I started travelling on a regular basis because I didn’t felt that energized at work anymore. I thought I needed a break. Another option was that I needed a different job, another atmosphere, new place. Just a shift in my life. So I started to search for a new job. No regional restriction, nothing. Just looking for my personal best options. This also meant that I didn’t stop at the country borders.
Getting a job as a software engineer is not the hardest stuff. But getting the right fit is way harder. That’s why I started working with head hunters. I applied for jobs in Switzerland, Germany, the US and Czech. The head hunters I worked with got me into some job interviews which I would be able to get into it just by myself. It was a very interesting journey. Bigger companies do their own technical tests. Which was quite interesting for me to see where I’m standing, what my strengths are and where I need to improve myself. While I was called for interviews into those companies I was able to get an idea of how they work, what their culture is and get a feeling about the working atmosphere. This will help me in getting the right decisions in the end, hopefully.
Moving out of my parents’ house
I’m 23 and it’s time to leave “Hotel Mama”. As I was eager to find a new challenging job in Spring 2018, I found a new job in Bern. This also included moving to a new place (because Bern lies 2.5h by train from my place away). Moving to Bern means my first own apartment and all the tasks, obligations and freedom are a reality now. I enjoyed it.
Start hosting Couchsurfer
Having a 2.5 room apartment for my own means that I have plenty of space. While I was using Couchsurfing once in a while during my travels I thought why not host people also in my space. So I did and met some nice people.
My first Couchsurfer was Mark from the Netherlands, followed by Isidora and Laxmi from Canada. Later also Nikole and Andy from New Zealand and Papatsara from Thailand visited the capital of Switzerland and me in my apartment. With all of them, I enjoyed the time talking and exploring.
Remote Work and TV
This journey was a special one. For the first time, I tried working remote. I wanted to test how good and productive I can work? What the challenges are? If my boss sees a difference when I’m away or in the office? In the end, everyone was quite happy. My productivity didn’t suffer, communication worked and I was able to explore Europe and be happy. I figured out a lot about how to work and travel the best. But there’s always room for optimization.
Just before I started my trip a subdivision (the Rhaeto-Romani part) of the Swiss National television came to my office and followed me for one day and made a reportage about me and working remotely. In the evening we also went to a Meetup where they were able to find some more people to interview how are working remote.