Much to not-too-far-past-Ben's surprise, I accepted an offer this morning for my first full-time software engineering role. Beginning June 1, 2020, pending a successful visa process and a potential global pandemic, I will be working for Dalia Research in the role of "Backend Engineer".
A few points of interest:
It's primarily a Ruby/Rails job. If you take a quick look at my post history, that's...not one of mine. I will have some Ruby to learn. (I told them this.)
This company is located in Berlin, Germany. It's not a remote gig, and I live in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. To avoid the prohibitive commute, I'm relocating to Berlin. I will have some German to learn. (I told them this.)
DEV's
work_statusboolean is entirely to blame. Thanks, DEV, very cool!
The point as it pertains to DEV, I guess, is that I'll probably start writing about Ruby! I'm already a fan.
Plot twist, right?
I would love any recommendations you may have for high-quality human-language self-learning. While the office speaks English and Berlin has a high concentration of foreigners, I will want to attain at least ILR 2 - of course not necessarily entirely before I go. Is Rosetta Stone worth the cash? Pimsleur? I've started the Duolingo track but that's really just practice, I need something more substantial as well.
Photo by 🇨🇭 Claudio Schwarz | @purzlbaum on Unsplash
Latest comments (39)
Hurray!
Congrats, Ben!
Congrats Ben!
Thank you!
Congratulations! I lucked out in that my first position is remote and I have to pop over to Cambridge for the (very) occasional 1 on 1, but getting out of Boston is one of the best things any dev can do, just because traffic and living expenses are so out of control.
Oof, I know! It's my childhood hometown, but it's just become ridiculous.
I've seen you turn from a "newbie" (your words not mine) into an awesome developer. I'm proud to call you my DEV pal, good luck and I'm sure mastering Ruby will be a piece of cake.
Thanks so much, Yoandy!
Congrats Ben good luck
Good luck Ben,,I think ,,it will be success story
Congratulations! Working abroad in Berlin, what an adventure.
Haha, most brilliant piece of subdued humor I've come across in a while: "To avoid the prohibitive commute" :-) :-) :-)
Well, learning German might turn out to be the hardest part ... I think 2000 years ago English and German were somewhat similar, but that's not really the case anymore, be prepared to learn a lot of "Schwere Wörter" ... well maybe this one is for you:
learn-german-easily.com
and reassuringly it says "The German language and the English language have the same roots", but don't expect all too much of that, yes the most basic words often have a similarity so that does help, but it ain't gonna be easy (although a lot easier than, say, Chinese).
But most Germans do know English and I think they're fairly tolerant of a foreigner's mistakes when he's trying to speak their language. And I think it can be great fun to learn it.
Finally, from what I've heard Berlin is just a fantastic city, and since you'll be in the "Schengen Zone" (EU region with free movement of persons) you'll be able to travel freely to other countries, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy, Austria, Poland, you name it (not the UK though).
Thank you, really. You should expect a ping.
Indeed not what I would have expected, but congratulations.
So happy for you Ben! Good luck and welcome to the Ruby side 😂
I've only been in Berlin once and in the depth of winter but I loved it!
Your post is a testament that knowing a language is not always required to get a job, skills are very transferable between programming (and sometimes spoken) languages.
If you want to play with Ruby and Rails, DEV runs on Rails and it's open-source 👀😊
See github.com/thepracticaldev/dev.to
I was thinking this might be what finally pushes me to do something with my local copy of the DEV repo :)
Thanks very much. Ruby is quite nice!
Wow congrats! Sounds like it's going to be an adventure for you.
Thank you! Quite the understatement :)
Finally, Ben Eleven
Congrats!! Hope this new adventure brings you tons of success and happy experiences :D
Congrats!
You weren't down with having a daily morning swim, eh? Just as well. I heard traffic in the mid-Atlantic can be a real bear.
It's 2020 already, I was told there'd be jetpacks and teleportation...
Fax machine works good for long distance commute, assuming the destination machine has enough toner and there's a decent bicycle pump on hand.
Okay, I'll bite. What's the pump for?
Because when you come out of the fax machine, you're always pretty flat.
I'm reporting this joke.
That's amazing! Congratulations, and good luck with the move!