Software Developer relocating – need advice

15 comments

1. Moving without a job is a mistake.

2. You’re making a huge mistake.

3. The job market is very hard for IT jobs right now. The market is over saturated with people. Unless you are fluent in Norwegian.

4. Incredibly naive

5. I would wait for a job offer before you decide on moving considering the situation of you and your partner. While it’s not impossible to land a job, it will be very tough considering that even norwegians struggle to find a job related to their area of expertise.

6. Man that’s a faulty plan from start to finish.

   It will be months before you even get an interview. You will be stuck in expensive short term accommodation (hotels and airbnb) because no landlord will rent to you without a job.

   You will be tourists until you get a job and get a temporary social security number. No bank account, no acces to the healthcare system.

   You must leave Norway after 90 days if no job fond by then. Sure it might as well be a trip to Sweden, but you must know you are not granted permanent residency without some sort of immigration (job, family reunion etc). Udi.no holds all the info you need for immigration.

   Is your partner in IT as well? If not, the chances to find an office job without fluent Norwegian are zero. Forget about home office. Even in IT, 2 days a week in the office is not that common. Being open about her condition during interviews will work against her.

   Thr salary you expect is optimistic for a newcomer. Don’t expect more than 750k in your first year.

   Have you went through immigration rules for pets? You can’t just show up at the airport with yoir cat.

   Linkedin is the place for all white collar jobs, finn is for both white and blue collar.

7. Are you fluent in Norsk?

8. Salary expectations seem reasonable. If anything, a bit on the lower side. I wouldn’t be surprised if I heard of an Android developer with 8 years experience earning 1M-1.1M either to be honest. It depends how the employer interprets your skills in an interview process.

   Last year the market for engineers chilled down a bit, but it was more challenging for juniors than more experienced engineers. It feels like it is turning around a bit these days but clearly not as hot as it was a couple of years back.

   There is two main types of employer’s the way I see it, consultancies and inhouse engineering departments.

   It is the large-ish consultancies that sell mostly fully staffed projects to customers. For someone senior I think this is probably your least attractive option. Benefits are relatively large community of engineers, professionalised processes. Drawbacks would that you are “just a worker invoicing hours” and that salary is “normal”. Companies I’d put in this category is Sopra Steria, Cap Gemini, Bekk, Accenture.

   The other type of consultancies are the smaller ones. It is a smaller community and they doesn’t staff full projects so you might be sent “alone” on a project to a customer. But there you are often put in a larger team as an extra pair of hands. The salary model in these companies would often lean towards a larger part of the salary varying depending on whether you are invoicing a customer all the time or not. Higher upside, but also more risk of you are not put on a project. There’s always a base salary, but it might be relatively low (for an engineer) if you are not working for a customer. Examples of companies I’d put in this category is Kantega, Forse, Shortcut.

   For inhouse you have the larger, established companies developing digital products. This is more stable than consulting, you will work in the same domain for a longer period of time, and probably easier for you to lean on more soft skills as well as product development. Salary would be relatively similar to the large consultancy companies. Examples include FINN, Oda, Vipps, Ruter (TET Digital).

   Another inhouse alternative is startups. Quite a few startups exists that are looking for engineers. I would expect salaries to be on the lower side. Possibly there’s some ownership stake to be had of you are early in the company, but consider that as a lottery ticket. You shouldn’t work in a company like this for the money. Hard work and as an engineer expect to do all kinds of engineering. It’s nice that you know Android, but they will need someone that can do both backend and web, probably. Very unlikely they would afford having someone that only want to do Android on their payroll.

   Regarding remote work, I think it is normal to expect employees to be in the office at least once a week, preferably 2 or 3 days. Relatively few places accept fully remote employees. Of course there are exceptions.

   If you work inhouse you save everyone a lot of time to mention your expectations on home office in your first interview. It’s better for everyone if you and the employer’s expectations match. I wouldn’t be afraid of mentioning the epilepsy, but I don’t see why you would need to. Lots of engineers focus better at home when they have very clear tasks they can work on alone. No need to explain why you prefer to work from home a couple of days per week.

   If you work for a consultancy, then they will typically say that it is the customer that decides if you can work from home or not. The consultancy can’t really guarantee how that will be for you and practices might change when you .over between customers/projects.

   I’m going to end with one last tip and that is the fact that it is extremely common in Norway to have a 3 month notice period. This means an employer looking for an engineer will expect that it takes some time for someone to actually join. This plays to your advantage as you can start applying for jobs around 4 months before you arrive and be a relevant candidate. If you don’t score a job offer right away then it might turn into an advantage as you can start earlier than most of the other candidates. The benefit is obviously that you would be able to secure a job in advance of actually moving. That makes it easier to rent an apartment etc.

9. You wont get what you want from here! Just follow your gut and lean on your expertise. I would avoid making interviews anything but about your skills and in what way you would add value to the company. Goodluck.

10. I would try and secure a job first, then move. The prospect of spending time in Oslo during the winter without a job, and without bank ID and all the like, seems daunting. I keep being told that the market for IT isn’t the best right now. Good luck, though.

11. I would rethink that if I was you, IT is hard af. No one is hiring and if they are you will be one of many very qualified people as many people were let go these last couple of years. It’s a bloodbath out there. But best of luck to ya

12. I haven’t moved to Norway yet, but currently seeking a job. From everything I’ve seen, the employer and work Visa approval are two separate things. Even if you interview and get hired, it doesn’t mean your Visa will be approved. I could be wrong, but it doesn’t seem like other countries where your employer “sponsors” you. Most say this process can be at best 3-5 months, but many take 8 months to a year to get the whole process done (including trying to a find job and coordinate everything timing wise). But again take mine with a large grain of salt, as I’m still only searching as well.

13. I won’t say it’s a bad move but a risky one.

    Norway is a very small market, but there’s always a need for developers and good, skilled workers.

    BUT

    language is a hurdle (not a big one but significant as it reduces your chances at least by 40%). A recent survey posted here in Reddit showed that recruiters highlighted an unconscious bias of inconvenience with non Norwegian language speakers.

    If you have a good portfolio, i.e. worked for some cool FAANG companies, etc, then you’ll find a place quicker.

    I recommend getting in touch with Norwegian recruiters already before you land here.

    Remember, things in Norway go slow and take time (recruitment wise). A process can take up to 40 days or more to get an offer.

14. No place to live yet? What? Have you done any research on what it takes to establish oneself in Norway? Are you at least an EU citizen?

15. There have been plenty of layoffs in IT recently. I’m an Android dev with 7 years of experience, got laid off last month along with several people with waaaay more experience than me, and we were not the only company suffering this. Which means there is a lot of very knowledgeable people fighting for very few positions. And some of them have the advantage of being natives, which is a plus for language and work culture.

    If you look up “android developer” in Oslo on LinkedIn, currently, there are zero open positions. There was one position last month, they required minimum C1 level of Norwegian (understandably so). iOS seems to be in a bit better shape and more demanded, but it’s still quite harsh.

    Last interviews I took were asking to do 3 days in the office and 2 remotely per week. Regarding salary expectations I’d say somewhere between 700k and 900k.

    I can’t persuade you to not move here, it is a very good place to live, and I’m trying hard to find another job so I don’t have to move back. But I wouldn’t encourage you if I were your friend. If I were you, I’d apply and interview remotely, me and plenty of others got a job here that way without risking so much. Good luck!

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