# Work in dubai as IT consultant



## mrgoolie (May 19, 2016)

Hi expats, 
I'm an it virtualization specialist. 
After a few projects in Europe, and after a few trips to Dubai I'm thinking about relocating to Dubai. Reason? Obvious the weather and the cool atmosphere at Dubai . 

I contacted already a few companies or IT recruiters via LinkedIn, but apparently almost nobody really reacts. 
I think maybe because I'm a freelancer/contractor... 
Do Dubai companies only use full time employers? No contractors? 
Does anybody know if the daily rates are comparable with the rates in Europe? 

Thanks!


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## londonmandan (Jul 23, 2013)

I know of one UK company that is technical, used to be Kelway but now called CDW after the take over. I believe that office is purely technical so could try asking them.

As for how they hire staff, they would be full time not contractors (unless it changed after takeover)


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## twowheelsgood (Feb 21, 2013)

Most IT guys I have come across here come from Asia and the subcontinent and they get paid one tenth of what you would be happy with

And they are extremely competent.


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## mrgoolie (May 19, 2016)

twowheelsgood said:


> Most IT guys I have come across here come from Asia and the subcontinent and they get paid one tenth of what you would be happy with
> 
> And they are extremely competent.


damn


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## chestnut (Apr 1, 2013)

Oracle seem to be building up their cloud team here in Dubai - Applications can only be made through their web site (according to 2 friends who work there).


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## imac (Oct 14, 2012)

mrgoolie said:


> ...I think maybe because I'm a freelancer/contractor...


its because recruiters get slammed with connection requests and mail constantly, and will only respond back if you happen to be the flavor of the day - exactly what s/he is looking for at that very second because they have a requirement sitting in front of them...



mrgoolie said:


> ...Do Dubai companies only use full time employers? No contractors?...


people do use contractors but its not the same as in other parts of the world.. you need a visa of some sort to work here... if a company does the visa for you it has to be an employment visa which stipulates you can only work for them, and on a fixed salary... you can get your own freelance visa, but it comes with all kinds of requirements for things like leasing office space and getting licensed and the whatnot making it prohibitively expensive in most cases unless you are an exceptional niche specialist in very high demand - and almost nothing in IT infrastructure would fall into this category...



mrgoolie said:


> ...Does anybody know if the daily rates are comparable with the rates in Europe?...


in your field, not even close...


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## The Rascal (Aug 6, 2014)

twowheelsgood said:


> Most IT guys I have come across here come from Asia and the subcontinent and they get paid one tenth of what you would be happy with
> 
> *And they are extremely competent*.


Really? You've met different ones than i have then.


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## chestnut (Apr 1, 2013)

Following on from Rascal's and Imacs' responses, and from my experience of selling performance monitoring tools into this space, I have found a mixture or nationalities in the virtualisation/cloud space. Operations people have more often been from Asia and the subcontinent, but higher-level staff (architects and such) are often "westerners".


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## mrgoolie (May 19, 2016)

imac said:


> its because recruiters get slammed with connection requests and mail constantly, and will only respond back if you happen to be the flavor of the day - exactly what s/he is looking for at that very second because they have a requirement sitting in front of them...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


At this moment I'm already working for a Dubai company, but they only offer contracts in Europe, not Dubai itself. A visa won't be an issue, I would only need a few weeks to get it done.


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## mrgoolie (May 19, 2016)

chestnut said:


> Oracle seem to be building up their cloud team here in Dubai - Applications can only be made through their web site (according to 2 friends who work there).


Thanks for the tip, I will check their site.
Btw also IBM is creating some kind of "cloud" team in Dubai, according to some vavancies I saw on indeed.com.
Could be interesting 
But I guess they only work with employers, yet I already worked on sub-contract based for IBM Europe.


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## mrgoolie (May 19, 2016)

chestnut said:


> Following on from Rascal's and Imacs' responses, and from my experience of selling performance monitoring tools into this space, I have found a mixture or nationalities in the virtualisation/cloud space. Operations people have more often been from Asia and the subcontinent, but higher-level staff (architects and such) are often "westerners".


An architect function is where I aim to .


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## chestnut (Apr 1, 2013)

It can be tricky to talk a potential new employer to take on the risks of bringing someone into region and to promote them at the same time. Are you working as an architect level or aspiring to it?

Also: most of the virtualisation-type roles I have seen advertised in region are for "cloud". This typically mean not just knowledge of the hypervisors but also of the surrounding technologies (i.e. the automating of provisioning, etc.). Would this play to your strengths?


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## mrgoolie (May 19, 2016)

chestnut said:


> It can be tricky to talk a potential new employer to take on the risks of bringing someone into region and to promote them at the same time. Are you working as an architect level or aspiring to it?
> 
> Also: most of the virtualisation-type roles I have seen advertised in region are for "cloud". This typically mean not just knowledge of the hypervisors but also of the surrounding technologies (i.e. the automating of provisioning, etc.). Would this play to your strengths?


At this moment I'm working only on projects (design - build) for big companies (+1000 users) in Belgium - Europe. I did also projects in The Netherlands, Poland. My main focus is Citrix (workplace delivery to end-users, provisioning Citrix Workers, NetScaler and so on), in fact delivering workplaces for intern and remote users from A-Z.
I did a project last year where the target was moving small companies (max 100 users) to the cloud, 100% HA. I did the design and I set up the infrastructure.


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## chestnut (Apr 1, 2013)

Sounds like you have the experience to go for the "cloud" roles that have been available at Oracle, IBM and RedHat, though what each of the roles actually require will be specific ;-)


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## Byja (Mar 3, 2013)

twowheelsgood said:


> Most IT guys I have come across here come from Asia and the subcontinent and they get paid one tenth of what you would be happy with
> And they are extremely competent.


:crazy:

So competent that they sell themselves short...


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## twowheelsgood (Feb 21, 2013)

Byja said:


> :crazy:
> 
> So competent that they sell themselves short...


Not really - just because you move countries doesnt mean your salary reflects other third party countries salaries. They get paid the going rate in the country they choose to work - the fact that other countries pay higher in those countries is irrelevant.


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