Last Friday in 🇸🇪

So it's my last full day in Sweden.  Tomorrow I am leaving for the UAE.

Finally...

And it didn't come soon enough!

Moving ✈️

So guess what?  The UAE company decided to pay for my attestation.  Yep.  They are pretty mad or just insane.  And they paid and did it.  Honestly, I don't think I'm that worth it, but it's good to know that someone else thinks so!

But thanks, really!

UAE bureaucracy 101 💩

So I haven't been moved there but I've already experienced a dosage of UAE bullshit.  Everyone who moves there needs to get their degree attested at the UAE embassy of the country where you obtained your degree from.  In my case, it's Australia.  Except I don't live there anymore.  I tried to get it attested at the UAE embassy in Singapore, of which they replied they do not attest foreign documents and the only way for me to get this done is to either fly to Australia or find a lawyer.  Of course, I'm not going to do this so I've told the recruiter either you or the company who is hiring me do it or forget about me moving.  Take note that this recruiter was continuously email / ringing me for a whole week (some people would call this stalking or hassling, but no, this person does not know how to behave and thinks calling someone 3x a day and emailing them a whole week is normal!) before I finally replied to him and when I did he was so happy it was ridiculous.  Obviously signing me on would mean a big deal to his paycheck.  It's so obvious.

Here come the offers... 🎉

So I've tentatively accepted an offer from Dubai.

Moving to.. the desert..?

Why?

Happy New Year! And a summary of last's...

January's almost gone.  Wow.  And it's already 2019.  For the month of December to mid January I was in Japan, for a full month.  Looking back it was certainly an adventure of sorts.  I didn't really plan for anything in Japan, it was all by the ear.  I think in the future I'm going to be planning, Kateryna isn't a planner for certain.  I actually like to get things and see things, there are definitely things I want to see before I'm off planet Earth.

2018, what can I say.  So much promise, yet I'm still in Sweden.  The company in London ended up not going ahead because they were afraid I'll run away.  Really?  It was a head of engineering position as well.  I've been having upteen interviews since and I still am.  Funnily enough I might be moving to Singapore.  Assuming I get the offer that was promised last week that was supposed to be emailed to me by Friday, I'm getting an offer even better than London.  Just shows you how far Asia has come.  Seriously which young talented person wants to live in Europe when you can get better living conditions in Asia, and by this I mean lower taxes and an increasingly better standard of living?  Europe's a basketcase.  Even senior positions here are lower paying than junior positions in Singapore.  One of the persons who interviewed me ironically was Swedish, late forties to early fifties, he was telling me how cheap it was to eat in Singapore (duh, I know that) and how he's really settled in Singapore now.  And he only just moved end of 2017.  Bloody hell.  Telling me about how bureaucratic it was for his Tunisian wife to move to Sweden (preaching to the choir mate) and how it only took nine days for his work permit to be approved for Singapore.

Well the good thing is I learnt a lot last year.  This has led me to never being in such demand.  Literally interviews from every continent.  It looks like now I just have too much choice to choose from.  I'm turning down every interview in Sweden of course, because well, I just want to leave.  Work is good though because I'm learning but I just can't stand the country.

Saying that I know I am blessed and very fortunate to have the opportunity to even have the opportunity to live here.

Let's see what this year brings.  Tomorrow I have an interview with Dubai.  Hoping it's going to be good.  The position is interesting at least.

So freaking happy! 😁 AWS Solutions Architect! 🎓

I'm like this guy right now.  Except I have more hair on my head.

Woohoo!

Interviews interviews 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

Last week I went for an interview with a company based in London.  It was a very rushed interview, I arrived Wednesday evening at 10:30pm local time and had to leave Thursday 5pm local time (And in London, this is GMT).  Nevertheless I did pretty well, everyone was very impressed with me.  Even though I always feel like I just did an OK job.  But the feedback I got was that everyone was impressed, from the technical side to the cultural side.  Basically I had zero technical issues whatsoever, and the only nitpicking criticism was that they didn't know how I would deal with customers, but that was it.