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I am fresh M.S. in Computer Science with professional experience in QA (wrote test scenarios, SQL and manual testing) and Developer of industrial automation applications (some VBScript and SCADA), but all of these are from Europe and during my studies. I’ve just moved to the US (my wife is Texan) and I am wondering how hard it will be to find a job here with no US relevant job experience.

The things I like the most are Java and databases (my master’s thesis is about EJB and NoSQL for OWL data, text in English) and I would like to work as a QA of Java and grow into a developer. Would you suggest any certificates? Anything that could hep? I am ready to work really hard, but do you think I would be considered?

Many thanks!

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Having a degree at all is just a bonus in the US, you don’t need one domestic or otherwise but, obviously, being at the beginning of your career a degree makes things easier than not having a degree. In general European degrees are superior to American ones so you should be no worse off than an American degree holder and possibly better simply because you have a foreign degree and ergo more cultural experience than an average American who, in turn, has more than the average Texan (welcome to the most xenophobic place on earth.)

Dallas is a great IT market. Tons of work. They can’t even begin to staff all of the jobs that they want to have there. You’ve got small companies everywhere and the Fortune 100 are nearly all there including energy and financial companies (nearly all of Wall St. is there!)

Java is still a major piece of the workforce so you should be good. I know that Citigroup is located there and always hiring - that’s a major feather for anyone’s cap. ExxonMobile is huge too, as is AT&T. But those are just the big boys. The Dallas market is immense (bigger than some countries) so don’t be too concerned.

Where are you moving from?

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Certs… this would depend completely on your goals. As a developer they will only do so much.

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Thanks, it’s really helpful and good to hear! I’m from Czech Rep. and I studied one semester in Belgium, that’s what we all do to get United, but no complains about that. I saw there are many opportunities, but I read a forum (March this year) about IT jobs in Austin, that even though there are so many opportunities the companies wait for the perfect match and have the position opened for 6+ months and some of the experienced guys said it’s kind of hard to get a job there. I was wondering if it is similar to Dallas, but couldn’t find anything actual.

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Austin is far away from Dallas and a completely different economy. Austin is more expensive to live in and pays far less. Austin is full of low end IT people willing to work for cheap in order to live in Austin (one of the greatest cities everywhere.) It is an extremely low end IT market - a horrible place to base an IT career (but amazing for software engineering… just how things work out.)

On the other hand, Dallas and Houston are weak for software development but amazing for IT work. They both have some of the highest pay to cost of living ratios for IT in the nation. So while you won’t make the salaries of New York or San Francisco you will have a better quality of life and have no issues finding work.

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