Do you understand coding, in different countries?

[RememberBeKindWithKaren]

I'll try and make this brief.

Son (27) and g/f want to chuck jobs in and move to France in the summer. G/f is Australian, understands about visas, her visa runs out soon although she is able to get an extension here in the UK. She speaks French quite well. Does marketing. Believes she can find herself something similar in time.

My son has very, very basic French. Has been doing coding last 4 or 5 years. I don't understand coding. Does it require use of the language for the country you're in? If he can't speak French could he get a job working on software in France?

Just to say, this is only me pondering. I'm happy for them to go to France. Won't try and stop them, just wondering how IT skills translate in another country.

Merci buttercups!

Coding in the main languages is pretty much the same. How is he going to find a job though if he doesn’t speak enough French to interview? He does know he’ll need a job offer from someone able to sponsor his visa?

To add, regardless of coding skills he’d need to be able to communicate with colleagues to understand the project/spec fully.

The lingua franca in tech is English so he could probably find work.

Hi thanks for this

Can you elaborate on this bit - coding in the main languages is the same ?.
Do you mean it uses English when you do coding in France ?.

Yes, interviews would also be tricky for him.. He's always been a bit of a dreamer..I won't raise any negatives I'm just trying to understand how coding works

You don't "translate" code, it's written the same way pretty much everywhere.

He'll need to speak enough to get by in the country he wants to live in though or he'll end up quite isolated. If he doesn't want to learn a new language he should look at countries where English is dominantly spoken.

The code will be in a coding language.
e.g.
'''# Function to check if a number is prime
def is_prime(num):
if num <= 1:
return False
for i in range(2, int(num**0.5) + 1):
if num % i == 0:
return False
return True

'''# Test the function
n = 29
print(f"{n} is prime? {is_prime(n)}")

The lines that start with # might be in French. I've added the ''' - ignore those.

'''# Fonction pour vérifier si un nombre est premier
def is_prime(num):
if num <= 1:
return False
for i in range(2, int(num**0.5) + 1):
if num % i == 0:
return False
return True

'''# Tester la fonction
n = 29
print(f"{n} is prime? {is_prime(n)}")

Surely he can just get a remote job and base himself in Portugal or whatever tech nomads do.

There are multiple different computer languages.
they are pretty much all based on English as they were mostly invented by Americans.

he’d need more than basic French to communicate with his co-workers though

Thanks for this. That's a good point. I might sneakily suggest this when I see him next.

It’s going to depend from company to company, dh is a developer for a French company, the companmain language is English. For a previous role it was advertised the same but when it came down to it, it was 50/50 between French and English.

The job won't be an issue.
Getting a job abroad is the issue.

If France has enough coding people it can be tricky. If France lacks coding people much easier

Sure but be very mindful of visas. You can’t just worn for a French company and live in another country for example. They are taxation and working laws to prevent this outside of the EU.

Which visa is he going to apply for?

Having worked in France for large companies and soeaking fluent French he will struggle . There will be no English.

@Hiptothisjive afraid I don't know what kind of visa. Think they're expecting to be there for a while - 9 months poss? Not sure..I'd have thought he's looked into the visa thing Tho.

Mmm not easy to get a visa and with no French I can’t see him getting a job. This may just be a ‘good idea” without any thought on his part.

The code he would be writing would be in a coding language such as Python, JavaScript, C# or whatever, so that would be the same wherever he was.

However the comments people put in to explain what different bits of the code are doing (the bits starting with # in SaveU's example above) would normally be written in whatever language is used at the workplace, so probably French in this case, and not being able to understand them or write his own would be an issue.

But much bigger of an issue - how is he meant to understand the instructions (specifications) he's given telling him what the program needs to do, in other words what code he needs to write, if they're in French and he can't understand it? Never mind communicating with the rest of the team on progress, problems, explanations, testing,...

He needs a visa to work in France, coding not withstanding. He can't just move. Thanks Brexit.

Would he be eligible for a tech visa? Does he have sufficient in-demand skills for a start-up / innovative company to offer him a job? Realistically that means he will probably need good Python skills, plus AI / machine learning / cyber security etc.

Have a look:
www.welcometofrance.com/en/fiche/french-tech-visa-for-employees

The challenge will still be his lack of both French language and his lack of understanding / appreciation of French culture. French workplaces can be VERY different to the UK. Things are done the French way (both at work and outside of work) so he’ll have to learn fast. His GF may also have similar culture shock if she manages to get a job there. There’s more chance it will be less rigid in a start-up/younger environment but any of the big names will be much more formal than what they’re both used to.

I’m English have worked for many years in French companies (in the UK, Asia and in France) and it takes some getting used to. Despite working for a big name multinational (of French origin) in the Paris office, I was the only non-native French speaker working there. My Parisian colleagues were absolute arseholes at first (and quite proud to be arseholes!) when I was sent to work in our Paris office by our (American) Global Head. It started with “but we are local, not global” and “your French isn’t good enough to work here” (at this point they hadn’t heard me speak a word of French because I’d arrived with the American boss whose only French was “bonn-jewer” so we’d been speaking in English). It was only when they found out that I’d studied at one of the big name grandes ecoles in Paris that they started to give me a chance. After that I was included in their lunches / coffees where I was then rigorously tested on my appreciation of all things French. I’m 99.9% certain I would have been removed if they’d ever caught me drinking a coffee that wasn’t espresso or I was in favour of cheese being pasteurised. 😂It was hard work exhausting but after they accepted me (I was eventually pronounced “almost French”), they were the most incredibly loyal colleagues and friends that I’ve ever had. That wouldn’t have happened if I wasn’t a French speaker and very persistent in the face of adversity and didn’t already have a love for France after living there previously as a student.

I’ve only ever met one Australian living in Paris and she was there studying swanning around pretending to be French rather than working and managed to offend all my Parisian colleagues within 2 mins of arriving at some drinks I was hosting by breaking what we (Paris expats) used to refer to as “the secret French rules”. They’re secret because no-one tells you about French/Parisian etiquette and you only find out the hard way by offending someone (or you may not find out at all until after you’ve been dropped). There are however plenty of expats to befriend in Paris and it’s easy to have an English speaking social life if that’s what you want. Getting to make French friends is MUCH harder. I made mine through work but I have expat friends who have been working and living in Paris for over a decade and they still don’t have any French friends (nor are they fluent in French - and the two are definitely related).

Purely from the perspective of skills, he will need to look for a global company which operates in English and has coding jobs in French office - or a startup which doesn't care.
However, the global company with many offices would be more likely to have experience with out-of-EU visa paperwork.

They can look for expats in French online groups, as that kind of companies often advertise there.

However, I'm not sure that French have a shortage of medior-level coders and marketers, the law will expect the companies to search for EU applicants first, so they need to be better than locals to have a chance.

Yes this - and also the variable names may not make sense in English. Even worse if there are acronyms to decipher. I’ve occasionally been baffled by code written by people whose first language isn’t English.
and then there’s user interfaces, error messages - the language they need to be in will depend on the target audience.

@HundredMilesAnHour thanks very much for your answer. That's really interesting. I guess I hadn't thought at all about how they're going to integrate into life. Son and girlfriend have just hatched the whole plan up for a bit of a change i suspect and they only told me and hubby when talking to his granny this Christmas so I think they know they've not thought it through properly. ( Unless that's more me seeing things through older eyes). Thanks so much for all you've told me :)

As @hundredsays, France is not an easy place to settle and integrate without excellent language.

Lisbon is much more of a tech hub with digital nomads and jobs in English. Could be worth looking there. Also Copenhagen.

Exactly - he might be able to code to a high level but needs to be able to sit down with a boss and understand "we need to add a widget to the website to track customer spend" or "we need to add a function to our HR software to track sickness" or whatever.

It’s possible but France in particular can be very strict on language requirements for visas plus to navigate the system. Other countries are more likely to make allowances for language in lieu of wanted skills