I wish you all the luck. I'm sure whatever you do will be successful.
I'm always looking for great developers so if you fancy living in Calgary for awhile ping me.
Would you consider moving to Belgium? :-) The best of luck and may all the fun stuff cross your path.
How about getting a degree then? ;)
Eran: I find that I get much more satisfaction from actually doing the things instead of theoretically learning about them. For me, starting to work on computers *instead* of doing a degree put me 3 years ahead with experience.
I really don't miss the degree that much.
another things: 12 years experience==degree for visa, as far as I hear.
Under "Go abroad and live there for a year or two" you obviously mean "Go to the US on H1b visa".
You probably familiar that 90% of H1b folks end up staying in the US permanently :-)
I'm one of such folks BTW :-)
Unfortunately it's not easy to get H1b. There are H1b quotes.
BTW, what salary are you looking for?
Would you share your start up idea?
I just noticed that you don't have a degree ...
Do you mean that you don't even have BS (4 years in college)?
That really hurts your chances of getting H1b...
You may consider getting student visa and get college degree.
If you don't like the idea of getting to college -- you should seriously consider running your own business (startup).
Dennis: US is not the only place in the world that's great to live in. Also, H1b is not the only kind of VISA.
Yes, I'm aware that no degree hurts my chances. That's why I'm saying this up front. Saves a lot of time in phone calls later..
Opening my own startup: did I mention that was one of the possibilities?
And no, you won't get a price quote from me, mainly because money isn't the most important thing here.
Roy
1) What are the most important criteria in case if you are looking for job in the US?
2) H1b is obviously not the only visa. I mentioned student visa as well. There is also business visa and more ...
3) Yes, you mentioned startup, but you didn't describe the idea behind it yet.
Well, the idea for the startup is..
Wait. Maybe I shouldn't like, tell it to the world Because then the idea could be,um, used by someone else before I use it. Almost got me there :)
I know you've been to Norway before. Want to come again? We're an agile team with great potential! :) If you would like to do some consulting for us, especially around TDD, we would love to have you! We're also looking for new people, so who knows, maybe you even want to be part of our team...
Roy, good luck. But what's going on? Everyone leave Israel (you are forth a row)? What's up?
I read a post here on weblogs about even the mighty MS legal dept not being able to land a talented software engineer (who was living in Canada at the time) because he had no degree and all the visa issues. That said with recent developments at ms, who knows ;-)
Roy said
"Be a CTO in some company that would pay me well and let me do my own thing after hours (yes I have a big ego, but an offer like this is on the table..)"
If you want to do that do not come to the USA.
Most companies do not like it. If you have an idea that has nothing to do with the company on a sunday afternoon on your toilet seat.
It does not belong to you, it belong to the company. The agreement that you signed said so.
If you do want to sign the agreemment, you do not get the job.
Would love to have you with Enesys.
However, if you do not speak at least some French you may have hard time here.
Not even mentionning the difficulties for obtaining some visa.
Anyway, I wish you the best.