difuze case study: Supporting Mahdi, Full Stack Developer, from Tunisia to Canada

I was in Tunisia looking for professional opportunities internationally. I had this project of expatriation in order to enrich my experience, to travel to other countries and also to discover the world.

I had several job offers in Europe, in France, Belgium or even Germany, but the biggest drawback with these new destinations was the distance from my family. If I had opted for a professional opportunity in France, for example, I would have had to stay at least two years in the country before being able to bring my family closer. At the time, I had just had a baby so it was impossible for me to leave him.

I think my biggest fear about our expatriation was not finding childcare for my child, but this search was really very smooth.

I first started working remotely with difuze from Tunisia in salary portage for a year. We took advantage of this time to start my immigration process (such as obtaining a work permit for example). It was also a way to meet their immediate need for a collaborator and on my side, it allowed me to familiarise myself with the company but also to calmly prepare my upcoming expatriation.

I had a first contact with Anywr (Cooptalis at the time) and particularly with Isabelle, when I obtained my work permit, that's when difuze launched my relocation process with Anywr.

Isabelle explained everything to me before my arrival and explained the welcome process to me. She also told me who would take care of us on our arrival at the airport to transport us to our temporary accommodation. She also introduced me to the consultant who would be in charge of my various administrative procedures.

Vickie took care of administrative requests such as the social insurance number or health insurance card, she also took care of booking appointments at banks on our behalf so that we could quickly open an account. She handled the administrative procedures (social insurance, health) beforehand and online so as not to hold us up on our arrival.

Vickie also accompanied my wife whilst I was in isolation to do the various apartment viewings as well as search for my child's nursery. I don't know how Vickie did it, but she managed to find us a place in less than a month, right in the city centre and everything went perfectly.

Professionally, I feel very good at difuze, I'm very well integrated. The team is really nice and we're very close and even though we work remotely 3 days out of 5, the relationships are really very dynamic amongst everyone.

Everything is more human here in Canada, not like in the European system, it's more personal here. You're not just considered as an employee, it goes further and that's the human side that I appreciate at difuze.

When I started, I was a Developer and then I was promoted to Tech Lead, difuze valued my efforts with this promotion.

Regarding the other aspects of my daily life, here in Montreal, I'd like to talk about stereotypes. The first stereotype about Quebec is the cold in winter and the fact that you won't be able to do any activities during the winter season but that's not true at all. I took ice skating lessons because I didn't know how to skate and it interested me. I signed up as a football coach for the Westmount team and I coach three teams, a U4, U5, U12 and U14 team. I'm really flourishing here in Canada because these kinds of opportunities are rare in Tunisia, for example or in Europe.