Get a work permit job in Germany

Berlin, Germany
Public domain photo

Apologies for the bad posting schedule during the holidays. As you can imagine, life was a bit crazy here. My wife's mother came down from Calais (northern France, on the coast) for Christmas. Despite the mother-in-law stereotypes, she and I get along quite well and we had a blast.


In my never-ending quest to help you become an expat, I've found Sociomantic, a company based in Berlin, Germany. They're in the Web advertising industry and I couldn't help but notice that they have a Real-Time Bidding (RTB) platform, something I'm building at my current position, so it's an interesting coincidence. That, however, is not the point of this post. The actual point is Sociomantic's Career Page. For the software developer positions they offer "Help with residence permit processing for non-EU citizens". You'll need to be able to program in C, C++ or D (creative programming language names, eh?), so this isn't for everyone, but if you have those skills, give 'em a shot and let 'em know I sent you (which should be interesting because they have no idea who I am or that I'm linking to them).

Berlin, for those unaware, is a lovely city and it's still relatively inexpensive. Combine this job with a German Blue Card and you can soon start living and working just about anywhere in the EU.

Our daughter enjoying one
of her Christmas presents.

On a personal note, my father used to have to travel to East Berlin back before the wall fell and before he learned to speak German. He tells a story of how he was stopped one time and my father kept saying Ich spreche kein Deutsch (I don't speak German) but the East German guard kept demanding something (presumably my father's papers). Finally, my father, who had previously lived in Moscow for several years, turned to the Soviet officer behind the East German guard and said, Расскажи об этом охраннику, что я не говорю по-немецки (Google translation of "tell this guard that I do not speak German", so it might be rubbish).

Apparently the Soviet officer smiled and said nothing. The East German guard, however, upon hearing Russian, immediately stiffened and my father's US passport came flying back to him like a frisbee. He was waved through immediately and every time he traveled to East Berlin after that, he was never stopped or questioned if it was that same guard.