How to find a software developer position in Europe

Question

I live in a small Baltic country and I've been working as a software developer for 5+ years, with coding experience of 10+ years. Mainly specializing in C/C++.

The problem is that the projects I had to work on, were really tiny in global scale, and also involved some switching to .NET and that likes. I want to keep growing, and try working on bigger things, with larger teams, environments with new methodologies, with teams following best practices, things like code reviews, and with super-star developers so that I could learn from them, and try to be like them.

During the last few years, I've run into a situation where I only develop solutions, but I don't see any career opportunities or a way how I could learn more. I do read books in my free time, but I have a feeling they won't help me much to find a better position or extremely challenging projects.

There are still things I want to learn, I want to find a challenging position that would allow me to learn how to write even more amazing things in C/C++, but I don't know how to search for these positions.

Does anyone have any tips on where to start? It feels like I'm stuck where I am, but I still want to grow.

Answer 1

If you plan to stay in your country you could try to find a company that does outsourced work for other major companies. I don't know the Baltic job market but at least in my field, we are seeing a shift from off-shoring (mainly India and China) to near-shoring (mainly eastern Europe) due to increasing financial costs, as well as time and cultural differences with off-shoring. Do you live near a major city? Quite often there are networking organizations where you can get in touch with people from different companies, or "hack-fests" where you develop something together over a weekend. It's a good way to meet talented and enthusiastic people.

If you are willing to move, and being part of the EU does make it a lot easier to move and work abroad, try to locate 'software development hubs/cities' in Europe or identify companies that you want to work for / make products that you like. For example, some very interesting C++ work is being done by Nokia/Trolltech in Oslo, in Germany and in Australia. Lund, Sweden, has Ericsson, Sony Ericsson and Axis, and is close to Malmö (Research In Motion) and Copenhagen (Microsoft, Nokia...). Maybe you have such 'hubs' closer to where you live? In my experience they attract good developers.

Answer 2

In Amsterdam, there is a very recent movement, called Appsterdam. It's a group of mostly young and enthusiastic software engineers who want to make Amsterdam the heart of the world's software development. The guys are very happy to help anyone who considers moving in, or is just curious to ask. Get in touch with them on Twitter (@appsterdamrs) or visit the link I posted above.