 Poster: A snowHead
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Hi
does anyone know if theres requirements for IT people near Ski resorts? or if someone knows a good website to look at?
thanks
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Any specific area of IT? Short of being the IT Johnny for a small business, there aren't many big IT support industries based in the mountains - it is not generally a suitable environment, given extremes of temperature, lack of access, minimal infrastructure etc...
How about being a VSAT engineer?
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Madmonk, Swiss banks (and other financial institutions).
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Madmonk, Zürich close enough for ya? If so check out www.it.jobserve.com or the websites of the likes of UBS, Credit Suisse, Zürich insurance, SwissRe etc. My team is on the lookout for a decent C# developer at the moment.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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See if there're any contracting roles near bourg? or maybe geneva?
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I haven't really seen much in the way of IT jobs in ski resorts, and without a bit more info it's hard to say, but things I can think might need doing are:
Tourist info website development/management type things, particularly where there are on-line bookings and events services
IT type roles at events and attractions, e.g. managing ticketing databasing for ski races etc.
Programming and operation of infrastructure e.g. gondolas etc. (don't know if this is actually a job or not!)
Animations for plasma screens in bars and at events
Tourist info in general - visitor numbers/data etc.
Another slightly weirder one would be in that Swiss avalanche research institute in I forget where, lots of CG modelling there.
However, very little of the above needs to be done by someone in resort, so I suspect that it is often done by companies in main towns and cities rather than in resort.
In any case, all of the ideas above I think would be the kind of jobs which would be permanent native speaker type postions, rather than seasonal work.
Is there not something you can do remotely, by setting yourself up in resort and working from 'home'?
D
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If you have a decent Security background, then you should certainly look at the banking industry in Switzerland - only problem is, it's not exactly a booming industry at the moment
Satellite Comms, on the other hand, is growing, mainly due to advancements in technology and developing economies. Not sure how well it pays though.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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There is also Grenoble.
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Language skills? Because without them most of this advice is fairly useless, unless you get yourself seconded somewhere by a UK company.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Madmonk, Have thought about this myself, but I think Swiss banks are your best bet..
rjs, I think HP have large offices there so you could be on to something.....talking of Grenoble, when I was there nursing my GF after her fall in Les2Alpes, I met a fellow IT contractor in the hotel who gave me some job details about a job in Switzerland....so there are jobs about.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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If you happen to find a position with a company who have a Global remit, the primary language for all matters IT related is English anyway - not sure how ths would affect any 'local' rules and regulations with regards to who they hire and fire (I do really, it means you wouldn't even get a foot in the door....you could then always try suing for discrimination  )
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Lizzard, German definitely not required for IT jobs with large financial institutions here. You can also get by out of work to start off with without German.
joydivision, yes there are definitely jobs about. Even at the banks. Contract rates are down though so you wouldn't come here from London just for financial gain.
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You know it makes sense.
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zurich or geneva would be the places IMO.
certainly at UBS, the business language is English and I doubt they'd be out of line with other institutions
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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I've often wondered about this myself, so if anyone out there needs any C++ programming doing...
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Poster: A snowHead
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| rjs wrote: |
| There is also Grenoble. |
There is...
try monster.fr for Grenoble and jobup.ch for Geneva/Lausanne. Bear in mind that IT roles are generally long hours so you might just spend you time staring at the mountains. The 35 hour week is effectively dead in France now - at least for new hires. In Geneva the week is 42 hours with 20 days holiday per year. In general the Swiss working week works out to be less than that for France for "executive level" roles - basically anything above tea boy.
You will need to be fluent in French for IT jobs in Grenoble and the market is not what it was. If you are interested in Yahoo! you might be better going through London to get a Grenoble job.
As for roles in ski resorts - there would be some demand in places like Cham. setting up servers, email, websites etc.
| Quote: |
| I met a young UK-based IT contractor on a ski course I did once - he was UK based but organised his time round a good few weeks skiing every winter. |
I used to do the opposite, I lived in resort and flew to work during the week, but some weeks I might only work 1 day on site. It was nice while it lasted.
Last edited by Poster: A snowHead on Wed 30-07-08 15:25; edited 3 times in total
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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My son's ex-girlfriend's father (a bit distant... but we do know him) has worked for years doing IT in a bank in Zurich. He doesn't have huge amounts of time to ski, but does get some weekends (when he isn't flying home to see his wife, who won't live in Zurich and doesn't fly either...). He doesn't speak anything other than English as far as I know.
I met a young UK-based IT contractor on a ski course I did once - he was UK based but organised his time round a good few weeks skiing every winter. He seemed to have it sussed and would probably have got as much skiing in, during the season, as someone doing a regular busy job in normal working hours in or near a resort.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| pam w wrote: |
I met a young UK-based IT contractor on a ski course I did once - he was UK based but organised his time round a good few weeks skiing every winter. He seemed to have it sussed and would probably have got as much skiing in, during the season, as someone doing a regular busy job in normal working hours in or near a resort. |
I'm 21 and do 6-7 months contracting, 5-6 months seasons and do reasonably well for myself. It's a perfect career to be flexible enough to allow it.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Grenoble? Cluses (Somfy is there)? I assume you have a good grasp of the local language where you wish to work, both colloquial and IT-technical - unless you wish to limit your locations, and sociability at work.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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Swisscom's HQ is in Bern. I have worked for them and visited Cisco on number of occasions. Ski every weekend no problem.
Other ICT companies.T-Systems, Ascom, SAP, Orange, and many
other major teleocm companies are headquartered
in Berne.
Theres other big multi nationals with the European HQ's as well
Companies like eBay, Cemex, Pepsico, Mattel,
Glaxo-SmithKline and UPS Supply Chain Solutions
Google, Kraft, IBM,EA, Cisco Systems are over in Zurich & Zug
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/may/31/taxavoidance.tax
Yahoo is moving to Lake Geneva in the next 18 months.
This may help
http://www.jobserve.com/JobListing.aspx?shid=E04162A02D28BE23
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| stanton wrote: |
Yahoo is moving to Lake Geneva in the next 18 months.
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or not, I was up at their building site last week talking to one of the mgrs and it is not certain to go ahead, all the top mgrs and engineers are leaving though, might be an opportunity
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| DaveC wrote: |
| I'm 21 and do 6-7 months contracting, 5-6 months seasons and do reasonably well for myself. It's a perfect career to be flexible enough to allow it. |
Thought I was the only one doing that, but not quite as young anymore. I'd second this approach, go contracting in UK, earn some decent money over 6 - 9 months and enjoy a good few months in the alps. I've been doing this for years, occassionly I can also take some work with me, feasible as most my work is development rather than networks.
check out www.contractoruk.com for jobs search and general chat and advise
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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I'm at a bit of a weird crossroads with it really - I need to specialise to get away from helpdesk work and generalised support. Not really sure how's best to do that since no-one wants a contractor that's not already an expert in their field... Don't want to take a pay cut or dedicate more than six months to go permie... Any thoughts Waynos?
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| nessy wrote: |
| Madmonk, Zürich close enough for ya? If so check out www.it.jobserve.com or the websites of the likes of UBS, Credit Suisse, Zürich insurance, SwissRe etc. My team is on the lookout for a decent C# developer at the moment. |
This is by far ya best bet.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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DaveC, Is Hull got many contract oppertunities? London and SE will offer far more contracts. I started in network and pc support a long time ago well before windows came along. I managed to get some small development task within my support contracts and then just focussed on development. Do you fancy moving over to development?
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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| waynos wrote: |
| DaveC, Is Hull got many contract oppertunities? London and SE will offer far more contracts. I started in network and pc support a long time ago well before windows came along. I managed to get some small development task within my support contracts and then just focussed on development. Do you fancy moving over to development? |
Hull has literally no opportunities for anyone, unless "claiming benefits" is the aim. I've been moving for roles so far - Leeds mainly, in Lincoln now though. Will go anywhere in summers.
No idea what I really want to get in to - project management appeals, I'm really strong at logical flaw finding, but I might be a bit too much of a techie and not a people person at heart for that. I think I really need to learn to code just to have it as a skill... the problem is, I don't have applied experience of the more specialised roles to know what I want to specialise in  All I know is I'm hurtling towards the top of the day rate I'm going to get doing 2nd/3rd line.
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One problem with contracting is you hit a rate plateau pretty quick and it's hard to breakout of this. I do mainly development with some more senior lead roles. Agile Scrum seems to be the trendy management skill at the moment and is pretty easy, though this is really a development centric process. To get more for me it's either management or break into the city & that means commuting.Do you do any code, front end web design may be an easy route in, CSS, javascript, ajax, etc
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You know it makes sense.
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contracting is good for the work for 8 months - ski for 4 months strategy, but as waynos says you do hit a rate ceiling as a developer. Most of what I get into these days seems to be integration type stuff rather than code ( I work with web and ERP systems). Theres quite a lot of Sharepoint about, which is a good "not strictly dev" skill to have and is an easier cross-over from other areas and I think Biztalk is probably going to show through soon. SQL server admin is another good one. All of the above are pretty portable around the world. I do know one guy in IT who lives and works in the mountains and he has a (uk) based business that manages web sites for 3rd parties -work from home half way up an Alp sounds ok to a wage slave like me
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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| waynos wrote: |
| I do mainly development with some more senior lead roles. Agile Scrum seems to be the trendy management skill at the moment and is pretty easy |
like a lot of management it is easy to talk the talk, not so easy to walk the walk
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Poster: A snowHead
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| davidof wrote: |
| waynos wrote: |
| I do mainly development with some more senior lead roles. Agile Scrum seems to be the trendy management skill at the moment and is pretty easy |
like a lot of management it is easy to talk the talk, not so easy to walk the walk |
so true 
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Yeah, I don't really think management is for me. My career so far has been a year of uni that I decided was a waste of time - my CV just has experience on it. I really can't complain with how things have gone so far - My friends are graduating this year and I'm on reasonable contractor rates already. Thing is that because I'm entirely self and experience taught, while current rates are pretty acceptable, obviously I know I'm capable of more so I'm not going to settle for where I am now. Doesn't help that I absolutely hate doing helpdesk work either 
Waynos - no experience of coding besides A-level QBASIC and a little Java at uni. I'm pretty confident that as soon as I learn syntax and application of it I'll be good at it though, as stuff like pseduocode came naturally when I was taught the concept.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| nessy wrote: |
| Madmonk, Zürich close enough for ya? If so check out www.it.jobserve.com or the websites of the likes of UBS, Credit Suisse, Zürich insurance, SwissRe etc. My team is on the lookout for a decent C# developer at the moment. |
But what about immigration issues? Switzerland is not part of EU...
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| abc wrote: |
| nessy wrote: |
| Madmonk, Zürich close enough for ya? If so check out www.it.jobserve.com or the websites of the likes of UBS, Credit Suisse, Zürich insurance, SwissRe etc. My team is on the lookout for a decent C# developer at the moment. |
But what about immigration issues? Switzerland is not part of EU... |
No real issues for EU nationals, it is pretty much just a formality, although there is talk of too many Germans in Zurich - all of the chairs at the Uni are held by Germans and 50% of MDss are German.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| DaveC wrote: |
Waynos - no experience of coding besides A-level QBASIC and a little Java at uni. I'm pretty confident that as soon as I learn syntax and application of it I'll be good at it though, as stuff like pseduocode came naturally when I was taught the concept. |
Lack of degree wouldn't be a problem for me but many HR departments will block hires without one. However I can't see you getting a job in France or Switzerland without a degree - even postmen have them. Europeans put much more emphasis on formal education than the Brits.
Self taught is ok but if you are going to program you need some grounding in CS. There is a lot more to writing a piece of code for a programme than knowing the syntax of a computer language.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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| davidof wrote: |
Lack of degree wouldn't be a problem for me but many HR departments will block hires without one. However I can't see you getting a job in France or Switzerland without a degree - even postmen have them. Europeans put much more emphasis on formal education than the Brits. |
True in someways but it is very possible to get work in Switzerland, without a degree. If you have the experience they need then you can get hired.
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| davidof wrote: |
| Self taught is ok but if you are going to program you need some grounding in CS. There is a lot more to writing a piece of code for a programme than knowing the syntax of a computer language. |
Exactly it would require further study or starting at the bottom in an IT organisation which is prepared to train people.
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Back when I first started contracting in the UK I never mentioned my computer science degree on my CV, I instead "emphasised" the work I had done. Having a degree as a contractor helps but experience counts for more. I've worked with devs with various professional certificates and I don't think these are worth much to clients or prove much. A good academic grounding in IT certainly helps but development is very much a skill you have a knack for or not. Enjoying development and having some passion for it helps as it can test your patients to the limits. And as someone else mentioned knowing how to program goes way beyond the basic of knowing the syntax of a language. Get a few decent books that cover software design, software lifecycle as well as specific books on a language / tool you.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Have a think about Canada, they have a shortage of IT folks at the moment - so much so that you can apply for a prospective work permit meaning you don't need a job offer before you get a work permit (only applies to certain employment areas, IT being one).
Vancouver and Calgary are the biggest cities in near to the skiing area I believe.
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| Scottland wrote: |
Vancouver and Calgary are the biggest cities in near to the skiing area I believe. |
Seattle in the USA or Boulder would be worth considering. I've friends who are still touring in the Seattle area.
Again degree will be a problem (not discounting what Stanton said above). I'm not hung up on degrees myself - after all Bill Gates was a 21 year old college dropout once and look where he is now.
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FAQ
. Does it pay well 
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