How hard is it to find jobs coming from a 3rd world country? [closed]

Question

I'm from Brazil and my main goal today is to work abroad. This country is just going down the hole and I believe it might be the same situation as many of you here.

I manage to study all by myself and learned how to program alone. Got accepted into the best college in my state for Computer Engineering, which is Federal University of Bahia, and got a job in Ford Motor Company working with Java and I do some freelancer as well with Android + Web Development. I've got 1 year of experience and I brought this in the context to say that even tho I did some progress, my main goal is still cloudy.

Has been 2 years I'm in college and I feel the topics discussed there are not so updated to what the job interviews expect, because of that I started researching job interviews most on YouTube and have been following some channels like:

• Clément Mihailescu

• Keep On Coding

• Exponent

That gave me some base on what to study, so I started to solve problems in LeetCode, be more active in communities like Stack Overflow & side communities and I've been studying some topics like:

• O(n)
• Recursion
• Sorting algorithms
• Dynamic Programming
• Logarithm
• Depth First Search
• Data Structures (queues, stacks, heaps, trees, etc.)

Besides studying the topics above, I've been trying to improve my communication, organize my logic in text sheets before going to code and improve my English which is already quite good.

I understand that as a beginner I have to focus on studying right now and improve my skills. But, some questions that keep taking my sleep are:

• When will I be ready?
• Am I studying the right topics?
• Should I start looking for jobs abroad now or when I get more experience?
• Is it harder for me because I come from a 3º world country?
• Should I save money and go to other countries?

I don't know anyone to talk about this or to even know if I'm on the right path so, I'm researching a lot and I believe a lot of people here are in the same situation.

Answer 1

When will I be ready?

When you finished your education. Nobody wants to employ someone who "almost" knows what they are doing. A college education is a solid certificate of what you can do that should be accepted around the world. Many western countries use it as a base for their visa applications.

Am I studying the right topics?

Probably yes.

Should I start looking for jobs abroad now or when I get more experience?

When you finished your education. It would be pretty pointless before. If you can get practical job experience in parallel, that is great, but take care that you focus on your education. Don't do too many things at once.

When you are done with college, get a job. Gain experience. Apply for jobs in the country you want to go, no matter how much experience you have then. Applying will take time, patience, a tolerance for frustration and if successful another round of waiting for bureaucracy of the country in question independent of the company. You will need a job in the meantime just to pay the rent anyway.

Is it harder for me because I come from a 3º world country?

Compared to so-called First World countries? Well, yes, mostly because the First World countries are all connected and have agreements on their citizens traveling and sometimes even working without the bureaucratic rules. You can look up your countries special agreements with other countries, and it might be easier to get into some than others.

That said, I don't know the official definition of 3rd world today. It seems it once meant "not NATO, not Warsaw pact" which would have included countries like Sweden and Finland. But as a European today just my gut feeling when I hear that phrase is "starving children in Africa". Brazil doesn't have that image. Around here, Brazil is the democracy that has samba. It sure has its dark sides, but they are only reported on late at night for people that care. So, just say you are from Brazil and people will like you. Don't use the term "3rd world". Too many negative associations that aren't even true.

Should I save money and go to other countries?

That is really up to you. But I would not make any move before you finished your education (with the exception of finishing your education there through some kind of college exchange/abroad program). An education is important, especially one internationally recognized like college. 10 or 20 years down the road you may want to move to country X and job Y and they will only take you with a college degree. You cannot compensate that with experience if it is a bureaucratic rule. You can be better than the college graduates in your job, but rules are rules and they mostly don't care for "is better than", they only care for "has the certificate to prove it". So... don't skip your education. It is important. Once you have it, you can do whatever you want to do.

Answer 2

As a fellow Brazilian that made the move about 6 years ago I can say that finding a job is about as hard as it is to find jobs in your own country. Specially in IT and on this "post-pandemic" world most companies already realized that you can find good employees anywhere in the world and people can work well remotely.

The hard part is actually moving to a new country, so here are some general tips that I learned the hard way and will make your life easier:

1. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT! DON'T move to another country before you have a job or at least a bunch of interviews lined up. Most countries will require proof of employment before you can apply to a permanent visa. Some will require for your employer to sponsor you. Also, you should know where you will work so you can plan where you live. Trust me, it's very hard to get anything done if you are not a legal resident of the country where you live.

2. Keep your LinkedIn up to date. Most recruiters today will reach out for developer there.

3. Consider working remotely from your country before actually moving. It will let you get some sense of work culture and learn a little bit about the country before actually making a decision (and salaries will be better, so you will be able to save some money before you move)

4. If you are still in college, your university might have some programs that will let you study abroad. That is a very good opportunity to network and make some contacts.

Answer 3

This country is just going down the hole and I believe it might be the same situation as many of you here.

This isn't a huge issue in some industries. Competent professionals are in demand and well paid in the third World. You probably never need to leave to have a good life. There are avenues that will take you from university into govt or Private sector with little effort. Particularly govt. But everyone is on the look out for local talent.

Is it harder for me because I come from a 3º world country?

Yes, if no one has heard of your qualifications it's just a piece of paper of dubious value. Some are useless and rightly so. So if you can gain internationally recognised qualifications that would be a good step.

Having said that, those same qualifications carry a lot of weight locally and are entry level into positions in your country especially in the Public Sector where they're given precedence.

Should I start looking for jobs abroad now or when I get more experience?

No harm in doing both.

Answer 4

As someone who lives in a first world country, it's hard to ultimately say. Many companies are going remote or hybrid, which means they are more open to hiring foreign workers who they can pay less for comparable jobs, although many want local workers who can come to the office (and for various other reasons). Personally speaking, the company I work for in Canada has a remote engineer working in Colombia which isn't far from Brazil, so there's that; if you know your stuff then you have opportunities.

Regarding your education plan, it seems decent. The thing is that, while a lot of companies will test you on LeetCode-like problems/puzzles, the actual work of software engineering is almost never like that. You never have to build a LinkedList or Binary Tree from scratch, and you rarely have to optimize a list search and linear search is usually good enough. The details tend to get glossed over (unless you're in a very specific team working with very specific datasets). So while algorithmic complexity and LeetCode are all good things to know and learn for the interview, the bottom line is to make sure you can actually write code.

As for moving, certainly you will have more opportunities if you are local to the country you want to work in, and it sounds like you don't like Brazil so you want to leave anyway. If you want to leave Brazil, then it may be worthwhile to find a city you want to live in (perhaps one that is Portuguese or Spanish speaking; my understanding is that Portuguese speakers can more or less understand or converse in Spanish), move there, and try to find a job there. If you're happy living in Brazil but don't want to work there for various reasons, then you may want to job search first and let the company know you're open to relocation and handle that after you get the job.

Certainly, because you want to work for a non-Brazilian company, you may get looked over by companies that don't want to hire remote (even if you're willing to relocate, you may not get to the point in the application process where someone will find that out about you). However, I don't think that specifically being Brazilian (as opposed to any other type of foreigner, third world or otherwise) will be a detriment to you. Most companies want people who have the skills and don't care about the nationality or socioeconomic status of the originating country. So get the skills, first and foremost, the rest will come later.

Answer 5

I've worked as a programmer in a few different countries, so although my starting point is different (Norway, at the end of a master's degree in computer science) I'll weigh in.

When will I be ready?

You may already be, with some caveats. With a college degree you'll probably be able to land a higher base salary, and programming-related jobs in Western countries often require a college degree. But your experience may be enough to land a job doing something you've already done. Many companies still use take-home exercises to test candidates, and it sounds like you might nail them if they are similar to what you've already done.

Am I studying the right topics?

That's more for you to decide. The topics you mention are closer to computer science (mathematics, programming language theory, abstract ideas) than to software engineering (testing, version control, packaging, concrete software). In my limited experience there are many more jobs in software engineering than in computer science, but you also want to make sure you find a job you like! Getting stuck with a specialisation you don't enjoy is a pain, and can take a long time to get out of.

Should I start looking for jobs abroad now or when I get more experience?

It doesn't hurt to start looking, even just to get a feel for how the job market looks around the world. Employers ask for different stuff in different countries and different fields. Often they ask for much more than they expect to get. Other times what they ask for is the absolute minimum they will accept. Academia is particularly bad at this, asking for MSc/PhD degrees for work which requires the equivalent to BSc in the private sector.

Is it harder for me because I come from a 3º world country?

What's more relevant is simply that you're probably not covered by any bilateral employment exchange agreement (like EU/EFTA citizens), so most places require a significant amount of paperwork to give you a long-term or permanent work visa. This may include things like having to get signed copies of a job offer (often optional, but very helpful), college transcripts, police records, a bill of good health, and so on, all in English.

Should I save money and go to other countries?

As others have pointed out, make sure you have a signed contract from a company that is willing to wait for you to arrive some months later. Some companies are willing to sponsor or otherwise help foreigners immigrate. Another thing to keep in mind is job safety: when moving to another country it is useful to get a job for a stable employer, such as the government or a big company. Once you have a permanent visa it's less risky to look around for less stable jobs (startups, tiny companies), if that's what you're after.

Answer 6

The more you learn/know, the easier it will be to find a job. If I was you I would consider specializing on a field. You can learn about how the different fields are like in a job environment, by asking questions online or from people around you. If advanced engineering is not for you. There is plenty of experience to be gained in web development / application development.

A simple suggestion is to collaborate on an open source project. You can learn a lot that way. Go to GitHub, and you can find thousands if not millions of projects in many different fields, many would be more than happy to give you some work.

• Learn the most you can
• Focus on quality learning
• Try many options now, pick the one you like latter

I can guarantee you. If you work hard at those, you will find many people eager to hire you. In several different countries. Or maybe you get to stay in Brazil and work remote.