₦airaland Forum

tensazangetsu20:
It's been long I did anything frontend related. I don't think my advice will help you as technology especially frontend related technology changes really fast.

tensazangetsu20:
The few ones technically inclined no go see anything. I just pity those wey don born Sha. The future doesn't look bright at all for Africans.

tensazangetsu20:
Na my guy Gerrard.59 force me to make this thread.

Before I left Nigeria, I was what you would call an aggressive job applicant. I didn't plan to use the study route to leave. I wanted to leave with visa sponsorship. It's quite scarce now but back then 2021, 2022 ish some Nigerians were lucky to get visa sponsorship jobs to Europe especially Germany. I was quite active on tech twitter and almost everyday someone was posting the new job they had gotten and how they were leaving.

The downside was that I had just started my tech career then and had just like 2 years experience and I was still very very junior but I didn't let that deter me. I was applying to at least 10 jobs everyday on LinkedIn in European countries mostly in Germany and I was studying leetcode like crazy. I even had a revision session with a few paddles from nairaland where we revise the leetcode questions we had solved during the week. So it was just solve and apply. But men I won't lie from Nigeria things were just too tough. In a single month you would only have one interview and most times after the introductory interview with the recruiter that was it. I spent a year doing this and nothing commot from am then I started looking at the study route. Europe was out of it because only the UK had an easy study visa. The rest were tough as nails and I have never liked the UK. For me I rather be in Nigeria than be in the UK if it was the last option.

I finally Sha left Nigeria and the process to get a job was night and day. The first week I landed Chile and I immediately changed my location on LinkedIn to Chile. I started getting recruiters sending me messages for work. The funny thing is throughout my time in Nigeria despite paying a so called professional to revamp my LinkedIn I only had two recruiters reach out to me for work and it never went anywhere. From my second week In Chile I started having interviews with companies like IBM, Amazon, Cisco, the Chilean state bank, fallabela. Multinationals in Chile, Europe and the US. Companies I was chasing in Nigeria. Even andela was pursuing me here. The same andela me and my friends then we're struggling to enter . Anyhow, the interview process to get a job here isn't a joke in anyway. Despite the opportunities being there no one is gonna just hand you a job. Thank God I solved enough leetcode in Naija before Japa so my brain was still hot. Na only to revise. I failed some interviews but after a while I started doing exceedingly well in them and eventually I got an offer. I actually got two offers but I went with one and so far I really like where I work. It's the perfect job for me.

This is my experience but then you can't discount luck. The highest earning dev I know was earning 30000 usd a month and this was while he was in Nigeria. A few people I know who left Nigeria are also still struggling to land interviews talk less of jobs.

https://www.nairaland.com/6719932/living-uk-life-immigrant-part-2/997#123123767

This is a post from a recruiter in the UK and she also mentioned how hard it was to get work for a lot of people.

princefunmmy:
What is the hope for someone like me who isn't in the tech space.

I'm an Mechanical Engineer, 8+ years of experience in Design Engineering (CAD/CAM/CAE).

Can there be opportunity to get a job that can lead to relocation? Or any advise?

tensazangetsu20:
Yes but the problem will be the language. At traditional engineering firms here, your spanish will need to be like native level spanish.

princefunmmy:
I'm considering finding a language institute here to learn a foreign language if that will help my chance

tensazangetsu20:
Well that’s good but I don’t see how that helps you achieve native fluency. Also Chilean Spanish is a bit different from Spanish from Spain. Also with sponsorship from Nigeria I don’t see how it’s possible. Miracles happens but it’s very hard in this case but you can always try your luck.