Blaue Karte for a near IT guy or how I dumped to Germany

A bit about emigration to Germany by Blau Karte for not quite specialized IT people:
For a start, a little about me, so that it would be clear from which point I began to get ready to emigrate. Education - BS (Bachelor of Sciences) in chemistry, BA (Bachelor of Arts) in mathematics, MS in chemistry in one rather specific area. I received the tower in the US, but then (I was young and stupid) returned to Russia, where for about 6 years I worked in BI (Business Intelligence) in two companies (the first is a local manufacturer of BI software, the second is a rather large telecom). Experience in IT - three years of analyzing big data in C ++ (in the process of obtaining its master's degree), then mainly Python, SQL and various BI-systems (mostly in conjunction with Oracle). I speak English fluently, I do not know other languages.

Hamburg, Jungfernstieg

After the events of 2014, the promising large BI company with claims to enter the international market in which I worked went bankrupt and I had to look for a new job. I found a job, but there was a desire to get somewhere far away from our vaunted "stability", well, and I did not emigrate for the first time, why not try?

Initially, I considered the English-speaking countries - States, Australia, New Zealand, Britain, well, at worst, Canada. Since I was going to move - you can try to move to a country with the best climate and not freeze in -35 in winter. The Internet, the whole world is within reach. I posted a resume on LinkedIn, for a couple of other sites, spammed on some forums I’m used to log in and comment on, sent a resume to a bunch of different companies and waited.

Surprisingly, personal contacts (albeit on the forums) gave a good result. Following the results, LinkedIn brought me interviews from as many as 8 companies (one of which I received my current offer), but one half-a-day comment (like “a mad scientist looking for work in an English-speaking country, Python, SQL, C ++, intima not to offer” ) in one blog, where a good number of IT people hang out (although the blog is not IT), I already had 3 interviews, one of which was with a very well-known large company.

About interviews. At the first interview with Blozhik (USA) it turned out that we misunderstood each other, and they need another specialist (which is not surprising given the not very precise text of the original announcement). At the second interview (bank, Britain), the employer quietly merged - apparently, the employee posted the answer to my question without consulting with HR. At the third interview (USA, a large well-known company) I reached the test task stage, but in the end it did not burn out - I was given a data set in csv on the test task and was told to parse it in Python, in accordance with the documentation. I wrote a script on Python that loaded the data into the SQL database, then carefully and meticulously parsed the data with SQL queries (again from Python), and drew beautiful graphs using Python tools. As a result, I was told that I disassembled the data well, but they wanted me to set the data set, and I zaqed it - I had to write data parsing using only pandas. As a result, we broke up quite friendly, and their HR promised me that if they suddenly need a SQL box, they will write to me (but, as a result, they did not write).

About interviews with LinkedIn - despite the fact that I indicated in my profile that I wanted to move to an English-speaking country, they wrote from almost everywhere, but mostly from Europe. I didn’t pass the majority of interviews - “we will call you back”, or refused from - a country in which I need to speak a completely unfamiliar language and work for clients that I wouldn’t want to work on. Of those cases where I tried, I especially remember the interviews with one company that invited me to move to Poland (among IT specialists known as “Galera”). I passed 7 interviews with them. First, an interview with HR, then with a senior programmer in the department in which I was going to be attached, then with the head of the department, then with the department of a client from Britain, then with the department of a client from the USA. At the last one, I merged - there were as many as 5 people who, for two hours, palyed me with questions on each topic, which at least some edge related to my theoretical activity in their company or was at least indirectly mentioned in my resume . When I came out of the outhouse (and where else can I have an interview on Skype during working hours, if I can't go home, and right when my colleagues are uncomfortable), I was covered in sweat and my hands were shaking. In the end, US customers said they liked the other guy better. But, since I went through internal interviews, I stayed with them in the database as a “promising employee”, and I was sent to another round of interviews for the next job, which I was suitable for. But, by the time I passed two interviews, I already had an offer from my current employer, so I politely refused the offer of the third interview.

So, one day I received an offer from a recruiter to join a small startup in Germany, which required a BI developer. I replied that I was not particularly interested in offers in non-English-speaking countries (I agreed with Poland for an interview because I assumed that a good percentage of the population speaks Russian, someone knows English, and, in general, we arrange something somehow). But the recruiter assured me that this is not a problem, and it started ...

I had to pass a veiled IQ test (such as “a 1 km long train travels at a speed of 1 km / min, enters a 1 km long tunnel. How long does it take the train to go through the tunnel?”), And two interviews: with the developer from the company and my the future head of the BI department (which was not yet in the company, BI just got together to create). As a result, I received an offer for the minimum wage at Blaue Karte.

So, the first call. I collected and filed documents for Blaue Karte at BI Developer position. I and the recruiter had no special doubts that I would pass. For general information, Blau Karte is such a visa in the European Union with the right to work, which is given to specialists in technical fields requiring higher education - physicists, chemists, mathematicians, doctors and IT specialists, who stand out without the need to know the local language and under certain conditions on accelerated obtaining a residence permit and citizenship. We hoped that my education (chemistry) and my specialty now (IT) together would give me a winning combination. But it didn’t work out that way ...

Initially, my wife and I applied for a Blaue Karte visa on my part and for a family reunion on her part. For my part, the profession of “chemist” by education and the profession of “programmer” by profession are indicated. But as they say, there is a nuance. Blaue Karte is given to specialists with specialized education, or specialists with work experience equivalent to this “specialized education”. Germany accepts specialists with specialized education that meets German standards (if you are not sure if you meet, look at anabin.de. It’s better to have a printout from this site so that bureaucrats do not waste time looking for your university and your specialty). By the way, my specialty was all so-so - both uni were rated H +, which means good, suitable, but there is no specialty in Anabin, for example, which is simply “Chemist”. There are basically specialties like “Specialist in physics of solids”, for example, and in the States, as a rule, there is no specialty; they simply write “Physics BS” in the diploma, which usually is not in Anabin. (By the way, if my wife knew the language, at least English - it would be easier for her to pass than me - her university and specialty were on the IT list. She has a specialty - an economist-mathematician, a programmer who is in Anabin.) do not match - it is also possible, just need more hemorrhoids to prove the suitability of their education. (But, by the end, I had a ride without confirmation of the specialty). Also, Blaue Karte should be given according to work experience, which corresponds to a profile education, but German politicians cannot (or do not want to) decide what experience should be and what work corresponds to what education, so Blau Karte does not give in Germany, accordingly, a note for IT students with non-core education: find yourself the reason why your education is in fact specialized.

And so, we went and filed our visa applications. Usually, they do everything to the blue card quickly, but we had to wait 6 weeks, and then the answer came “come and take your decision”. As we found out later, this answer comes when you are denied a visa (when they give you, they immediately say that your visa is ready, everything is fine, come and take it). I asked why I was refused, I received an answer - you are a chemist, but when you become a chemist, then come and do not meddle with programmers.

But my employer, apparently, liked me, so we decided to try to give me a second chance. At first, our chances looked rather gloomy - we were going to try a second time to file documents for the same position, adding references from previous places of work and study, confirming my experience in IT, and that I can be useful as an IT person. But then we got a better idea. Prove to bureaucrats that a chemist is not only the person who pours ethanol from a test tube into his mouth, but maybe a person who, while working on his dissertation, never touched the test tubes, but wrote a dozen or two thousand lines code and perepatil petabyte or two data - is dead. So we did it easier - I was offered a place for a similar vacancy with a different name - Data Engineer. Then I shook off the dust from my diploma in mathematics, and together with the employer we wrote a letter to the Turkish sultan of the type “We need a person who works with data - Data Engineer. Data is such tsiferki in the database. With tsiferkami able to work mathematics. Tov. Nitrat is a mathematician, which means that it is suitable for our job. ”For bureaucrats, this option looks better - they are not interested that you have worked with a dozen of programming language databases, with cleverly-sounding names, it is important for them that someone chew them on the elementary level, why you know how to do what you need for this job. Also, the recruiter, on behalf of the employer, brought my documents to the local Bundesagentur für Arbeit (Ministry of Labor) to check whether I meet the requirements. Bundesagentur für Arbeit agreed that, in principle, I comply, and as a result I went to the consulate a second time with the new documents and confirmation letter from Bundesagentur für Arbeit. By that time, however, half a year had already passed from the initial offer, so I was already in the company of a very pregnant wife (well, that’s how we did it). The second time all the same passed, as expected - the decision was made within a week, and I arrived and received a visa.

Then there was chaos and thrash - since we no longer really hoped that everything would turn out, we had to get together quickly. Since our small family includes one fat red cat — it had to do international documents to it — but they did them as a result (note to emigrants with cats and other animals) - make documents and vaccinations in advance, it may take up to a month to make your documents favorite kitty). On the last day before departure, I urgently took the cat documents. To leave, you had to get a stamp on the cat's passport from the Rosselkhoznadzor or something like that - and in our city this desk is located in a hellish area about ten kilometers from the center. I arrived at the office, handed over the documents, they told me that they would do everything until 6 o'clock (and they closed at 6) and went for a walk. And then opanki - cops. The police prikopalas to me with the question - what am I walking around in this area, to which I honestly replied that I was doing a passport to a cat. This answer was asked a counter question - a citizen, when was the last time you took drugs? As a result, I had to plead guilty to drinking alcohol in a public place (otherwise I would have been sent for a narcological examination, and I would have managed to pick up the cat documents), and pay a fine of 500 rubles (with which hemorrhoids I paid from Germany, for I removed everything money from your Russian account and transferred to the euro - a separate story). Therefore - be careful when receiving documents in suspicious areas, and do not delay until the last day.

Since the wife was quite in position, the doctor forbade her to fly on the plane (for complications), so we ended up going to Germany by train. For a two-seater coupe, in which animals are allowed to carry, had to pay a pretty good amount.

The conductor on the train scared us very much with European border guards - everything is shaky, meat and dairy cannot be transported, and in general the full end of dinner. A very pregnant wife constantly wanted to EAT, and therefore we had rather decent meat and dairy with us. We decided to compromise - all suspicious food items are openly laid out on the table, if taken away, then let them be taken, and if not, then not. But everything went much easier. On the Polish border, the border guards (apparently, German-speaking), seeing the cat, exclaimed in chorus "Katze!" And gathered together with the whole crowd to look at this very Katze. In the baggage, no one rummaged, no one looked at the table (and in principle, it was clear that the bearded programmer, tired of the bureaucracy, the pregnant woman and the red kitty could hardly carry something especially illegal), and, looking at Katze, the border guards checked our passports and went to the rest of the compartment.

(by the way, here is Katze)

')
That's how we came to Germany. We have been living here for half a year and successfully gave birth to a son. From interesting questions:

1. In large cities with knowledge of English, you can live, about 90% of situations can be denied in English, in other cases there is a google translate, a call to a colleague and a finger “I want this one”.
2. The biggest problem is to find an apartment at the same time, register and do everything for yourself, such as a bank account and a telephone. In many cases, something like amendment 22 comes out - in order to let you rent an apartment, you need to have an account statement, official registration, etc., but in order to open an account, you need an official address and all that.
3. Carry your Android phone or iOS. Out of old habit, I prefer to have a stupid-button dialer at all (I have enough internet at home and at work), but a normal smartphone, where you can install the necessary applications, often helps a lot. And yes, Windows Phone is not an option.