Real-life problem-solving #1 – My immigration thought process

Introduction to ‘Real life problem-solving’

I believe engineering is all about problem-solving; the problems may change, and the tools at your disposal may change, but it’s always about identifying the most impactful problem to solve and applying the right tools to it.

Early in my career, I thought all problems needed a technical solution, but I have come to learn that this is far from true. In many cases, there are different perspectives of looking at the same problem other than engineering (product, marketing, finance, etc…), and the better insight you have into these different perspectives, the more well-rounded your solutions will be. Because it’s all about trade-offs after all 😀

I have also observed that the engineering and problem-solving mindset was very beneficial when applied to real-life problems, and there are a couple of key use cases I had over the years, such as:

• Choosing a country to immigrate to from Egypt as a Muslim software engineer

• Managing my personal network of family, friends, and professional connections

• Managing the content I consume to stay updated on key areas of interest

• Managing my personal finances

Some of these problems required a technical solution where I built custom tools to support some parts of the solution, but all of them did require applying the same problem-solving skill set.

I wanted to document my thought process and approach I used to these problems, as a way to structure my thoughts more, and gather feedback, and in case this is helpful for others running into similar problems or looking for new ways to utilize their problem-solving skills 😀

This will be the first post on my blog (hopefully of many), any feedback or topic suggestions are very welcome!

Problem of the day: Choosing a country to immigrate to from Egypt, as a Muslim software engineer

I have decided to immigrate to the UK. Such a big decision took months to plan, doing lots of research, meeting with people from all over the world, and learning from their experiences as well. However, as you’ll see, a big part of this choice also had to do with personal circumstances as well, and if those were to change, the outcome would likely change as well.

I believe this problem would be a good first problem to tackle in this series, as a lot of people throughout my conversations expressed interest in that too 😀Let’s dig in!

A clear problem statement is at the heart of every good solution, and more important than just the ‘what’ (i.e. What’s the problem), there’s the why (why is this a problem that needs solving). So here’s an overview of the key things I’d like to cover as we approach this problem together:

• Why immigrate from Egypt?

• Why now?

Once we identify the motivation behind the change and the timing, the next step is to identify the constraints we have in place for choosing the solution, to help reduce the potential options we have from 190+ countries to a few suitable ones we can explore in more depth 😀so we will explore:

• My top criteria in choosing a new home

• A narrower list of countries that meet these criteria

Once we identify that narrower list of options, we can dig deeper and discuss their tradeoffs and how they compare to each other, and land on a decision.

Motivation for immigration

If you have been following any news from Egypt over the past couple of years, you’re probably aware of how the economy isn’t feeling so well and has been unfortunately getting worse as time passes, and with the current outlook of things, the situation will likely get worse before it starts improving.

This means that the idea of immigration isn’t new to me (or many of my friends in similar situations), but I had a goal of trying to make it here for as long as I could, as for all its shortcomings, I still have lots of family and memories here, and I also recognize that wherever I go, I’ll likely never truly ‘belong’ as I do here, which is not a small price to pay.

However, more recently, I found myself needing to seriously consider that decision on immigration given how unanticipated things in Egypt were becoming, not only from the economic perspective but also the social implications those have as well. (I’ll leave it at that for now, but happy to share more if you’re interested 🙂).

Another key reason for my stay was the fact that my father had been living abroad for a couple of years, and my mother and sister were still in Egypt. As long as they were here, I wanted to be there for them, in case there’s anything I can help with. However, about a month ago, my sister got married 🎉so now she has her own home and family, and in a few weeks, my mother will be joining my father as well. so that’s no longer as strong of a reason to stay.

Given that context and the fact that I’m married with no kids at the moment, and after doing Istkhara (prayer), the timing felt right. If I wanted to make a move, now is the time!

If not Egypt, then where? …

As of now, there are 195 countries in the world, that’s too big of a problem space 😂I needed an approach for narrowing down that list of options, to make this more feasible, After some long consideration, here are the top criteria I had in mind for my new home:

1. There has to be a strong Muslim community if the country itself is not Muslim

   we (Muslims) have a firm belief that this life is temporary and that we’re working towards a more eternal life. This helps put all of our actions and challenges in perspective. No matter how challenging things get, you know that this is only temporary and that if you do well, you’ll be rewarded.

   Given that, if I immigrate to a new country where I get better living conditions and better opportunities, but at the cost of my religion, then this is a terrible deal!

   This is even more important now, given the current situation in the world where nothing is sacred anymore, and things you thought were once common sense are now being debated. It’s a special type of challenge (Fitna) that’s very hard to take on without a proper support system in place. so a Muslim community is my top priority.

2. There should be a clear path to citizenship

Immigration is a costly decision, and I didn’t want to pay that price just to live a comfortable life or make a bunch of savings in a couple of years, and then need to start over elsewhere. so I want my immigration to be worth something more than that. And unfortunately, given how weak the Egyptian passport is, and how mistreated Egyptians are in their own country and some other Arabic countries (like Gulf countries), getting another citizenship is another top priority.

These 2 criteria alone already disqualified lots of countries, for example, Gulf countries (UAE, Saudi Arabia, etc…) don’t offer citizenship, and neither does most of East Asia (Singapore, Malaysia, etc …).

After months of research, I narrowed down my options to 5 countries:

• The United States

• Canada

• Germany

• The Netherlands

• The United Kingdom

Analyzing the Top 5 Contenders

The US

Starting with the USA, it’s a very popular destination for immigration, with lots of diversity, and a very high chance of finding a community with your beliefs somewhere in the US. It also has lots of opportunities for software engineers, and I already had an in with Tempo (A company I joined as employee #3, and helped grow into series C over 5 years, but that’s a story for another blog post 😄). However, not everything is fine and dandy in the US, and after some consideration, I found a couple of key downsides to this option:

• The US is very far from Egypt

  Far enough to the point where it felt like I was breaking ties with my family back home, and that it’d be very hard to visit and even stay in touch (given the timezone difference).

• The US has a terrible immigration system

  The deeper I dug, the more limitations I found, the key deal breaker was the fact that H1B visas (which a skilled worker would get to immigrate) had a yearly quota of 65 thousand people. But as you can imagine, they get way more applications than that, so how would they decide? … randomly is the answer of course! They hold a yearly lottery in April to randomly choose who gets granted the visas out of eligible applicants.

  This means that even if I had met all the requirements, and had all my affairs in order, there was still a very likely chance that I wouldn’t get the Visa, and you only get one try each try, so it felt very risky to anchor such a big decision on such an unpredictable step.

Given that, the US was not a suitable option for me.

Canada

The US’s neighbor, with similar support for diversity, and an even better immigration system (one of the few countries I found where you can apply for permanent residence without spending a day in that country, provided you meet the criteria for their point-based system).

But it had a similar shortcoming when it came to how far it is from Egypt, and that was something I wasn’t ready to take on just yet.

Also, Canada is cold, so no.

Germany and the Netherlands

Much closer to home, and with a very strong economy, and lots of opportunities in our field. They’re also very welcoming to skilled immigrants because they need them, what’s not to like?

After lots of discussions, I found the need to learn a third language to be a key requirement for integrating into the community. Even if some work visas no longer require this, you’d definitely need it to interact with the community or the government, or get your permanent residence or citizenship.

While this would have been doable for me with some effort, it was a hassle, and would have been probably a bit harder on my wife., and add extra headaches to an already very big change. But the deal breaker was how it was probably out of the question if I ever wanted to bring my parents. So no for now

The UK

So this is where the UK comes in, it’s a good middle ground between all of these trade-offs where you get a strong Muslim community, is close enough to back home, no need to learn a third language, and lots of opportunities for software engineers.

it probably doesn’t help that their economy is at its worst in a decade or so, with Brexit and the Ukraine war, but, even with how bad it currently is, it’s still a major step up from where Egypt currently is, unfortunately.

So the UK it is 😀

Conclusion

There are a couple of things that I’d like to emphasize:

• This decision is rooted in my personal circumstances

  As you saw, this decision has to do with a lot of personal circumstances, and under a different situation, I’d have likely chosen a different outcome. For example, trying to raise kids as a Muslim in Europe is a very different challenge, and that would have likely heavily impacted my decision if I had kids. So choose your decision carefully.

• The UK is not necessarily the final destination

  I’m optimistic that the situation in Egypt will improve at one point, and I’ll be able to come back home and help pay things forward. There’s also a chance that changes in personal circumstances cause me to explore alternatives in the future as well.

• I haven’t immigrated yet.

  This is all based on my research, conversations, brief visits to Europe and the US, and my experience working with people from all over the world. However, I’m still in Egypt at the moment while working through the VISA process. I’ll report back once I’m a couple of months in, but until then, this is worth keeping in mind.

• This isn’t related to Tempo’s future in Egypt.

  Tempo has been a big part of my life for nearly 5 years now, and I’m very proud of what Tempo has accomplished, especially in Egypt. I remain very invested in the company’s future, and the team that has helped shape that future throughout the past few years, if you get a chance to join Tempo’s office in Egypt, do not hesitate!

I have been meaning to write this post for a few weeks now, and have wanted to start my personal blog for much longer. I’m a bit rusty on writing, so any feedback or topic suggestions you have is much appreciated! Just add a comment, shoot me an email, or a Linkedin message!