most important, is permanent war. You feel like in Starcraft, you have to run to the bomb shelter at least once a week. thank protective field Iron Dome, all cost. So if you are an impressionable person, then it is better to look for a quieter place.

And here is a couple of horror films.

For example, in Jerusalem, you can see how there are heavy metal bars around the bus stops:

This is not done for beauty and not for artificial reasons. One day, especially ideological Arabs got into gear at full speed to let their vehicles into the crowded stops at rush hour, taking with them a dozen people to the valgallus. Now they put here such mini-towers in especially popular crowded places.

But security is taken unusually seriously here: at the entrance to any shopping center, bus station or any other place full of people, you will be looked at almost like an airport. Yes everyone. Yes, without exception. All the gear in x-ray, and you through the arch with the guard.

On the street there are crowds of soldiers. Girls in dresses with machine guns - this is the norm. If something happens, then always in sight will be a citizen armed as a ground attack aircraft. Well, the police, of course, are not the usual fat-bellied guys on the loaves, who don't care about anything. These image and equipment is somewhat more serious. And the response rate is higher, here with this strictly.

But there are oddities. For example, cause a fire - for a fee. An ambulance service is paid if you are not taken to the hospital according to objective indicators. But they can still take away when the bill comes for the last call.

Continuing the conversation about prices, from your earned amount, you need to give about 1000 bucks for housing and 300 dollars for food, if you eat at home and cook yourself. Eating at McDonalds will pull $ 20 out of pocket, and a normal establishment will cost about 1.5 times more (depending on the location, of course). Cheaper on the street, you can eat in eateries with falafel, where $ 10 just burst. Although cheap, you can’t wait for someone to wash their hands before preparing your lunch.

Now about the road. One trip in public transport will rise on average at $ 1.5. A month ride with all transfers will eat $ 100. I cannot say anything about the car so far, except that the tax on the purchase of a car costs more than the car itself.

Total, counting all the costs, if you are not a puritan and like to go out into the city to have fun, as well as a tasty meal, you will need about $ 2000 for a decent life.

By the way, the most expensive treat in Israel is smoking. If you are a smoker and are going to have a rest or just on business, then stock up on cigarettes, the wallet will tell you "Thank you." Cigarettes and tobacco here are about 3-4 times more expensive (and sometimes more) than in the CIS. In extreme cases, you can sell (:

And it's very hot here. Especially in summer. Without a bottle of water to go out is just dangerous.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I want to say that for the short time that I am here, the feelings are ambiguous. On the one hand, the country is predisposed to IT. Many buns, huge salaries, even the state. financing startups with delicious conditions. The infrastructure is made according to the mind, on the whole it is more pleasant to be.

And on the other hand, a scoop that runs through from everywhere with a complete lack of service and Norwegian prices. For example, going to McDuck you will not receive your order until you kick an employee. At first, I thought that I was just out of luck, but this rule turned out to be, and not an exception.

In general, if you are a good specialist, and even more so with Jewish roots, then you will be happy as rain. Pay ready, really, a lot.

But do not expect a simple life, it is a country of contrasts.