Is it worth to get a software developer job (and not only) in Dubai?
By: Justyna Goławska
Tags: Travel, Jobs, Dubai, Daj Się Poznać 2017, Tech

Dubai is the most populous and famous city in United Arab Emirates. A country that consists of seven emirates: Abu Dhabi (which is actually a capital of UAE), Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah and Umm al-Quwain. According to the Dubai Statistic Centre the current resident population of Dubai is 2,744,545.

Dubai is very unusual, as majority of the people are expatriates. The local Emirati are only 17%, then 53% Indian, 13% Pakistani and other nations. Europeans represent only about 1 percent, I recon.

Why at all you should consider Dubai?

If you ever thought of emigration in my opinion this is one of the best, but of course not obvious, places you can aim. What I like in here is the variety of culture, people, food… . This is so cool that everyday you meet people from around the globe. I personally had a chance to work with more that 10 nationalities, form teams, collaborate on a daily basis. The working culture across all those countries is a little bit different so you learn as you go. For example my Indian developers could not resist a tea break even in the middle of the project go live! ;)

What is even more important in Dubai, there is a lot of respect towards others no matter the race or religion. People live next to each other, work, do shopping etc. Muslim, Orthodox, Christians, you name what you have in mind.

Family is important and valued here. So if you think of bringing your fellows , this is a good place to stay. It’s very safe in here, the crime rate is very low. You can feel jauntily in comparison to the Europe where you need to have eyes in the back of your head.

Is it a good place for a software developers?

It depends. This is what they thought me at University :) But life is this way. There is a huge market of opportunities here. A lot of global companies, agencies seeking for talents. Especially if you are already experienced in the GCC region, it is a big plus. I would like to highlight three aspects you need to consider:

Salary and related. Holidays. Costs of living.

What salary a software developer/engineer can expect?

It varies depending on the company and your experience. But the usual salary range for this position is AED 10,000 – 25,000 (a month). You can imagine that AED 10k is rather for junior and 25k for senior positions. Also please keep in mind that the dollar to dirham exchange rate is fixed. 1 US Dollar equals 3.67 UAE Dirham. Thus it’s easy to calculate your expected salary. If you would like more information about salaries across various positions and industries, kindly check this Hays report for 2017. Some companies provide end of year bonus. In my, project manager case, the bonus was calculated based on my and company performance. It was nice extra money equivalent to around monthly salary.

No income tax! Yey!

Another very important thing is no income tax! You get 20k and the entire sum is transferred to your bank account. No taxes, no retirement insurance need to be paid. There is a health insurance that an employer covers, but this is not deducted from your salary, and anyway it is not a big quote.

Perks perks perks…

Usually with your salary you get some benefits. The standard one is one or more per year return ticket to your home country. Depending on the industry and position, you may get petrol expenses coverage, apartment or car allowance. For example in the company I worked for, we were getting a home flight ticket and parking co-financing.

End of Service, Gratuity or Settlement money

This is another nice thing in Dubai. If you resign you get so called settlement money which is more or less equivalent to your monthly salary, provided you worked with your company for at least 2 years. If you worked between 1 and 2 years you get around half of your salary. Below one year you get nothing. Basically the longer you work the bigger money you get.

Visa

To work in UAE you need a resident visa status which is arranged by your company. Prepare yourself for a lot of formalities to deal with in your home country to get the necessary documentation. The cost of visa arrangement should stay on your future employer side.

Health Insurance

As mentioned earlier health insurance is something mandatory that an employer must deliver according to the law. Also an important factor for women, the maternity coverage has to be included as by the newest rules. This becomes very handy when you are actually expecting a baby, not to worry about additional expenses. By the way I have a very good experience as for the entire process of being pregnant here and the delivery, but that is a story for another time :)

Double Taxation Agreement

Important thing to follow is whether your country has a double taxation agreement signed with UAE. If yes, you are free of any tax burden in your home country. You can check the full list here.

Social security, subsidies

Not such a thing in Dubai unless you are an Emirati. Since you do not pay any social insurance you get nothing. So you need to work to be here. Otherwise you don’t sustain visa and soon you are also out of money to live. May sound cruel but that how it is organised here. Also fair enough as you do not contribute financially.

Holidays and Leave

In general by the law you are eligible to 30 days of annual paid leave. Please note this includes public holidays and weekends if they come during these 30 days. For example if you take 2 weeks off, usually you have to use 12 days of your leave. Also you are getting 15 day of full paid and 30 half paid sick leave.

In practise how the annual leave is treated depends on the company you work for. In my case I had 25 days annual paid leave, but did not have to worry to count in the public holidays or weekends. This worked well for me as it was similar to what I had in Poland.

Weekends in UAE are a little bit tricky, as they fall on Friday and Saturday. Sunday is a normal working day. It takes time until you get used to it. I still sometimes keep having the Saturday-Sunday mindset. Also officially UAE has 6 day working weeks. But this is not the case for the majority of companies operating here. No worries, it stays 5 days in most cases :)

As for public holidays they are tricky as well. Almost all of them depend on the moon phase and are announced in the very last moment. You know more or less that it will come in a particular week but don’t know exactly which days will be off. Also a public sector has a lot of privileges here as they usually get extended holidays in comparison to private sector. Usually you get below 10 days yearly of public holidays if you work in private sector.

Ramandan

The holy month of Ramadan I used to like, although falls currently in the summer. If you happen to work for a company that obeys the rule of law your working day is shorter by 2–3 hours over the entire month! Thanks to this there is no traffic on the roads, as the working hours are very different across companies. Some work till 1 or 2pm other till 3pm or later. You need to beware that there is an absolute ban for eating or drinking in public. Most of the restaurants are closed during the day, however take orders for delivery. They are opened again after the sunset and people gather and eat Iftar, a Ramadan supper.

Cost of living

Living in Dubai is not the cheapest thing you can imagine and of course varies depends on individual needs. Here are the major expenses you need to take into account:

Apartment rental. Although prices have dropped slightly over the last few months, Dubai is still expensive. Maybe not comparable to London, New York or Silicon Valley but still. For a decent studio you need to pay around AED 55–70k yearly plus bills, ca. AED 10k yearly. If you are a single man, you can bring down this cost by sub renting a room and share the apartment with other people. Accordingly 1 bedroom is around AED 70–90k yearly. If you come with a family (2+1 or 2+2) you need to consider AED 100k — 150k expenditure. Food. Again depends on how you eat, but on average it’s ca. AED 1000 per month per person for groceries plus a cost of eating outside. The prices in the restaurant are various. You can eat a good meal for AED 50 but also you can pay few hundreds in a high end restaurant. Also in the most of supermarkets food counters you can get a decent quality hot meal for around AED 20. Car. You would need to add on a car rental cost of around AED 2–3k a month assuming you are renting Toyota Corolla range vehicles. It is very convenient to drive in Dubai as the roads are excellent and not much of traffic jams. Although the drivers are sometimes terrible! so you need to be careful. It is also hard to live here without a car. Except for metro, the pubic transportation in Dubai is not one of the best thing in the world. Education. Education is not free in Dubai and very pricy. Only for the nursery you need to pay ca. 50k yearly. For school around 70–80k. The full time nanny/maid is an expense of around 5k a month. Entertainment. Well, here there is a plenty of things you can do, like: skydiving, sailing, kitesurfing, diving, and many others. You can even ski in Dubai! It all depends on your imagination and budget. Cinemas are for around 35–50 dirhams per ticket. I would dedicate ca. 500-1,000 dirhams per person a month for your entertainment purposes.

To sum up the cost of living:

Apartment: 50–150k annually. Food: 1,500 monthly per person. Car: 2–3k monthly. Entertainment: 500 -1,000 monthly per person.

Weather

Dubai weather is an important thing to mention. I will keep it short:

November - April: the perfect weather I could only dream of! :)

May - bearable but a bit hot for me.

June till mid September. OMG, better to get away for the summer!

October - bearable but a bit hot for me.

More details about weather you can find here.

You can also explore more stats about cost of living, crime rates, healthcare and other topics here.

Did I convince you to come to Dubai or rather not? Of course there are more things to cover but it’s already quite a long article ;) Don’t hesitate to ask me in the comments if you have any questions:)

I honestly think it depends what your goals are. If you consider this mainly from the financial angle it’s OK when you’re a single and even better if you’re not, but both you and your partner landed a good job here. When it comes to kids, things are getting a bit complicated as education is very expensive, also you need then a bigger apartment or villa.

However if you think of getting experiences, exploring cultures, self-improvement, doing something different in your life, I cannot imagine no reasons. This is a good place to be.