Moving from Romania to Dublin as a contractor software developer

FacelessVoid

Hello 👋,

I am a software developer with three years of experience. I was planning to move to Dublin, I went to some interviews for permanent roles, but I was not satisfied with the pay. I was thinking to move as contractor to Ireland. By doing this I will get a better pay.

Can you please give me some advice about this? Do somebody got a job as a contractor and relocating at the same time? What salary should I expect?

Please give me some feedback. I know it will be cheaper to move to another area but Dublin looks really good.

Thank you very much! 🙏

TrueDub

You don't know what salary you'll get as a contractor, but you knew the permanent role salary wasn't satisfactory? How?

Check the various recruitment companies, they all have salary surveys publicly available which will give you a guideline.

Three years experience is not a long time when it comes to contracting, by the way.

Dial Hard

How many threads do you need to start about this???

FacelessVoid

Hello, thank you for your advice! 🙏

FacelessVoid

Sorey for that. I was thinking I can delete the first one 😅

Jim2007

You need to start with defining what you mean by contractor. Are you talking about being body shopped by an agency or are you talking about running your own business - finding clients, invoicing etc.?

It does not matter which EU state you move to the rules are the same - you are entitled to move to another state for the purpose of employment or to start your own business and after five years you are entitled to permanent resident status if you can show economic viability. And that is the difficult part to prove, if you are trying to be an independent IT contractor. So you are better to favour permanent employment or work via an agency at least until you have qualified for permanent residence status.

It is also worth pointing out that Ireland does not have a civil registry system like you encounter in most other EU countries and this can also contribute to difficulties in establish permanent residency. Most EU embarrasses in Ireland maintain a registry of their citizens in Ireland which can be used as an alternative, so contact your embassy to find out the details.

It is also important to understand that salaries offered by contracting agencies are designed to put as much money in your hands as possible. And so in many cases this does not equate to the salary being offered by an employer. So it is important to know the difference, understand what you will need to cover yourself and what it will cost.

As a contractor of 30+ years, I would be very slow to recommend someone with three years experience to become a contractor - you have an awful lot to learn yet and you may not get to learn this as a contractor. The result could be that in 10 - 15 years time you may struggle because your skill set is not longer top of the market and you don't have anything else to fall back on.

FacelessVoid

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118571729#Comment_118571729

Hello. Thank you for your advice! I want to move there to work for a company as a contractor. In my free time I will create a new company to work on my start-up parallelly. I work as a contractor right now 😁. Can you please tell me more about being a contractor with three years of experience? I did not fully understand why that is bad 😁. Thanks a lot! 🙏

Stheno

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058230803/moving-from-romania-to-dublin-as-a-contractor-software-developer

You already had a long thread in another forum about this and were expecting to earn 110k euro a year with three years experience as a full stack developer.

Given you were offered 55k for a permanent role multiply that by 1.5 and that's what you could expect as a contractor tbh

FacelessVoid

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118573076#Comment_118573076

Hello Stheno, I was wondering how contracting is working in Ireland. Thank you for your advice!🙏

Stheno

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118573110#Comment_118573110

You need to stop ignoring the advice you are offered

FacelessVoid

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118573118#Comment_118573118

I am not ignoring it. Sorry for that! 😅 I am trying to talk with people to see if there is a better approach. The advice what people gave me is much appreciated and I can not thank them enough for it. 🙏

John_Mc

3 years experience is on the low end for a contractor to be honest. You're expected to hit the ground running and add value to existing teams almost immediately, with as little oversight as possible. I would be surprised if a person with 3 years experience could do that, and I would be a hiring manager.