The Exodus of Tech from Portugal

I am from Lisbon, not a cheap place by any means. Granted, coffee outside is cheap and going out at night is also affordable, but when you take into account the average IT wage living in Lisbon is expensive. And what is the point in moving to another part of the country and staying away from my friends and family like I do now just to pay a bit less in rent?

Even with the high costs of living in London I can save more money than when I was living in Lisbon, but crucially I am exposed to more work opportunities that increase my experience and value as a developer.

The kind of stuff I have done abroad just does not exist in Portugal, at least at the time it did not.

And with regards to the patriotism aspect of your comment, I regularly send money to my family and take vacations in Portugal. All this money was earned abroad. Also, I regularly work for Portuguese customers in projects for foreign clients which means that I am helping with the exports of the country.

Finally, I am not nationalistic and I think those kind of feelings are detrimental to the evolution of civilisation. If anything I consider myself European, and I can't wait for a democratic centralised european government that brings some proper law and order to clean up the corruption and ineptitude of the politicians running Portugal, which is now the most unequal country in the EU with the lowest social mobility and an education level below Mexico.

While I think I understand what your point is, I'm not sure I agree.

In the company I work for (about 80 people here), it's not the university rookies that I have problems with: some are weak, some are excelent. But most of them come with a desire to learn, and will in most cases be exploited by PHB project managers that make them work very long hours. Have seen it happen again and again, with no productivity gain whatsoever.

But then, when that really excelent rookie hire appears, with an outstanding ROI, we just can't hire him/her or give him a decent salary, because of all the 'historic' figures that are on the company forever. That's why I cannot agree with a simplistic "juniors can't expect to earn the same salary as someone that has more experience". Some fully deserve it, don't get it, and then become just another layed back demotivated worker.

Thus, "It's all about being a worthily asset for the company, other than just being an simple asset.", can I assume that you offer stock options? Clearly defined rewards if success is reached?

Of course that its not all about the money, but so many portuguese bussiness owners like to forget about their employees once they reach success, and maintain the 'just an employee status'. Thus, it goes both ways. I'm not saying it is your case, but I could not infer otherwise from your text.

And finally: "that they really need to work had to make a difference" What's working hard? To so many people working hard is working long hours almost every single day. My personal experience tells me most of the people that work long hours are either slackers (lots of coffee, lots of talk) or workaholics that do not always play well with others.

I don't think your bosses education level is deterministic enough of his abilities or skills to manage you and whether or not he has the smarts.

Managers should manage and should be effective at that.

As a software developer working in UK, I am managed by someone who has already been a developer in the past and he does not involve himself into any of the technical aspects of my job. He is caring after the larger picture, where I am only one of a group of players that he oversees. It's just like an orchestra, you don't expect the maestro to play all the instruments, but you _do_ expect him to know how to drive all the musicians. Having a manager that isn't smart (or whose education level + smarts doesn't meet the threshold of "can do more than just the mechanical aspects of the job" is a problem, however.) And as I've never been a developer in Portugal, because, education-wise, I don't qualify to work anywhere in Portugal, I cannot speak specifically how the landscape looks for software developers which during my 10 year stint was one area where a degree was an absolute must. However, as someone above said, there seems to be a lot of business leaders and while this is critically essential, it's unfortunately only a part of the much larger landscape and this is where it needs addressing.

Leaving Portugal to UK was the best thing I have done for my career as Software Developer.

In Portugal I could't go any further because I didn't hold computer engineering degree.

In UK, I've reached Lead Developer position, and now Technical Project Manager. By contrast in Portugal nobody would even invite me in for an interview because the degree was a requirement.

Moving abroad hasn't always been easy. But I've found that beside the language everything else is purely down to your performance and personal ambitions.

Regards

You should read and maybe learn something on Salazar's education policies. The dictatorship was bad for many reasons, but as for education goes, you got it all wrong. The regime built thousands of primary schools across the country, and made 4th class mandatory for all kids, girls and boys. Before Salazar, our country had a 19th century mentality, derived from monarchy, whereas girls weren't supposed to need school and only "doctors" would be put through it. The vast majority of the population was not educated in any sense. For all its faults, Salazar's regime managed to change that and raise Portugal to close to the european education standards. That change took decades, it's not something you can do in 5 years. Just as a side note, the some goes for general infrastructures in Portugal. It was a dictatorship, yes, will all the crap that entails, but, after monarchy and the corrupt governments of the 10s and 20s that bankrupted Portugal, it was his regime that raised the bar here in Portugal, until we got fed up with the lack of liberty to express ourselves. Go learn something, buy a book. http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estado_Novo_(Portugal)