Getting a design job abroad with Pedro Marques, UX Manager at Shopify

Are you considering moving abroad and getting a design job overseas? 🌏 Watch my community livestream replay with myself and Pedro Marques, who's a Brazilian designer based in the Netherlands and leads the international commerce UX team at Shopify. We chat about finding a job overseas, visas, cultural differences, and a lot more. Enjoy!
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//TIMESTAMPS
00:00 - Livestream overview
1:37 - Start of livestream
2:38 - Pedro's journey in design
4:24 - How Pedro started working abroad
8:35 - Preparing for the job abroad
10:27 - Learning language and language barriers
13:20 - Language screwups
14:34 - Culture shocks
19:18 - Tips for communicating across cultures
22:37 - Different hiring processes in different cultures
24:09 - Advice for finding jobs overseas (Framing experiences based on the culture)
28:38 - Negotiation for salary, visas
29:53 - Visas and negotiation
32:28 - Researching salaries
36:25 - Salaries across different countries
37:50 - Talking about visas when applying for jobs
43:09 - Moving to a country with or without a visa
44:46 - Covid and remote working
50:22 - Recruitment market in Netherlands
51:50 - Cultural differences in Netherlands application process
54:07 - Take home assignments in Brazil and Netherlands
55:33 - References in Europe
55:55 - Any contracting agencies hiring internationally?
56:25 - Using LinkedIn for jobs
59:24 - Outro
// MORE
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[@PedroMarques]

Really enjoyed our chat! Hope it helps someone ❤️

[@ayal1]

It did, thanks for the amazing tips ✨

[@maghreb.101]

Thanks for sharing visa complications. I'm experiencing this problem right now, and I've chose to work remotely.

[@JRVerster]

Thanks for sharing your story with Femke and your journey with VISA issues were so insightful and amazing. Thank you both for creating excellent content to help others.

[@adelebeauchamp5707]

Fun! I just stumbled upon that video with your name on it... it was a pleasure seeing your face Pedro, it's been a while :D

[@arroba3218]

I'm also a Brazilian and I just got my first job. Next 2 years I'm planning to get fluent in english and start the real deal abroad.

[@carlosmontes7088]

Hi! Please, I'm triying to get my first UX job, how do you did that? How do you get the "required" experience?

[@arroba3218]

​@@carlosmontes7088 I'm actually a developer and I'm just starting my career, so I don't have anything special to share to you. Something that is really helpful regardless of experience and success is to be open to fail. We can learn a lot from our mistakes and there's no faster way to do it than going out there and exposing yourself to the market. Maybe you can start small with easy freelancing gigs to build up that confidence that's so important.

[@ersimn]

Thank you Femke for sharing this conversation! I aim to get a job abroad in the future, so these were valuable tips :) Also really nice seeing a fellow Brazilian here

[@gabriel_pauli]

Ow, thanks Femke and Pedro. This conversation was amazing and very helpful for me. I'm applying for jobs abroad and I got great insights to use in my job interviews. 💖

[@MarianaPontemusic]

This was very helpful and full of valuable information, thank you!

[@femkedesign]

You're so welcome!

[@lazyninja4646]

Great video & very informative !!!

[@femkedesign]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@joaolucascarvalho714]

lindo

[@paulinabarton9218]

Loving this livestream. Quick question: what's the book that he mentions at 20:05 time mark? I'm having a hard time finding it.

[@ferreiravinicius]

A book called The Culture Map by Erin Meyer

[@sarahmartinez2961]

Hii! Thank you for this video. I really want to know if it’s possible to land a UX job after finishing a Boot Camp while living in the Caribbean. Is it possible to apply for these jobs without having to relocate ? Otherwise, what are the chances of someone like me landing a job and being able to relocate when there are already many designers in these other countries that wouldn’t need to relocate or get a visa? (I also have a Spanish citizen if that helps) thank you in advance for your response 💖

[@femkedesign]

Sadly i don't have experience in this so not sure I have much advice. Maybe I'm wrong, but if you have Spanish citizenship does that not gives you access to the EU?

[@thinkpositive3667]

When you're a "UX designer", is it really just about "UI design" or "visual design"? All the roles I've seen for the keyword "UX design" requires you to be great at Figma and sometimes even HTML/CSS.

[@femkedesign]

It's not really about either of those things. It's about product strategy and user experience design. To excel at those does require a certain level of skill in a design tool and Figma is the preferred tool of choice. Having an understanding of HTML/CSS is a bonus as it will make it easier to collaborate with engineers.

[@ShantanuJha97]

How about working remotely :)

[@femkedesign]

What would you like to know?

[@nbx38362]

one big obstacle for an Asian to look for a design job abroad is language, the wording in different countries is a bit different. and another obstacle is how to solve ux problem in a different culture. these two bother me most so far.

[@femkedesign]

Im sorry to hear that’s what you’re struggling with! Good news is that these things, while take time, can be learned 🔥