Help Needed Please

[Neal]

Hola,
I'm sorry because it will be a long post but i'm really looking forward to get help from you and you don't know how much i need this so please help me.
I am Syrian but i live in Saudi Arabia, i'm a computer engineering student at my senior year in one of the best universities in the middle east. The only thing i know right now is i dont want to start my career life in the middle east and after a long time of searching i found out that B.A is the right place for me, the only thing i couldn't determine is will i be able to find a job there, if i am willing to spend my first six months in learning Spanish and getting to know the city also meet people and make friends, will i be able to find a job for me in any computer related company in this period (I prefer an office job not a freelance)?
will the visa be something easy to get (I have a Syrian passport)?
Is it easy to have friends in B.A ( do they accept me to combine with their culture) ?
is six months enough for me to be fluent in Spanish ( note that i will attend classes also)?

Looking forward to hear from you.

 

[Iznogud]

Hello and welcome.

Have no clue why you've decided Argentina is the right place for you but let me tell you that finding work here in your field is not easy nor well paid. There are local computer engineers a dime a dozen.
It might be fine if you came here already with a contract for a foreign company and with an income to match, otherwise do not expect local companies to pay top dollar for your services when they can get have their pick for next to nothing. Not easy.

Not speaking the language is also a serious handicap if you are looking at the job market unless you target the much smaller foreign companies sector. I wouldn't dream of being fluent in six months. Maybe over a couple of years if you speak it constantly and are well immersed in the local culture.

Suggest you take a couple of weeks down here and see for yourself.
At present the city is about to embark in it's summer stasis. There will be some political/financial crisis just before the holiday season and the first summer departures. Already small riots are becoming daily happenstances.
We will get shafted but with little or no time to complain before the summer break. BA will become quiet and deserted while people head home or spends a few days away. We go apeshit crazy again early March, when the schools start the new academic year.

 

[French jurist]

Hi,

my two cents here.

- I believe there's quite a strong community of Syrian origin in Argentina (even Carlos Menem had Syrian roots). I don't know to what extent this could positively affect your stay here.
- Learning Spanish in 6 months: seems you already know English. If you also speak a latin language close to Spanish (Italian, Portuguese, French) that would speed up your learning obviously.
- Visa: I don't know which types of visa you're talking about (I guess that a Syrian citizen needs to apply even for a tourist visa?). Once you're here, things are way easier for everything that follows (search the threads on this forum).
- Job: IMHO you need first to focus on freelance jobs, and eventually "telecomputing" ones (working for companies abroad while being paid in dollars or whatever). This is for many reasons (you'll have a hard time finding a local job, if you have a local job you'll make money in pesos -better make your income in USDs, etc.).
- Friends: impossible to answer that one! But if you know how to cook nice dishes from your country, I'll gladly invite you (and will cook myself French things).

 

[Rich One]

I see the best opportunities working for Arab speaking organizations, consulates and exporters dealing with the Middle East, As a bilingual Arab/English.

 

[DerAchtundzwanzig]

Hello and welcome.

Have no clue why you've decided Argentina is the right place for you but let me tell you that finding work here in your field is not easy nor well paid. There are local computer engineers a dime a dozen.

I'm sorry Iznogud, but what you're saying is far from the truth. There is a huge shortage for computer and software engineers in Argentina and it's one of the highest paying jobs at the moment. Companies are so desperate for software engineers and programmers they are even hiring undergraduates. This information is not hard to find, just go to Google and type "trabajos mejores remunerados en Argentina" and you'll see.

 

[Iznogud]

Please 28, enlighten me.

Links?

 

[kemer84]

http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1489844-exito-instantaneo-para-los-estudiantes-de-sistemas-en-la-argentina

 

[toongeorges]

There is a huge shortage for computer and software engineers in Argentina and it's one of the highest paying jobs at the moment. Companies are so desperate for software engineers and programmers they are even hiring undergraduates.

The shortage of computer engineers is worldwide, not just in Argentina, the difference being that wages are much higher elsewhere than in Argentina. If I remember correctly, daily contractor prices for a fresh bachelor graduate in India could be up to 150 dollars, which is cheap in an international context, a senior developer in Europe costs 7 times more. It seems to me income in Argentina is rather on the low end, if not, please enlighten me. I am a software engineer myself and currently not looking for a job here, since I think it is not worth the effort. With a decent computer science degree it should be straightforward to get a European work visum if you manage to work for a company there. I guess the same applies for the US or other countries with higher wages. I do not want to doubt any reasons for wanting to work in Argentina, just pointing out that salary is not one of these reasons.

 

[sleslie23]

The shortage of computer engineers is worldwide, not just in Argentina, the difference being that wages are much higher elsewhere than in Argentina. If I remember correctly, daily contractor prices for a fresh bachelor graduate in India could be up to 150 dollars, which is cheap in an international context, a senior developer in Europe costs 7 times more. It seems to me income in Argentina is rather on the low end, if not, please enlighten me. I am a software engineer myself and currently not looking for a job here, since I think it is not worth the effort. With a decent computer science degree it should be straightforward to get a European work visum if you manage to work for a company there. I guess the same applies for the US or other countries with higher wages. I do not want to doubt any reasons for wanting to work in Argentina, just pointing out that salary is not one of these reasons.

The total cost of employment in Argentina is not that low. Salaries are much lower than the US or Europe, obviously, but if you factor in facilities, taxes, (bribes?), etc. the cost isn't as cheap as India, for example. The company I work for recently opened a large development center in Mexico, which is also much cheaper than Argentina. Last year, I was told that per head count, India is .33 the cost of a US employee. An employee in Argentina is .6 the cost. The Argentine number seems high to me, though.

I don't know about Europe, but getting a visa in the US is far from straightforward. The wait for an H1B (the visa type that the majority of IT workers have) is several years and that is with a sponsoring company pushing the paperwork through. Also, most large IT companies (Oracle, IBM, etc) want to hire in places like India, China, Mexico, and (sometimes) Argentina. My company, for example, has a hiring freeze in the US, but is hiring 10+ people per month here. Many more in India.

The biggest problem I see with working in IT in Argentina is that salaries don't come close to keeping up with inflation. I would suggest a country with a more stable economy (if such country exists these days).

 

[Iznogud]

I've been in the industry for over 25 years.
This country is losing IT jobs to neighboring/regional ones on a noticeably daily basis. Foreign companies/corporations choose not to work with Argentina if they can avoid it. They're moving their IT hubs and only keeping a token force locally if they can not work otherwise.

Single Nación article, funny that most of the others Google volunteered when I searched were at least a few years old. Nación miente?

Would not venture to call someone a liar like Der Achtundzwanzig did, let's just agree to dissagree and say that we have different perspectives. Also likely different education and social skills.