December 14, 2014 at 12:58How I left to work as a programmer in Sweden (Part 1)
On Habré already wrote about how IT people move to London , San Francisco and some other foreign locations, as well as very sensible about emigration in general . To my surprise, I did not find a similar note about Sweden. Since I currently live in the glorious city of Stockholm and work for a Swedish company, I decided to rectify this situation.
After I finished the description of my moving story, I realized with horror that it turned out to be huge. Therefore, I decided to break it into two parts.
I have been developing applications for the iOS platform for more than 3 years. As it turned out in the countries of the “decaying” West, this profession is in demand and important. So much so that foreign employers are ready to invite workers from abroad, including from Russia.
The first proposals for an interview for an iOS developer position in foreign companies began to come about two years ago via LinkedIn. After conferring with my wife, we came to the conclusion that you can try to work abroad. Great Britain was recognized as a country suitable for emigration.
There are several ways to emigrate to the UK, however, the only suitable option for us was a visa for qualified specialists (the so-called Tier 2 (General) visa). The essence of the requirements of this visa boils down to the fact that a new immigrant must have an invitation to work from a British employer (job offer), money for work for the first time (£ 945 per employee + £ 630 for each other family member - at the time I studied this the question, maybe now the numbers are different), a document on knowledge of the English language, and also (and this is crucial!) - the desire and ability of the British employer to make the employee Certificate of Sponsorship .
It took about a year to prepare and obtain the Cambridge CAE certificate, which is a sufficient document to confirm knowledge of the English language. After receiving it in early 2014, the active phase of the job search began.
In the period from January to June 2014, I sent / responded to vacancies on British recruiting sites about 150 times. I meticulously documented all contacts so as not to apply to the same vacancy more than once. For approximately every 5-8 response, I received feedback in the form of a recruiter's call. Yes, exactly the call. British recruiters love to call. Neither write to email, nor communicate via Skype, no. They love to call.
In 4 cases out of 5, the call came down to a conversation in the style of:
Recruiter: Hello, (blah blah blah) , tell me, what are you doing now?
I: tell you where, by whom and how much I work.
Recruiter: Do you have the right to work in the UK?
Me: Unfortunately, I need a Certificate of Sponsorship.
Recruiter: (disappointed) Ahh ... You know, unfortunately the employer does not do Sponsorship, but I will try to find another vacancy for you. Bye!
I think it is unnecessary to write that I have never heard anything more from such recruiters.
After about 5 months of active searches (in May 2014), it became clear that the approach to responding to vacancies and finding recruiters engaged in the selection of developers for mobile platforms for the Britishmarket does not work. After a series of strategic meetings with the other half, it was decided to expand the geography of searches. The list of countries suitable for emigration in addition to the UK was expanded to include neighboring Ireland and the Netherlands, as well as currently friendly to all technically savvy specialists in Germany.
I approached Ireland in a manner similar to the British: I registered on the main sites of recruitment agencies, posted a resume there and began to respond to ads. In total, I responded to approximately 30 vacancies. There was no feedback at all.
The answer came when I was contacted by a recruiter girl working in Ireland, but originally from Romania. She suggested that Irish recruiting agencies through sites look primarily for people who have the right to work in Ireland. As a Russian citizen, I need to make an invitation to work, it takes a long time (it can take several months) and expensive (the employer pays 1000 euros when applying). Therefore, no one was interested in my person. The girl also advised looking for an employer directly, not through recruitment sites and recruiters.
Finding Irish employers directly was not as easy as it might seem at first. However, I managed to arrange an interview with a hostel booking company. But then I get a little ahead of myself.
About the same time as the start of the search on the extended list, the girl Ellie from a British recruiting agency came to me. The first telephone conversation with her (the British like to call, remember?) Lasted nearly half an hour. In principle, at that time for me it was already quite a normal conversation, some chatty comrades could torture me for more about my experience, achievements and aspirations. In general, I did not attach much importance to this conversation. As it turned out, in vain.
This girl grabbed at me a grip that the English bulldog would envy (for which, by the way, thank you very much to her). I still don’t know why: either she acted according to some of her instructions for working with job seekers, or she realized that someone with my experience would succeed in “profitably” selling me.
She immediately warned that her company specializes in continental Europe, that is, no UK or Ireland. There were several positions to choose from in Germany and one in Sweden. Based on her own experience, she recommended interviewing all positions. Germany was on our extended list, so I agreed to German positions without delay.
Sweden walked, as they say, "to the heap." I did not intend to move to Sweden seriously, but it’s always useful to talk in English for additional experience in interviewing. Therefore, he agreed to the Swedish position.
There were as many as three positions in Germany.
The first was at Yelp . Their head office is in California, development in California and Hamburg. Their interview took place in two stages:
1. First, a conversation on Skype with their HR specialist, a story about themselves, their work. The following is a brief set of several questions to weed out completely unsuitable candidates. Apparently, I answered the questions correctly, because at the end of the survey I was informed that I went to the second round and will continue to have a technical interview with the company's leading iOS developer.
2. A technical interview took place after about a week and a half. At 10 am California time (9 pm Moscow time). A story about his work experience, completed projects, answers to questions about ARC, manual memory management. Next, write a method that expands a linked list in an online text editor with the ability to edit the code by both participants in the interview. The list is not fast, but successfully deployed, they promise to contact after a while.
A few days later, Ellie informed me that Yelp chose to take on the position of a person with extensive iOS development experience. Well, what can you do, it happens.
The second position was a position in a company engaged in the development of a service for joint trips (the so-called carpooling) and located in Munich. At first I talked with the head of mobile development, who turned out to be a rather nervous German. This comrade was very worried, spoke English with a strong German accent, and I got the impression that he felt even more insecure than me. :) Plus, he said that at present, the development of a mobile version of the product is considered a priority and it is planned to direct all efforts to it.
Standard questions: how much I do development, what projects did I do, etc. After this interview, a technical interview was appointed with the company's leading iOS developer. This comrade turned out to be a Romanian, with development experience less than mine. In the course of the conversation with him, I found out a lot of interesting details about how their product works. I also learned that before the start of product development within the company, it was done by a consulting firm (I have met this approach more than once or twice in several other interviews, from which I concluded that this practice is very popular in Europe), and at the time product interviews were developed by this guy and a team of four Moldovans outsourced. In addition, I clearly understood that my experience with the head is enough to work in this company.
Mentally determined to go to Munich after a technical interview, I was surprised and horrified to learn a few days later from Ellie that the management of this company decided once again to change the product development strategy and again gave the development to a third-party company. The fate of the Romanian and unfortunate Moldovans remained unknown to me. I suppose the first was left to oversee the work of third-party developers, and the latter were fired.
The third German position was in a Berlin startup that made another Google killer. Before the interview, these comrades sent a test task consisting of three tasks of increasing complexity, which had to be done in a special service for a limited time, the name of which I again did not remember. I don’t know what these comrades sought in the first place: did they want the applicants to do as many tasks as possible on their own, only relying on knowledge of rare algorithms, or to find a way to solve problems in the same Google. I solved the first problem myself, found the solutions of the second and third in Google (how ironic, right?). Convincing feedback from them did not come; I dare to suggest that they hired someone who solved all the problems himself.
The option from the Swedes, I repeat, I did not consider among the priority ones.
First, there were several video calls on Skype with at least four different people: two co-founders of the company (one of them is also CEO), a product manager, and a leading iOS developer. All of these persons turned out to be very friendly friendly people with whom it was quite easy to communicate.
The interviews themselves were as follows. The co-founders were interested in the work experience in general, completed projects, talked on fairly abstract topics, talked about the company. The purpose of communication with me was not so much to evaluate my professional qualities, but how well I fit into the existing team.
The product manager was interested in about the same issues as the co-founders, but in addition to this, he was interested in the technical details of iOS projects in which I participated: what technologies we used on the client and on the server, how we transferred data between clients and servers, etc. .d.
The leading iOS developer asked mainly about technical knowledge, including (but not limited to) memory management - MRR and ARC, knowledge of specific frameworks, working with iTunes Connect, Provisioning Portal, etc. After a technical interview, which lasted about 30 minutes, I was sent a test task - to write a small application that works with the API of some existing song lyrics word search service.
The task was given about a week. In parallel, I had another test task, of a similar nature, but I don’t remember from whom specifically. I had to pretty well sit in the evenings after work and on weekends to get everything done. “It helped” that the ill-fated service API returned data in the form of XML, moreover, generated by a poorly configured Microsoft server. Since it was undesirable to use a third-party XML parser according to the conditions of the task, I spit scared. By the way, the leading iOS developer still apologizes for this “crappy API”, says that he didn’t work with him personally, he wanted to give a task in related subjects.
The technical people really liked the solution of the problem, I began to wait for a solution regarding the job offer. By that time, my friend HR manager Ellie had already been replaced by her boss (apparently, standard practice at the final stage of the transaction, he has more experience - it is more likely that the transaction will not fail) Matthew. Matthew kindly said that the Swedes generally have only two candidates: me and another comrade who was "well, absolutely none." Therefore, Matt recommended stocking up with champagne and waiting for the offer. I, given previous experience, was skeptical.
And then it was time to talk again about the Irish ...
But about this - in the second part of the post .
After I finished the description of my moving story, I realized with horror that it turned out to be huge. Therefore, I decided to break it into two parts.
Introduction
I have been developing applications for the iOS platform for more than 3 years. As it turned out in the countries of the “decaying” West, this profession is in demand and important. So much so that foreign employers are ready to invite workers from abroad, including from Russia.
The first proposals for an interview for an iOS developer position in foreign companies began to come about two years ago via LinkedIn. After conferring with my wife, we came to the conclusion that you can try to work abroad. Great Britain was recognized as a country suitable for emigration.
There are several ways to emigrate to the UK, however, the only suitable option for us was a visa for qualified specialists (the so-called Tier 2 (General) visa). The essence of the requirements of this visa boils down to the fact that a new immigrant must have an invitation to work from a British employer (job offer), money for work for the first time (£ 945 per employee + £ 630 for each other family member - at the time I studied this the question, maybe now the numbers are different), a document on knowledge of the English language, and also (and this is crucial!) - the desire and ability of the British employer to make the employee Certificate of Sponsorship .
It took about a year to prepare and obtain the Cambridge CAE certificate, which is a sufficient document to confirm knowledge of the English language. After receiving it in early 2014, the active phase of the job search began.
UK job search
In the period from January to June 2014, I sent / responded to vacancies on British recruiting sites about 150 times. I meticulously documented all contacts so as not to apply to the same vacancy more than once. For approximately every 5-8 response, I received feedback in the form of a recruiter's call. Yes, exactly the call. British recruiters love to call. Neither write to email, nor communicate via Skype, no. They love to call.
In 4 cases out of 5, the call came down to a conversation in the style of:
Recruiter: Hello, (blah blah blah) , tell me, what are you doing now?
I: tell you where, by whom and how much I work.
Recruiter: Do you have the right to work in the UK?
Me: Unfortunately, I need a Certificate of Sponsorship.
Recruiter: (disappointed) Ahh ... You know, unfortunately the employer does not do Sponsorship, but I will try to find another vacancy for you. Bye!
I think it is unnecessary to write that I have never heard anything more from such recruiters.
After about 5 months of active searches (in May 2014), it became clear that the approach to responding to vacancies and finding recruiters engaged in the selection of developers for mobile platforms for the Britishmarket does not work. After a series of strategic meetings with the other half, it was decided to expand the geography of searches. The list of countries suitable for emigration in addition to the UK was expanded to include neighboring Ireland and the Netherlands, as well as currently friendly to all technically savvy specialists in Germany.
Ireland, first run
I approached Ireland in a manner similar to the British: I registered on the main sites of recruitment agencies, posted a resume there and began to respond to ads. In total, I responded to approximately 30 vacancies. There was no feedback at all.
The answer came when I was contacted by a recruiter girl working in Ireland, but originally from Romania. She suggested that Irish recruiting agencies through sites look primarily for people who have the right to work in Ireland. As a Russian citizen, I need to make an invitation to work, it takes a long time (it can take several months) and expensive (the employer pays 1000 euros when applying). Therefore, no one was interested in my person. The girl also advised looking for an employer directly, not through recruitment sites and recruiters.
Finding Irish employers directly was not as easy as it might seem at first. However, I managed to arrange an interview with a hostel booking company. But then I get a little ahead of myself.
Active British Recruiters
About the same time as the start of the search on the extended list, the girl Ellie from a British recruiting agency came to me. The first telephone conversation with her (the British like to call, remember?) Lasted nearly half an hour. In principle, at that time for me it was already quite a normal conversation, some chatty comrades could torture me for more about my experience, achievements and aspirations. In general, I did not attach much importance to this conversation. As it turned out, in vain.
This girl grabbed at me a grip that the English bulldog would envy (for which, by the way, thank you very much to her). I still don’t know why: either she acted according to some of her instructions for working with job seekers, or she realized that someone with my experience would succeed in “profitably” selling me.
She immediately warned that her company specializes in continental Europe, that is, no UK or Ireland. There were several positions to choose from in Germany and one in Sweden. Based on her own experience, she recommended interviewing all positions. Germany was on our extended list, so I agreed to German positions without delay.
Sweden walked, as they say, "to the heap." I did not intend to move to Sweden seriously, but it’s always useful to talk in English for additional experience in interviewing. Therefore, he agreed to the Swedish position.
Germany
There were as many as three positions in Germany.
The first was at Yelp . Their head office is in California, development in California and Hamburg. Their interview took place in two stages:
1. First, a conversation on Skype with their HR specialist, a story about themselves, their work. The following is a brief set of several questions to weed out completely unsuitable candidates. Apparently, I answered the questions correctly, because at the end of the survey I was informed that I went to the second round and will continue to have a technical interview with the company's leading iOS developer.
2. A technical interview took place after about a week and a half. At 10 am California time (9 pm Moscow time). A story about his work experience, completed projects, answers to questions about ARC, manual memory management. Next, write a method that expands a linked list in an online text editor with the ability to edit the code by both participants in the interview. The list is not fast, but successfully deployed, they promise to contact after a while.
A few days later, Ellie informed me that Yelp chose to take on the position of a person with extensive iOS development experience. Well, what can you do, it happens.
The second position was a position in a company engaged in the development of a service for joint trips (the so-called carpooling) and located in Munich. At first I talked with the head of mobile development, who turned out to be a rather nervous German. This comrade was very worried, spoke English with a strong German accent, and I got the impression that he felt even more insecure than me. :) Plus, he said that at present, the development of a mobile version of the product is considered a priority and it is planned to direct all efforts to it.
Standard questions: how much I do development, what projects did I do, etc. After this interview, a technical interview was appointed with the company's leading iOS developer. This comrade turned out to be a Romanian, with development experience less than mine. In the course of the conversation with him, I found out a lot of interesting details about how their product works. I also learned that before the start of product development within the company, it was done by a consulting firm (I have met this approach more than once or twice in several other interviews, from which I concluded that this practice is very popular in Europe), and at the time product interviews were developed by this guy and a team of four Moldovans outsourced. In addition, I clearly understood that my experience with the head is enough to work in this company.
Mentally determined to go to Munich after a technical interview, I was surprised and horrified to learn a few days later from Ellie that the management of this company decided once again to change the product development strategy and again gave the development to a third-party company. The fate of the Romanian and unfortunate Moldovans remained unknown to me. I suppose the first was left to oversee the work of third-party developers, and the latter were fired.
The third German position was in a Berlin startup that made another Google killer. Before the interview, these comrades sent a test task consisting of three tasks of increasing complexity, which had to be done in a special service for a limited time, the name of which I again did not remember. I don’t know what these comrades sought in the first place: did they want the applicants to do as many tasks as possible on their own, only relying on knowledge of rare algorithms, or to find a way to solve problems in the same Google. I solved the first problem myself, found the solutions of the second and third in Google (how ironic, right?). Convincing feedback from them did not come; I dare to suggest that they hired someone who solved all the problems himself.
Swedish version
The option from the Swedes, I repeat, I did not consider among the priority ones.
First, there were several video calls on Skype with at least four different people: two co-founders of the company (one of them is also CEO), a product manager, and a leading iOS developer. All of these persons turned out to be very friendly friendly people with whom it was quite easy to communicate.
The interviews themselves were as follows. The co-founders were interested in the work experience in general, completed projects, talked on fairly abstract topics, talked about the company. The purpose of communication with me was not so much to evaluate my professional qualities, but how well I fit into the existing team.
The product manager was interested in about the same issues as the co-founders, but in addition to this, he was interested in the technical details of iOS projects in which I participated: what technologies we used on the client and on the server, how we transferred data between clients and servers, etc. .d.
The leading iOS developer asked mainly about technical knowledge, including (but not limited to) memory management - MRR and ARC, knowledge of specific frameworks, working with iTunes Connect, Provisioning Portal, etc. After a technical interview, which lasted about 30 minutes, I was sent a test task - to write a small application that works with the API of some existing song lyrics word search service.
The task was given about a week. In parallel, I had another test task, of a similar nature, but I don’t remember from whom specifically. I had to pretty well sit in the evenings after work and on weekends to get everything done. “It helped” that the ill-fated service API returned data in the form of XML, moreover, generated by a poorly configured Microsoft server. Since it was undesirable to use a third-party XML parser according to the conditions of the task, I spit scared. By the way, the leading iOS developer still apologizes for this “crappy API”, says that he didn’t work with him personally, he wanted to give a task in related subjects.
The technical people really liked the solution of the problem, I began to wait for a solution regarding the job offer. By that time, my friend HR manager Ellie had already been replaced by her boss (apparently, standard practice at the final stage of the transaction, he has more experience - it is more likely that the transaction will not fail) Matthew. Matthew kindly said that the Swedes generally have only two candidates: me and another comrade who was "well, absolutely none." Therefore, Matt recommended stocking up with champagne and waiting for the offer. I, given previous experience, was skeptical.
And then it was time to talk again about the Irish ...
But about this - in the second part of the post .