Why did I move abroad?

Have you ever felt stuck, like nothing was worth it anymore, lacking motivation? Well, that was me a few years ago.

I am not really sure why, but that was when one afternoon, after having a horrible day at work, I had my “f*** this” event (like MJ Demarco would say) and I decided to start looking for a change that later evolved to find a job abroad.

Far from being a hater of my own country, I just wanted to explore the world and feel forced to expose myself in an international environment and learn from different cultures (something that I still find fascinating). Other things that encouraged me to take that decision were, the challenge in itself, the variety of conferences and the networking that comes with them, and the possibility to work in countries where the tech scene was booming.

It did not happened from one day to the other, it took me some time to achieved it. I had to level my English (until it was decent enough to have a fluent conversation), and improve my interviewing skills and technical aspects. It was not easy, but my girlfriend was always there for me when I was struggling with my insecurities.

Few things that helped me back then (and just in case this is useful for anyone) were:

• A portfolio with side projects, with a good documentation of the main take-aways from a technology and non-technology point of view
• Being active on social media such as Twitter or LinkedIn, specially on topics about my expertise
• Having a cover letter explaining who I am and what I was looking for
• Have one or two job-posting portals to follow daily. In my case I used Linkedin and Stackoverflow (In case you are interested on this specific topic I have created this repository about it in here)

And last but not least, to whoever is going through the same situation, during the process there were haters and motivators, but after sometime I have learned to focus only on those people who were (and still are) encouraging me to go for it. Because leaving the comfort zone is never easy.

I am not trying to sell this neither to convince anyone that moving abroad is the key to achieve anything in life, just sharing my story to prove that the possibility is there if you want to.