Cyprus-Forum.com

[roy3061]

Good evening to you all,

I am a software engineer who lives in Switzerland. I live in the German part in a lovely town called Luzern and I am working in Zuerich. My wife has learned hotel management and she is working in a hotel in the city.

We got married in Cyprus and honestly we loved this beatiful country. Since then (August 2006) I thought about moving to Cyprus (greek part) and try to settle down there. In www.grsrecruitment.com I saw advertisements about IT jobs and help in relocation if needed.

My questions are:
1. Have any of you done this process (relocation) and can shed some light on it?
2. What is the average salary for software engineer?
3. From your knowledge, does Cyprus is investing in the IT field or most of the funds goes back and fourth in the tourism?

Kind regards,
Roy

[mpanayi]

very low pay in cyprus in all jobs.

[Get Real!]

very low pay in cyprus in all jobs.

This reply is both inaccurate, pessimistic, and of no value.

Software engineers in Cyprus earn between CY 800.00 and CY1,500.00 p/m depending on skill and platform/s known.

Rare platform skills such as AICS, AS400, UNIX, and similar used in Cyprus' strong banking and finance sector attract the highest pay but the vacancies are much fewer.

C++, SQL based, Java, and ".NET" programming currently appear to be the most sought after if newspaper vacancies are anything to go by.

There's also plenty of vertical market programming in VB and similar 4GLs, particularly in the POS market. Ther are many small VM teams doing POS systems.

Hope this helps a bit and good luck.

[devil]

Groezi wohl!

There are very few openings for good software engineers. Much of the major software is driven from the mainland. However, many of the banks run atrocious software and security is often poor, compared with Helvetic banks (I use both, as a customer, and am appalled at the security level of both the Cypriot banks I use, compared with the UBS). I would therefore say that there would appear to be a potential market there. OTOH, POS software appears to work quite well in the big establishments. I think most smaller shops buy off-the-shelf software.

One trump card you could acquire is to be able to speak Greek, before arriving here.

We came here from Welschschweiz 9 years ago and found the culture shock very difficult to come to terms with, at first. For someone from the other side of the Roestigraben, I would imagine it would be even more difficult, as life in the Gros de Vaud is almost certainly more laid back than in Lucerne.

[Get Real!]

Groezi wohl!

There are very few openings for good software engineers. Much of the major software is driven from the mainland. However, many of the banks run atrocious software and security is often poor, compared with Helvetic banks (I use both, as a customer, and am appalled at the security level of both the Cypriot banks I use, compared with the UBS). I would therefore say that there would appear to be a potential market there. OTOH, POS software appears to work quite well in the big establishments. I think most smaller shops buy off-the-shelf software.

One trump card you could acquire is to be able to speak Greek, before arriving here.

We came here from Welschschweiz 9 years ago and found the culture shock very difficult to come to terms with, at first. For someone from the other side of the Roestigraben, I would imagine it would be even more difficult, as life in the Gros de Vaud is almost certainly more laid back than in Lucerne.

Hi Devil,

I'm interested to hear why the Swiss would want to come and live in Cyprus besides the sunny weather...

Regards, GR.

[devil]

Hi Devil,

I'm interested to hear why the Swiss would want to come and live in Cyprus besides the sunny weather...

Regards, GR.

1. Weather is certainly part of the issue
2. Secondarily to weather, I had a minor but chronic health problem that disappears here but comes back when I visit the family in CH
3. Above all, I'm an economic refugee. I'm retired and the Swiss pension system is insufficient for a comfortable retirement there, whereas we can manage quite well here. I bought my 3-bedroom house here in 1100 m² of land for half what it would cost to buy an old 1-bedroom apartment in a squalid quarter of Lausanne. Half our pension would go on medical insurance alone.

[Get Real!]

Hi Devil,

I'm interested to hear why the Swiss would want to come and live in Cyprus besides the sunny weather...

Regards, GR.

1. Weather is certainly part of the issue
2. Secondarily to weather, I had a minor but chronic health problem that disappears here but comes back when I visit the family in CH
3. Above all, I'm an economic refugee. I'm retired and the Swiss pension system is insufficient for a comfortable retirement there, whereas we can manage quite well here. I bought my 3-bedroom house here in 1100 m² of land for half what it would cost to buy an old 1-bedroom apartment in a squalid quarter of Lausanne. Half our pension would go on medical insurance alone.

Hmm, is that a fact? and here I was thinking all along that people from the "Alpine" countries have it made!

Good luck with everything.

[Sotos]

This reply is both inaccurate, pessimistic, and of no value.

maybe but I think it is true Compared to Switzerland all employees earn much less here. So unless Roy hates the snow and the cold I don't think he should consider moving. When I was younger I was thinking to go to work in Alaska. The pay there was like $6-7000 per month for basically unskilled labor

[devil]

Relatively few persons in "Alpine" countries "have it made". Of course things vary from one place to another, but only a small proportion of Swiss own the house or flat they live in. They simply cannot afford to buy and, until fairly recently, large mortgages (above 80%) were impossible to obtain and, if they were, the interest rates were swingeing. I regularly watch the Swiss TV news (nearly every day) and, only yesterday, it was mentioned that the average gross income was about CHF 6800 (~£2400), but this is calculated to include the super-rich. It also stated that many have salaries between CHF 3000 and 3500 (£1000 to 1250) and pensioners barely CHF 2000 (£700). To rent a 2-bedroom apartment in a not-very-good quarter of a city would cost a minimum of CHF 1200, basic mandatory medical insurance (varies from canton to canton) may cost CHF 400/person, not to mention the cost of food. Say you want to have a slap-up meal as a special treat. Fillet steak would cost you CHF 110 (nearly £40) per kg, potatoes for your chips CHF 2.80/kg (£1.00), other veggies perhaps CHF 5/kg (£1.80). Just go to http://www.le-shop.ch/leshop/Main.do?cu ... UPERMARKET and work out how much your typical weekly shopping basket would cost you (and this is Migros, the largest supermarket chain known for reasonable prices and quality. You will understand that poverty does exist in every country of the world.

[Get Real!]

When I was younger I was thinking to go to work in Alaska. The pay there was like $6-7000 per month for basically unskilled labor

Ditto! When I was in my mid thirties in Australia I was this close to applying for a 6 month contract to go work at the Australian base in the South pole for around AU$70,000 at the time. I always complain that my wife put me off going there but the truth is I didn't have the balls to go to no-man's land knee-deep in snow!

Mind you, being a heavy smoker I probably would've failed the physical anyway!