Facebook Zurich - How to get there?
FB is my favorite FAANG and Zurich is my dream city to live in. I will be doing a FB internship soon in London, but not in AR/VR field. As I see, most of FB Zurich openings are AR/VR. Are there any plans on expanding this? How hard is for me to get to FB Zurich? If I do well on my internship in London, I could receive a return offer, but I assume this will be for London. I’m even thinking of learnings AR/VR stuff just to try to transfer internally to Zurich. Is this the best strategy - internal transfer? I know there are few people there, but maybe someone is on Blind? Note: European, but Non-EU national. Also note: FB London is also amazing, don’t get me wrong. Probably better than Zurich office. I’m super grateful to have received the offer. But I have lots of friends in Zurich and I just loved it when I visited it.
I don’t recommend you to start your career in small remote offices.
Makes sense. London offers much more: the office is huge, more opportunities etc.
And learning resources.
Tried applying there, even cleared phone screen but then got told me no headcount for generic SWEs. You really really have to have experience in one those specialist areas they are looking for, else there's only Google waiting for you in Zurich. There's also Apple office in Zurich of similar size (i.e. a few dozen people). They have a slightly higher variety of teams: animoji (original startup they bought), siri, maps and self driving, try your chance there you might get lucky. I didn't
That’s why I was even considering switching to mixed reality field. Thanks for info about Apple, didn’t know that.
Btw "non-EU national" is going to be a huge problem in getting into Switzerland. Companies really don't like your kind here, due to local labor laws. Google and big banks have the patience to pull you through the system but even then they demand stuff like 3yoe to be sure of outcome. Small companies will throw your resume right away unless it mentions which EU country passport or swiss work permit you already have
I was thinking of doing MSc degree which implies getting a residence permit. After 1y I think I can get a work permit and maybe problem solved, but not sure.
Yes, that's one of the ways to get in. But I think you only get 6 months of non-discriminatory hiring after graduating from a swiss university, not 1 year. And switching jobs might still be problematic until you've cleared 5 year mark to get a C permit (permanent residence)
It’s hard to get hired directly into remote offices that were startup acquisitions. The best you can do it keep an eye out for openings there or try to network with someone in the team if you happen to know someone.
Thanks for the comment. Will try to do so.