Moving to Dubai from US

non-first hand info: bad engineering culture, horrible ego-driven managers (worse than France). The upsides are zero taxes and hot sunny weather.

Do not do this. Its a police state.

How did your friend get a job there ? I am interested in knowing the approach

Tech/engineering culture that you get in the states is nearly non existent here in Dubai. Most Dev jobs are small php or asp.net shops using outdated processes and technologies and don't pay much. I work at Careem. It's one of the only 2 unicorns in the middle east. It operates alot more like a silicon valley tech company culture and process wise and pays above market. There a few other companies like Careem here too. PM me if you want a referral. We're hiring for Berlin and Dubai but Dubai is especially hard to hire for. Also no tax. As an American though you will get taxed abroad above a certain income. Lemme know if you have any questions. I myself am leaving and going to the US and I'm looking for referrals.

Careem (Uber for Middle East) is aggressively hiring people now in Dubai. Got pinged by them a few times but didn't respond. I think there's also an earlier thread on the topic here.

In Dubai, women who report being raped are arrested because it’s illegal to have sex outside of marriage. Fuck that shit.

SOUQ was bought by amazon, you might wanna check on them.

Haven’t heard or read good things about Careem. Check out glassdoor. Talent is weak.

Careem had a massive data breach in January and only informed its users today with a lame blog post that lacks details. It’s in the news today. May be that’s what OP was referring to.