Programmer relocation: where to go? 3 options for exotic lovers

In the first article of this series, we began to cover such a broad and always relevant topic for programmers from ex-USSR countries (and not only) as relocation abroad. In May, we examined in detail three current options for a world living in quarantine and a coronavirus epidemic: Estonia, New Zealand and Finland. There are many more interesting countries in the pipeline. Since it’s summer and I want to have a little fun, today we’ll make a selection of three countries for relocation, which in one way or another can be considered exotic. And that only makes them more interesting. Indeed, why would a modern programmer, whose average age is constantly decreasing and now, in Silicon Valley, for example , is 28 years old, look for a relocation to boring Europe or snowy Canada, if there are a number of much brighter options? We'll talk about them today.

Singapore

We classified Singapore as an “exotic” country purely conditionally, given the location of this city-state - in the heart of Southeast Asia. Otherwise, Singapore is no longer exotic, but one of the world's main business centers, famous for its openness to business, the highest standard of living and the almost complete absence of bureaucracy and corruption. Today, Singapore is already home to 80 of the world's 100 largest technology companies, including Microsoft, LinkedIn, Google, Huawei, Baidu, Tencent, Nvidia and others. Not to mention the fact that the headquarters of most large regional IT companies are based in Singapore. And the volume of the digital market in Southeast Asia, according to the e-Conomy SEA 2019 study from Google, Temasek and Bain & Company, is expected to reach $300 billion by 2025, which exceeds the previous forecast made in 2016 by almost $100 billion Singapore is also home to a number of very promising tech startups as well as established unicorns (startups valued at $1 billion or more). The most famous of Singapore's unicorns are Grab (the Asian equivalent of Uber), Sea Group (gaming, e-commerce and payments) and Lazada (the South Asian equivalent of Amazon). In addition, this city-state is home to large and reputable companies such as Salesforce, Intuit, Adventus and others. Therefore, it is not surprising that the IT sector in Singapore is actively hiring experienced foreign programmers and other high-level technical specialists.

Relocation conditions (visas and documents)

Singapore is a metropolitan country that, due to its size, is highly dependent on the influx of labor from abroad. Therefore, the state actively issues various types of work permits to foreigners. The full list of permissions can be found here . We are only interested in three main categories for qualified professionals, which include programmers: EntrePass, Employment Pass (EP) and Personalized Employment Pass (PEP). The vast majority of programmers work in Singapore with the last two types of permits, which are distributed depending on the level of qualifications and, accordingly, the level of salary. In addition to the Employment Pass, another option for legally entering the country for a long time (enough to find a job there) is to study English at a language school - a course for several months will cost less than $3,000, and will allow you to leisurely search in Singapore work and go to interviews. But the most common way for our programmers to get to Singapore is an Employment Pass from a local company, which is issued for a period of 2 years. If you have an Employment Pass, a newly arrived specialist in the country only needs to visit the local Ministry of Manpower once to quickly complete all the formalities. Despite the fact that the Employment Pass relates to a specific employer, if you wish, you can resign before the expiration of the 2-year period and go to work for another company. In this case, the new employer will be able to transfer the corresponding Employment Pass to themselves.

Salary and working conditions

Singapore consistently ranks among various tops of the world's most expensive places to live, which means that the costs of living in this country are relatively high, as are the salaries of foreign specialists. Thus, according to the authoritative portal PayScale, the average salary of a programmer in Singapore is about $38 thousand per year. The Indeed portal gives a slightly more optimistic figure: $3,975 per month. In general, these indicators are confirmed by real reviews of programmers who moved to Singapore, who note that an experienced programmer can earn up to $7 thousand per month in the country. As for expenses, the biggest expense item will be renting housing, which is quite expensive in Singapore and will cost on average from $1,000 to $2,000 per month. Another important advantage of Singapore for foreign workers is its relatively low tax rates: it has a progressive tax scale, and income tax can range from 0 to 22%, depending on the overall level of income. For most programmers, this rate is between 5 and 7%.

Personal experience

“Singapore is a very multicultural country. As a rule, the team of a medium-sized company will consist of representatives of 10-20 nationalities from all over the planet. A very rewarding experience. Basically, employers are, of course, all kinds of FinTech, represented by both established large banks, investment and insurance companies, and new startups, as well as medicine, transport and logistics, and e-commerce. There are a lot of high-tech innovations, in particular, now businesses are trying to find the benefits of using AI and extracting information from large volumes of collected data. Banks have understood the meaning of the phrase “people need banking, but they don’t need banks,” and now many of them are actively changing in order to meet customer expectations and not lose the market,” an experienced Ukrainian programmer and software architect shares his experience of relocating to Singapore . “In general, the impression is extremely positive. Of course, there are things that are clearly missing - company to drink beer, colleagues my age (all over 30) and native language, but there are a number of advantages that make an extremely positive impression. According to the latest data, for a city of three and a half million people there are two hundred and twenty-five thousand millionaires, in other words, approximately every sixteenth millionaire. Which entails a high standard of living. Most apartments have a swimming pool and a gym, a good transport system, air conditioning and rain protection systems everywhere. The city is multinational - Indians, Chinese, Malays, Filipinos, Europeans, Australians. One could go on and on about the nations boiling in the local cauldron. Naturally, without tolerance and education it would not have been possible to achieve the unity of the nation. Everything around is permeated with the principle of tolerance and politeness; you can go to the post office without fear, without fear of running into a wall of rudeness and bureaucracy,” says a Russian IT specialist who moved to Singapore about his impression.

United Arab Emirates

Another direction for relocation, which we, of course, consider exotic only conditionally - the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is the most advanced state in its region and the place where the offices and headquarters of many companies, including technology ones, are based. In recent years, the UAE has been actively investing in various types of technology startups, and this is bearing fruit. The country is home to unicorn startups such as Souq.com (e-commerce platform), Careem (equivalent to Uber) and Noon.com (e-commerce). The latter attracted $1 billion in investments in 2016. And in general, although the UAE is not formally an offshore zone, the country provides companies with favorable tax conditions, thanks to which many large technology companies choose this location to locate their offices, including Google, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, HP and many others. Here are a number of the largest companies that specialize in software development and are located in the UAE: IndiaNIC, Unified Infotech, Selleo, Iflexion, Cyber ​​Infrastructure Inc, Open Geeks Lab, S-PRO.

Relocation conditions (visas and documents)

One of the advantages of working in the UAE is the ease of obtaining a work permit and visa, along with the absence of unnecessary bureaucracy. Work visas are issued on the basis of work permits, which are obtained by the employing companies. Employees are required to provide only basic documents such as a passport, diploma and other educational certificates. Work visas are electronic and are sent by email. After arrival, in case of long-term stay in the country, the employee must obtain resident status for himself, which takes about a month.

Salary and working conditions

The salaries of programmers in the UAE in general are not amazing, but are quite consistent with the level of other world economic centers. However, there is a nuance here: the majority of programmers working in the country are citizens of India and Pakistan who are willing to work for relatively little money. That is why, according to the PayScale resource , for example, the average salary of a programmer in the UAE is about $20 thousand per year. Judging by the information in real reviews of specialists employed in the country, highly qualified foreign programmers earn in the UAE, on average, about $4 -5 thousand per month. There is no income tax for individuals in the country, and this leads to another undoubted advantage of this region - when working in the UAE, you do not need to calculate the tax rate and compare your salary before taxes and what remains “net” for you. Programmers working in the country also note that for companies in the UAE, even if they are purely IT companies, formalities such as a dress code are more typical. In addition, in the Emirates it is not customary to overwork: a standard working day begins around 8 am and ends at 16-17.

Personal experience

“It should appeal to those who like to be in a building and changing environment. There is almost no IT infrastructure in Dubai [review published in 2014], perhaps this is why system architects are really needed here - everything here is under active construction. I work for a company that creates large WiFi installations - hotels, malls, cottage communities. Continuing the previous point - if you want to get into the IT business, then most likely you will succeed here. And the money in b2b here is simply huge. Just think of what will be in demand here and what is not here (and there is almost nothing here),” a Russian-speaking system architect working in Dubai shares his impressions. “The country’s technology market is quite small compared to the Ukrainian one, but has huge potential. There are some interesting technological locations. For example, Internet City, where the offices of Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, Google are located, or another location - Dubai Design District. The IT sector in Dubai is much more influenced by big business and its culture than in Ukraine. Here, first of all, you need to be able to negotiate, defend, argue and sell your solutions. Nobody rides a hoverboard with a glass of smoothie, smokes their vape, and doesn’t arrive at the office by 12:00, if you know what I mean,” says a UX designer from Ukraine about his experience of relocating to Dubai .

South Africa

But South Africa, as a location for programmer relocation, can rightfully be called an exotic option: after all, this is Africa, the path and one of the most developed countries in this region. Despite the fact that South Africa does not have the clear reputation of a technology and business center like Singapore and the UAE, it is still one of the main regional centers, home to both large companies mainly doing business in the region and numerous start-ups . Here is a short list of the most promising tech startups in South Africa that are actively hiring developers and other specialists: Bank Zero, RapidDeploy, Aerobotics, Pineapple, Droppa, Yoco, JUMO, SweepSouth and others. Here are some of the companies in South Africa that specialize exclusively in software development: Alphonic Network Solutions Pvt. Ltd, MobiDev, Rushkar, Impulsum, Realm Digital, SovTech and others.

Relocation conditions (visas and documents)

A few years ago, the South African government launched a new visa program for skilled workers, the Critical Skills Visa. These visas are issued to representatives of those professions in which there is the greatest shortage, and programmers naturally fall into this category. Accordingly, obtaining a visa will not be difficult if you have an offer from one of the local companies. As programmers living in South Africa note, the working conditions on this visa are very convenient, as it allows you to painlessly change employers. One of the common difficulties when applying for this visa is the requirement to have a diploma, as well as proof of work experience in the profession, which should not be less than five years.

Salary and working conditions

As for salaries, South Africa is definitely not a country where a programmer can earn much higher than the world average. According to PayScale, the average annual salary for a programmer in the country is about $19 thousand. According to this resource, South African programmers earn on average just over $2000 per month, and experienced professionals can expect to earn up to $5-6 thousand per month. The country has a progressive tax rate, which for programmers usually reaches about 25-30%. The relatively low level of salaries is compensated by relatively low prices for housing and food. The main centers where the majority of company offices in the country are located are the cities of Johannesburg and Cape Town.

Personal experience

“There are a lot of startups here that really need developers. The problem is that the people running these startups (often expats who come from other countries with money to implement their ideas) try to manage the developers. At the same time, they know practically nothing about processes, about the development cycle, about all these agile methodologies. In their understanding, everything should look like this: I came up with an idea here, and you write to me. I was used to working according to completely different standards, so I changed jobs. For example, my first company tracked all its work in Excel; no one had heard of Jira and Trello. The second company deployed directly to production from a personal service station machine. And it was impossible to change anything; it was perceived with hostility. This is not the case everywhere, you just never know where you will end up, given that there are no reviews anywhere on the Internet,” says a married couple of Ukrainian programmers working in South Africa. “Some of our programmers moved to South Africa permanently - they have been living there for several years. The salary may be the same, but the climate is better there. I myself would not move to South Africa, because I would have to take a child under 18 everywhere: on dates, to cinemas, to school and back. The people there have no complexes, are open and relaxed. The locals have a completely different attitude towards children. You go into a cafe with a child, the waiters will pick him up and go for a walk with him around the establishment. In the shopping center, children are crawling on the floor. They definitely have more freedom,” a developer from Belarus, whose company works closely with clients from South Africa, shares her opinion.