My road to get a Software Developer job in Europe.
Hello everyone, this is my first writing experience so I hope it will be a good one. My goal is to at least help one person to find their dream job or to get closer than before and to tell everyone that there is a world out there waiting for you.
Episode 1: Who am I?
Let me tell you a little bit about me. I am from Aguascalientes, Mexico, a little city right in the middle of the country, I graduated in Artificial Intelligence Engineering (Computer Science) from a small university in Aguascalientes (Universidad Panamericana). I am not a very smart guy I just gave everything to get the grades and finally got the degree. I also don’t know a lot about algorithms, data structures, maths, AI, etc, but I believe that if you give a 100% in all of your tasks, you will get wherever you want.
After graduating (June 2018), I realized that I needed a change in my life. I always lived in Mexico and I love it, but it was the same thing everyday, same friends, same routine, same people, same colleagues, etc. I am 24 years old and I think that the world is out there waiting for being discovered I was just to young to start my professional career in the same country or city.
By this time I already had interviews with Microsoft, Oracle and Facebook. I failed all of them because, as I told you, I am not a very smart dude.
Episode 2: Getting the money for the adventure
In the summer of (2017) I worked in California as a tennis coach, I didn’t spend any of the money cause I wanted to use it to go to Europe. In that summer I met Fantine, now my girlfriend, a pretty french girl who is studying and playing college tennis in Georgia. Almost at the end of the summer we fell in love and she told me that anytime next summer I could visit her in France.
Episode 3: My plan
Ok, this leave everything and go thing is not very easy, of course I had a plan. I was going to stay at Fantine’s house then travel around France and other countries in Europe for almost 2 months, then Fantine needed to go back to USA to finish University. She was going to leave Europe on August 12th. I had 3 months to travel and to get a job. One very important thing is that I also have spanish passport.
Episode 4: Leave everything behind and go
It was mid April, I told my mom and dad that after graduating I was going to going to Europe to visit Fantine and to try to get a job there. They took it really well and told me to go and enjoy life. I was going to go on an adventure that right now is changing my life.I finished university on June 8th and on June 17th I packed one big bag, two raquets and my laptop and headed to Europe with only one way ticket. Ohh I forgot I only had my California paycheck 3000 dls.
Episode 5: My trips and traveling
I arrived at Lyon, France then Fantine picked me up and we went to her home, Valence, France, we stayed two weeks there, I played a semi-pro tennis tournament and I won it, I got 250 EUR. By this time I had like 2500 EUR. We started a road trip in the south of France, we stayed with friends and family, we also ate a lot of sandwiches and tried to not spend a lot of money on food. Next we went to Lyon, Paris, London, Ireland returned to France and ended up in Bilbao. This trips were expensive but if you really save money on food and housing you can manage to survive.
Episode 6: Looking for a job
When we arrived at Bilbao I had like 1,800 EUR still left, thanks God Fantine’s parents have a house there. It was July 28th, I started to look for jobs in Angel List, I applied to maybe more than 20 start ups. I don’t know how it works in other fields but in the tech world you have a phone interview then two or more technical interviews and maybe a final one at the company’s location. I matched with 8 start ups, then 4 asked for a phone interview and 3 sent me a technical test. I was not able to succeed in none of them :(
Fantine was going to fly from Madrid so we went there. I have a cousin living there, she is going to do her studies in Spain’s , capital, I asked her if I could stay 3 or more weeks to look for jobs. She said yes. Fantine left on the 12th of August, now the struggle was going to start.
I had approximately one month to get a job before I ran out of money and a place to stay. I applied to more than 70 companies around Europe. I tried Linkedn, Indeed, Government sites, Stack Overflow and more. I had a lot of Skype and phone interviews. Maybe 10 companies sent me technical tests and others timed coding exercises. I was failing all of them and getting emails telling me that maybe next time or that they needed someone with more experience. I remember I was very sad cause probably I was going to fail and return to Mexico with my hands empty.
It was August 25th my money was running out, I had like 1500 EUR, also I was not going to be able to stay at my cousins anymore. By this time I applied to more than 100 companies I also applied to bars, hostels or any business that had a letter on their window saying that they were hiring.
Suddenly one day I received a mail from a company in Antwerp, Belgium telling me the costs of life in Belgium and that they were interested in a final interview with the CEO in their office. I was very shocked, I remembered that the interview with this company was not very difficult and the recruiters were really cool. The human resources girl told me to go to Antwerp with all my belongings and to meet the CEO there. I only needed a yes from the CEO to get the job, I was very excited but very worried at the same time. I only had few money left and I needed to buy a flight ticket to Belgium pay housing, food and more expenses.
And that was it. I went to Antwerp, had an interview with the CEO and I got the job. It was a Thursday and he told me that I was going to start on Monday. So right now I am writing this from Antwerp I just finished my firs week at work.
Conclusion
Getting a developer job is not easy at all, you need to know the fundamentals of computer science, study very hards, solve problems, and apply to companies. Remember the Harry Potter movie where Harry needs to get a memory from the professor Slughorn, he never manages to get the memory until he takes a sip of luck, Felix Felicis. Sometimes you only need a little bit of luck to achieve your goals.
So for the people out there struggling to get a job, just practice more, study more, apply more and never take a no as an answer. Applying to companies is free so do it.
This is my portafolio in case you want to have ideas: aleexalcaraz.com there you can also find my CV.
Good luck to everyone.
