I like this kind of feedback and I am happy to see one on the front-page :)
Shameless plug: I am also an expat, I moved to Oslo from Paris a few months ago. Not because of the economy (I am a front-end developer, I am lucky to have a lot of opportunities anywhere) but because my wife and me wanted to live abroad and unfortunately we weren't able to find a job in Oil & Gas risks analysis for her in California ;)
Turns out that it was the best decision I ever made (after my wedding of course). I would recommend to anyone who could afford it to find a job in another country. Obviously your will immerse yourself into a new culture better than if you visit just for the holidays. Who knew that from Oslo you could take public transportation and be at an alpine ski station in less than 45min? Or that with the same ticket you could take the ferry to one of the many fjord islands? Even more shameless plug, if you are tempted by this experience and like skiing, we are recruiting: http://soundrop.fm/jobs Winter is coming, fast.
Using Vanilla JS & your own architectural design as opposed to a mainstream framework? Reason I ask is just with regard to maintainability of the codebase, and the ability to attract more candidates perhaps
I share your sentiment that it could drive away candidates and from time to time we reevaluate the costs and benefits of switching to a mainstream framework.
Concerning maintainability I am really happy with our codebase. Strict rules and tooling help us keeping a clean state. You can write non maintainable code with any mainstream framework or even confuse a new developer when writing idiomatic code for this framework is not well defined.
Do you still think that there's a dynamic fast-paced IT industry here? I'm a native, and to me it feels, for the most part (excluding some exceptional companies), stagnant and dependent on cheap non-EU labour.
I feel that a vibrant tech industry is often a reflection of a vibrant tech community.
Granted, a community is only a small part of an overall industry, but an industry without community is lacking heart and soul.
And I can say, with authority, that Dublin has a vibrant tech community. My company, Engine Yard, runs or hosts two meetups a week in our Dublin office, covering subjects such as Ruby, PHP, Node JS, Scala, as well as database, Open Data and designer / UX oriented meetups.
If you want to come to any meetups on these subject, or become more involved in the Dublin tech community, drop me a line - eamon@engineyard.com.
In addition, for the past three years, I've been running Pub Standards Dublin, the largest monthly gathering in Ireland of developers, designers and anyone interested in tech - we get about 150-180 each month. See http://pubstandards.ie/ or https://twitter.com/pubstandardsdub for details, you're welcome to join us any time.
I'm sorry you feel that things are "stagnant and dependent on cheap non-EU labour". I don't feel the same, and I invite you to come out, meet your peers and properly engage with your local tech community.
I am totally agreeing with Eamon. Besides the mentioned meetups there is a paper reading meetup, a google developer meetup, devops, python, coding grace, coder dojo, TOG (a really great hackerspace) and plenty more.
I arrived a year ago in Dublin and was surprised about the variety and diversity of the tech scene in Dublin. I really think that Dublin has a strong and thriving tech scene.
+1 for Pub Standards. Also, on the Apple/iOS side, a group of local (Irish and non-Irish) developers, called XCake meets monthly in the science gallery in Dublin. http://xcakelabs.com
I really wanted to believe this but after spending a good 15 minutes trawling through both of those incubator's portfolios, I'm left with the inescapable feeling that they're simply well polished investor fleecing vehicles with a specialization in putting lipstick on pigs...
How are any of these "startups" remotely likely to make any kind of respectable return for an incubator (and by extension the poor investors that have bankrolled it)?
I might add a third: if an "incubator" is peddling investment opportunities off the back of such an obviously sub prime portfolio, wise money should stay well away as should wise startups.
I've been organising various tech events (Python Ireland, Coding Grace, Global GameCraft to name a few) for quite awhile, but mainly Python events since 2005, and I have seen the growth of so many technical user groups in the past 5 years.
It use to be a case you can count the tech groups on one hand (for me anyway)! Also there are many entrepreneurs meetups happening around town as well. It's really exciting to be in Dublin at the moment, although I do wish the same amount of activity would happen in other cities/towns around the country.
As many mentioned before me, go and check out the meetups around town (via meetup.com, lanyrd.com and sign up to Dublin StartupDigest). This all leads to a vibrant tech community (good cafés also helps). I might warn you though, there is something happening most nights every week. Enjoy!
sounds like a meaningless platitude to me. From my experience most companies have huge difficulties finding good irish candidates because they are both just low in numbers and inclined to immigrate to London.
Agreed, I'm an Irish native who left for Scotland a few years ago. Frankly I'd be mega-surprised if there is a dynamic fast-paced IT industry in Ireland. I'd love to be proven wrong if someone else can chime in.
Take a trip to the docks in Dublin and you'll find a bustling tech sector with some huge tech companies (albeit some just for business), a collection of startups and even an incubator round the corner. Only for I'm based in Galway, I'd dive into it.
I can't edit my comment, but in reply to myself, I didn't mean to suggest that there aren't exceptional talents and exceptional companies in Dublin and Ireland. I'd consider many of my friends and peers geniuses, and their talents astound me consistently.
What I meant more so was that government policy seems to be pushing Irish innovation into a corner, while cheerleading a 'knowledge economy' that probably doesn't jive with our ideas of what a knowledge economy is. You only have to look at the recent reductions in the wage-floor for importing tech workers, on a fast-track visa scheme, from outside the EU, to see what I mean. If we had a thriving tech sector then why are wages stagnant? Why did Sean O Sullivan bleat on about needing to issue, what was it, 15k visas to non-EU people per year? We have a massive EU wide workforce, with massive unemployment and masses of graduates graduating each year. A significant number of STEM grads leave the industry because they can't find work, and yet we don't have enough workers? And if we don't have enough workers then why do they need to lower the wage floor for importing people? Shouldn't wages be rising?
Government policy is purposely driving wages down. Jobbridge internships have been extended to 18 months, and I fear for the effect that this is going to have on the country, in terms of brain-drain for graduates, and general morale.
It sounds like you guys all feel good about our tech sector. I'm glad, because as well as the above, all i've heard for the last 10 years is how terrible our graduates are, and how companies are annoyed that they have to spend money bringing people in from elsewhere. This isn't true of course, they don't have to, it's just part of the same 'we only want geniuses' narrative that's taking place in the US and elsewhere, which is handily also stagnating wages. I could link to probably 50 interviews and articles (if i had enough time) from CEO's of Havok, Demonware, Paypal, Google etc etc saying how poor our country is for talent, and whether you feel good about our tech sector, the statements coming from our indigenous companies, and MNC's, don't make me feel good.
So i'd suggest that if the sector is thriving, it's in spite of our culture, political climate (except for corporation tax), and whatever else, rather than being a thing that was destined to happen.
Anyway nevermind that, if anyone has any more suggestions for meetups, i'd love to hear them. Thanks for all the suggestions so far.
Speaking as a designer the tech community as a whole has gone from strength to strength. We've often tried to organise events only for them to conflict with another tech event on the same date.
Get out there, meet people and I'm sure you'll have a different perspective
Stagnant is definitely not the right word for the IT industry in Ireland. It's anything but. There have been some huge native successes in the industry in such a short time frame. Look at the likes of soundwave or the guys in trustev whom are winning startup awards left right and centre.
The amount of meet ups help make the IT industry in Ireland thrive. There barely goes a week without there being an event on sometime even three to four each week.
Depends who you work for, Ireland is full of big name companies, Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Twitter.....
Not only that there us a tonne of big financials there too...
So, there's a wealth of choice..
From what I hear, the Google offices are really something, they have an amazing setup...
I live in Belfast, and there isn't the same variety of big tech, but still tonnes of IT jobs
If I lived in Dublin, I'd go all out to work at Google, or maybe Twitter..
Twitter just aren't really hiring for technology in Dublin. Maybe some of the 100 new jobs promised for next year will change that, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
I wasn't telling people not to investigate these companies, just that their isn't a glut of jobs that their size would suggest. There are companies a fraction of the size hiring more developers than the big guys at any given time.
I'm sure you can sometimes work from a Dublin base for these companies, I'm also sure that would be an exception to the norm.
If you're a sysadmin by trade or want to be (a minority here I think), you could do far worse than apply to Google, Facebook or Amazon.
Maybe so for a Irish native, but for an expat (which I was one, shifted to Germany from Australia), it is very much a "Grass is greener on the other side" point of view. I worked in Australia for at least 15 years, and it felt very stale, almost dying. With the move to Germany, everything starts to look exciting - new work environment, new challenges and new colleagues. After 5 years in Germany, the grass is still green.
Hi! I am from Portugal too and I would love to work in another country but the problem for me is my English is lacking. How good was your English when you lwft?
FYI my English was terrible (it's still not awesome TBH) but it didn't not prevent me to find a job abroad. You should just apply when you see an interesting opportunity.
My first interview in English was over the phone and it was really stressful. It was enough to go to the second round (I didn't get the job though).
The upcoming interviews will get better. If you read HN and comment in English, that's enough to give it a try.
You probably already have the basics to make the jump and then improve those language skills on the spot.
Why don't you try updating your monster account first, or uploading your cv elsewhere? You will eventually get called by agents and convincing them that you up for the job would be a very good test to your language skills.
I'm also an foreign IT professional coming from Portugal, so good luck my friend. If we made it then you can do it as well.
Yes, try to speak English more frequently and read and write as much as you can.When i arrived my English was not brilliant but with time you will get it. Try to prepare your interviews with advance and write the topics that you want to mention during the interview.
I am constantly thinking about moving from the US to somewhere nice, please advise me some countries, here are my "wish list" of the country where I would love to live:
- Civilized people
- No extradition
- Government is small and it respects people's freedom and privacy (which are protected by constitution), real freedom of speech, not the one when you can be arrested for a tweet, even if it leaked state secret or offended someone or infringed a copyright. No copyright laws at all would be awesome.
- No secret services
- Reasonable laws, no death penalty or life sentence, very small quantity of law enforcement
- Small ratio of NumberOfPeople/NumberOfPeopleInJails
- >1 million population in at least one city
- At least some IT industry
- Good and affordable health infrastructure
- No CCTVs in public places and no traffic cameras
Maybe it is because I have been living too long in this country, but I am not actually sure whether you are being serious or not. This country irrespective of whatever its faults is still light years ahead of many parts of the world; Ethiopia where I grew up used to have a policy where the family of people who used to get shot by the government had to pay for the cost of the spent bullets before the body would be released.
I'm not being even remotely serious. I was mocking slashdotaccount's "wish list", which amounted to little more than a list of prejudices and grievances about the United States.
Sorry for the rant, but as someone who has done the process I find this post cringeworth (and not only because of the lowercase 'I's or the huge image on the header)
1 - Daft.ie. Period.
2 - It's not a "Welfare office", and you should go there (or not) depending on your address
3 - Or you just slide it on their mailboxes (depending where you are, the mail option may be more convenient)
4 - NIB? Well, AIB is good (but expensive), Bank of Ireland is not good, Ulster bank can't get their cronjobs right, but these three (and not NIB) are everywhere
5 - "Buy a mobile phone" or you just, you know, buy a sim card for your phone. This can be had in 5 min. And don't worry, it's cheap
6 - No crap sherlock.
"and compare the cost of living and taxes with your city in order to properly negotiate your salary"
And here's some good advice. I learned this, let's say, not the hard way, but I was "surprised" nonetheless. Always ask how much your net salary would be (and how much rent costs). For Ireland, expect around 40% of your salary to be taken for taxes, and you can have a small single apartment in the city center for between 600€ to 900€ (of course it's always possible to go higher)
it is not 40%, it depends on your civil status and your tax credits.
For single person your annual salary will be taxed at 20% until €36,400 and taxed at 40% the rest. You have to pay also the Universal Social Charge.
If you're looking to work, you need a company to sponsor you, there's a green card programme, and in practice, it's not that difficult to get in if you're a programmer with a CS degree or equivalent experience. Sure there are forms and red tape... but it's not as many hoops to jump through as moving to the US.
I was working in Ireland until 2011, under the older work permit scheme. The major downside to this scheme was that the permit was tied to the employer - lose your job and you have to start all over. This is what happened to me right as the housing bubble was bursting, so we decided to leave the country rather than try to find a new job and deal with the time, expense and hassle of new paperwork. The Green Card sounds like a nice upgrade. I wish it had been available when I was first applying for my job.
Paperwork aside, Ireland is a fantastically beautiful country. I suggest you leave Dublin and head West to see the postcard Irish countryside. Get off the Motorways and onto the backroads. It will be well worth your while. :)
Still, if you restrict your search to companies that offer sponsorship then you're much more limited than an EU citizen. But I'll take a look at it. Thanks for the tips.
nitpick: probably you mean "be sure to have a citizenship in a EU country or Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway", which has nothing to do with the place somebody is born.
In this regard, Ireland has some exceedingly generous right of return laws. If you have documented lineage from an Irish grandparent, the process of obtaining citizenship is completely painless.
I obtained citizenship by this route in 2004 and was able to live and work in the UK with no visa requirement.
Shameless plug: I am also an expat, I moved to Oslo from Paris a few months ago. Not because of the economy (I am a front-end developer, I am lucky to have a lot of opportunities anywhere) but because my wife and me wanted to live abroad and unfortunately we weren't able to find a job in Oil & Gas risks analysis for her in California ;)
Turns out that it was the best decision I ever made (after my wedding of course). I would recommend to anyone who could afford it to find a job in another country. Obviously your will immerse yourself into a new culture better than if you visit just for the holidays. Who knew that from Oslo you could take public transportation and be at an alpine ski station in less than 45min? Or that with the same ticket you could take the ferry to one of the many fjord islands? Even more shameless plug, if you are tempted by this experience and like skiing, we are recruiting: http://soundrop.fm/jobs Winter is coming, fast.