Experience in job search and moving to Dubai

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I have seen many different articles on the topic of employment / work in America and Europe, but I have not seen anything about the Middle East. This article will discuss how I looked for the work of an iOS developer in Dubai, I work and live here.

Foreword


I grew up in Donetsk, graduated in IT. When my studies came to an end, in front of me was the choice to graduate from a magistracy or a specialist. At that time I was pretty tired of studying and wanted to finish faster. In consultation with his supervisor, he persuaded me to go to graduate school, which I resisted and, in the end, refused. At that moment, he told me that with the education of a specialist, problems can arise only in the Arab countries, to which I replied: "I will not go there." I could not even think that I would be here. Time passed, everything changed, and after the beginning of the famous sad events that continue to this day, it was decided to leave his hometown.

Search


My wife and I arrived in Dubai on a tourist visa and the first thing I did was register at the local job site. Unfortunately, when we started considering vacancies, there were very few (1-2) positions with a less or less good salary, the rest were much less than our minimum. Frustrated, I began to send out my resume and try myself for interviews. But none of them received an answer. It is worth noting that the situation with visas is not the same as in the USA and Europe, it’s enough to prepare a small list of documents, then within 7-10 days the employer will provide you with a work visa, and it costs a lot for them. Therefore, visitors are always welcome here everywhere.

After some time, the employer wrote me myself, I did not see their vacancy and I do not remember that I would send them a resume. The test task was immediately written in the letter, which I needed to send to them in order for them to consider me. I want to say that at that time I had about 1.5 years of experience and this was my easiest test task. Even when in Donetsk I was looking for an iOS developer and said directly that I did not have experience and want to learn for a small salary, they interviewed me as if I had already made more than one application, but it turned out just the opposite.

In general, I did this test in Swift in just a few hours and sent it back on the same day. The next day I received an invitation to the office and then I began to worry. At that time, I never spoke English, i.e. I knew him, I could read and write, but in practice I never spoke. There was fear before me, but what if I don’t understand something or if they don’t understand me, I won’t tell them to wait until I translate in a translator, what kind of work are you talking about?

When I came to the office, HR met me and started asking general questions, she had good English, I understood everything and she understood me, even though I sometimes stumbled. After it, I met with the technical director, who asked me the test code and some fairly simple questions that I would probably answer without experience. After that, I was taken to the director of the company, where he boasted of their applications and we went on to discuss the salary. They could not give me the one that I wanted, referring to the fact that I have only 1.5 years of experience, and this is the level of Junior developer, but in any case they offered above my minimum. The next day I received a contract from them, and they were ready to take me without a trial period. This whole search took me a little over a week.

I did not rush to sign the contract and took the time, because it was my first interview, I wanted to try other companies too, and I still wanted a higher salary. The next couple of weeks did not give any result, and when my tourist visa was drawing to a close, I received another invitation for an interview. After him, I received a test task, which in fact was not a test, but most likely a real project. I was sent the application mockups in JPG and asked them to make a finished application. To my questions about the need for me to cut icons, services for working with the server, etc., they simply kept silent, I still did not understand the meaning of all this and did not consider them anymore.

After conferring with my wife, we decided that the payment that the first company offered me would be small and then we took the risk. I wrote them a letter that I would sign a contract if they agree on my price, otherwise I do not agree. As a way out, we thought that we would return to Dubai in a month and continue to search for work.

They refused me.

We returned to Ukraine and expected the time of the next trip, simultaneously sending out a resume from there. After about 2 weeks, this company again contacted me and said that they agreed on my price, so the risk was worth it. They asked me to send them photocopies of documents by e-mail and made me a visa.

Work


Upon arrival in Dubai, I took a visa, but it was temporary and I had to undergo a medical examination and change it for a long-term passport. The only problem that arises when moving to the UAE is the length of the visa application process. After arriving in the country, it will be processed within 1-2 months, and while you do not have a visa in your passport and Emirates ID, you cannot rent normal accommodation, and accordingly, your hotel expenses will be large.
The company reimbursed me for the cost of the flight.

The working week here is not the same as everywhere else, it is here from Sun to Thu (I still get confused and call Thursday Friday, although it has already been 1.5 years), but also many companies practice the working week with one day off, from Sat to Thu. In my case, my week is from Sun to Thu, but every first Sat month is half a day working. In fact, there is no sense in this Saturday at all.

The working hours are approximately the same as ours from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., but in my case from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., lunch is 1 hour. Because it is an IT company, it’s a bit freer here and if you wish, you can move working hours and take lunch at any time. Overtime is not paid, then I think you will understand why.

Paid vacation - 28 days, it can be taken after a year of work. Once a year, the company pays for tickets to 2 ends home.
The hospital is also paid (the company provides insurance). If you wish, you can take a free vacation.
Public holidays are weekends. In addition, there is ramadan, which lasts 1 month, during which the working day is reduced by 2-4 hours, depending on the enterprises.

Despite the fact that IT companies are famous for the fact that you can dress as you want, this does not work here. You can’t go in shorts and slippers, the exception is only a half-working Saturday, on this day it is possible. But perhaps this is due to the fact that our company cooperates very closely with a large emirate bank and sometimes we have to go there.

According to the law, upon dismissal in the first 6 months, there is a chance to get a ban and a ban on working in the emirates for a certain period, but there are a lot of nuances here, I won’t go into details.

Also, companies here are divided into local and free zones. There are some differences in them, but for example, after receiving a ban in the local you can work in the free zone.

So, I came to work on the first day, they allocated me a place, the manager told me everything and led me to get to know everyone, then I understood where I got to. Absolutely all programmers were of Indo-Pakistani descent, and even half of them were female. I have nothing against the girls of programmers, but everyone knows about the Indians and their code, and here also the girls. Designers are Filipinos. Management arabic.

The first few days were fact-finding and they did not give me a normal project. Over the past few days, I have roughly learned that most iOS developers have solid experience, for example, one girl had 6 years of experience in IT, was in Senior positions and several years already in iOS. The other guy had about 4 years of experience in iOS. Looking at this, I thought it might be too early for me to get scared and not everything is so bad, because I had a solid experience anyway, and I was one of the youngest or even the youngest in my 25s.

After about a week of familiarization, I was attracted to the project, which at that time was on fire. Having launched the project, I was surprised to say the least. The street was 2015, iOS 8 is in full swing and a month later the presentation of iOS 9, people do not use NSLayoutConstraint, and of course the application did not display normally on all devices, as I understand it, they did not run it at all on the simulator other than iPhone 5. But the project was already burning, i.e. they have already tried to transfer it to the User Acceptance Testing stage. The application crashed on almost every screen, it is worth noting that this also happened because the server side (on the customer side) changed services without reporting it. The code of this application was a complete mess and it was immediately obvious that it was written by different people who were not even a team. Pieces of code were repeated 10-15 times, obvious places for inheritance were ignored (not all, still there were places where it was, so they still knew what it was and why). In fact, the application was not ready at all, a sketch, but the time was spent several months. Where managers looked is not clear.

I never delved into the code of this application, I went to the technical director and told everything as is. He asked me to set the constants in the interface (because, as it turned out, no one knew how to use them properly) and that’s all, that’s my task in this project is closed and they will give me a new project from scratch, which I agreed to.

Having received a new project, I was called by the iOS Team Lead to instruct how I should write. He imposed on me the libraries that they had been using for a long time FormKit and TableKit, and they altered these libraries to fit their needs and, as it turned out, made a bunch of their mistakes. They did not fork from the current project, but simply took it and put it in their SVN. Yes, and about Cocoapods there was no question, they also did not know how to use it.

Having spent a couple of days trying to comply with their style, I realized that this would not bring to good. I went again to the technical director and explained that after all, 2015 was in the yard and I had to keep up with the times, which he agreed to and allowed me to not fully comply with their rules. He was probably the only one who at least understood me more or less, the rest simply did not even want to think about changing anything.

After some time, he asked me if I have friends who also want to work here. I suggested to my comrade with whom I worked before and he successfully passed the interview and an invitation was sent to him. With the arrival of my friend, it became a little easier to confront them and we gradually began to impose our ideas, such as using Cocoapods, Git, etc.

Time passed, and the management tried to use us as teachers, they began to conduct trainings where we talked about something, but we were tired of it, in the end, we did not come here to work as teachers, but according to their version, to the Junior position. To put it mildly, it looked ridiculous when the 2 most inexperienced and the youngest employees teach those who are in the Middle / Senior position.

The company also did not use any system for conducting projects, and after we poked a finger at it, or so it coincided, we got JIRA.

Now we are more or less divorced from the rest of the developers, we are engaged in our projects, they are our own, although it is far from complete autonomy.

We have not made friends with the team and are still on their own. We have no enmity, but we are not friends, we have a good relationship with management, but not friendly, I think there still plays the role of different cultures.

A lot can be written about all kinds of battles and their incompetence, but the article is already getting rather big, so I summarize: the issue of staff qualification is very acute here, which is why a lot of money is being spent. Prices for fairly simple applications reach hundreds of thousands of dollars, because they are priced in a very long time, and customers accustomed to this agree. The owners of outsourcing companies are rubbing their hands, but it wasn’t there, locals like to work locally, come to the office and discuss everything in person over a cup of coffee.

A life


I have not been to America, but from what I know and from the stories of acquaintances, much has been done here in the likeness. Similar road infrastructure. As well as there, a long-term lease is concluded by a contract for a year, where it is necessary to pay by check, or the entire amount for the year, which is fundamentally different from our Ukrainian (I think Russian, too) approach, where you drop a card every month or pay in cash to the owner.

Housing

Basically the apartments here are empty and you will need to buy all the furniture. The average cost of a studio apartment in a good area will cost about $ 20,000 a year. The rental price is high, in addition to the annual rental, you need to pay a lot of deposits for connecting utilities, gas, air conditioning and the Internet. But, if you do not need an apartment, you can rent a room, or half a room, prices range from $ 500 to $ 800 on average. Also the distance from the metro plays a very important role (as it is everywhere), but here it must be borne in mind that in summer even 1-2 km on foot will not be easy for you. Therefore, it is advisable to live and work not far from metro stations. You can live in neighboring Emirate and save on rental housing. For example, an apartment 2-3 bedrooms in Sharjah will cost you $ 15,000, but you need to consider

Basically, every house has a gym and a swimming pool that you can use for free, the better the house, the better the conditions, but the rental price is corresponding. It can also be a sauna, a playground, a tennis court, other sports grounds ... all this is free.

Transport

Urban transport here is quite expensive, it is cheaper to maintain a car, the price of gas is about 50 cents per liter, but it fluctuates after the government ceased subsidies.

If you have rights from the countries of the former Soviet Union, then you will have to go through 20-30-40 lessons again, and then pass the exam, it all takes time and money. At a minimum it will cost you $ 1000.

Driving a car here is quite simple, the interchanges are made in such a way that you do not have to cross unregulated intersections. But other drivers make life very difficult, mainly because some of them were wild and they saw the car only on TV, and when they got here they immediately got behind the wheel, others are mostly local emirates who know that they won’t be anything for it . So learn to swear driving.

Nutrition

Food here is quite inexpensive, given that almost everything is imported here, on average for 2 people you can invest up to $ 100 per week, i.e. go to the supermarket and buy everything you need for a week in advance. Food on the food court is not very expensive $ 7 -15 $, but it is also not very healthy. In restaurants, dinner will cost you the weekly cost of a supermarket.

Entertainment

First of all, there is the sea and you can always go for a sunbath and swim, though in the summer it is very warm, so you can go to the pool, which is cooled in some houses. In fact, I always thought that if I live at sea, I will swim every day, but this is not so, I do not always even want to.

In addition to the sea, there are many different malls where you can spend time, it is always cool there, even in the very heat. For example, there is even a skating rink and ski slope with snow, penguins and freezing temperatures at any time of the year.

Heat

It is really very hot in the summer and it is not easy to get from the house to the metro stop, but everything is air-conditioned, all cars, buses, metro, bus / metro stops, so if you live and work near the metro you will not notice much heat, and if there is a car, even more so.

It rains in winter, this winter it was cloudy and rainy for a whole week. They say that this is done artificially.

Communication

Here, all large enterprises are state-owned, which create a monopoly. For example, you have a choice between two mobile operators (they are also Internet providers), but they have the same prices. Mobile communications and the Internet are much more expensive than in our countries. For example, home Internet at a speed of 3 Mbps will cost you $ 100, and the usual 100 Mbps for us in a few thousand.

And these companies also block applications for telephony, so they won’t be able to chat through Viber, VPNs are also constantly blocked. Although Skype has not failed yet.

Tongue

Almost everyone speaks English here. You will have difficulty in communicating only with various builders, locksmiths, street cleaners, who are mainly of Indian origin. But it’s worth controlling yourself, there are a lot of Indians who make the wrong pronunciation, for example, the word Actually is pronounced as “exculi”, so that you don’t start talking either. It is also not always clear, for example, when they say table they pronounce as cable and you have to understand from the context what they are talking about.

If you know Arabic, then this is a huge plus, not only for karma, but also for salary, it will be much easier for you to find a job, even in a government agency, but here, unlike ours, they pay very well.

Attitude

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When undergoing a physical examination, I noticed that people of European appearance are better treated, for example, a security guard could tell me to pass earlier when others needed to stand.

In general, here you will be well treated. I compare the work of state institutions, for example, when I applied for a wife and asked questions in the visa department, they politely answered me and sometimes more than once, and now imagine what they did to you in our passport office. Our government employees are a little nervous, to say the least.

The only thing I didn’t like was the speed of work of all state bodies, they work no worse than the sloths in the cartoon “Zeropolis” .

Safety here is at its best and there is no fear of walking at night or forgetting something in a public place and this eases the vigilance a bit, so there is a chance to be deceived.

Corruption

Here it is, but only at a high level. Indeed, if you offer money to a policeman or another government agency so that you do something or don’t do something, then you will have big troubles. Using the example of the police, it makes no sense for the policeman not to issue you a fine for a bribe, because he will therefore receive a% for this fine.

Taxes

Officially there are no taxes. But, there are a lot of so-called “service charge” that are used everywhere. Even renting an apartment, you will pay% of the annual cost. Recently introduced for the use of the airport, for those flying from Dubai. There is no transport tax, but there are toll roads.

In fact, while there is no VAT and payroll tax here, if you get $ 5,000 under a contract, that’s how much you’ll be credited to your account, but there are rumors that in a few years they can come up with something.

Irritation

I made it a separate point, because it really deserves. There are a lot of Indians unrealistic and they cannot do anything qualitatively anywhere and anywhere. They can’t even wash the car normally, right after washing you can walk around and see full of dirty places in prominent places. The Arabs themselves jokingly say that this is the United Indian Emirates.

Conclusion


As you can see, I did not experience any difficulties with the diploma and, in fact, I would have been accepted with a bachelor’s diploma or even without it.

Am I glad I came here? - Yes, because I received and am getting invaluable experience, and it’s interesting to live here, after all, the world-famous metropolis. But I realized one thing: here you need to develop your business, especially if you can provide quality services. Due to the fact that there are a lot of low-skilled personnel, you will be out of competition.

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