What led to my finding my first job in a German company that also sponsored my visa & relocation while I was in India

After 5+ years of living in Germany, I recently got my EU Permanent residency application approved(more on this and why it's special for me is mentioned here: https://bit.ly/eu_pr_appl_approved_germany)  
 

In 2018, I just returned to India after spending almost 2 years of working in Singapore and I was looking for my next job. Working in Singapore was my very first experience of what’s it like to work in a country outside of one’s home country and with a more diverse group of people from worldwide.  
 

I learnt a lot from working in Singapore from my time there and one of the biggest takeaways for me personally was to find a company whose values I resonated with. I didn't know much about the term 'values' back when I was in India and in my experience at least back then, I didn't come across companies that spoke much about the importance of work related collaboration based on values. I'm sure, we all did have something similar like we have our morals and principles that govern our life even in India, however the explicit use of the world 'values' was new to me personally.

 
Sidenote: Why are values so important and even more so when living abroad?

 

Values shape how one behaves in a given situation and especially under pressure, you really get to see how much a person upholds one’s values.

When living abroad, values are like a common ground to connect with people across different cultures, experiences and backgrounds and the form the basis of the work culture that one can experience as part of working in a particular company.  
 
Here’s one company, Buffer, whose values I really admire : https://buffer.com/resources/buffer-values/
 
Back to my story: I was determined to find a job outside of India and to make sure that I aim to work towards this in a more structured way, I rejoined the wonderful people and the coworking community at Jaaga(https://www.jaaga.in/community/startup) which was a special place for many of us who were either building their own startups, independent freelancers or other people working out of this space.  
 
How did I find a company that was ready to sponsor my visa and pay for my relocation costs?  
 
While in India, I started applying to opportunities in Europe, Australia and New Zealand. I learnt one thing from getting my first job in Singapore was to be a part of different slack communities with regards to one’s technology of choice.

The way I landed my first job in Singapore, in a company called MoneySmart was then the CTO of the company back then had shared a Ruby on Rails job opening in the Philippine tech hackers slack group: phackers.slack.com . Reflecting on this, I'm really thankful to the people of the Philippines for being so inclusive and welcoming as a community to people even outside their country.  
 
The company that eventually hired me for my first job in Germany, they also had posted about their job opening in Ruby Berlin Slack group. I took my time to apply for that opening and I also wrote a meaningful cover letter and after clearing all the interview rounds, I got a job offer from them. Even here, I'm thankful to the people behind the Ruby Berlin slack group for making it a more inclusive and welcoming community for people even outside of Germany to join.  
 
I also during this period, almost around the same time got a job offer from a company in New Zealand too. Choosing between both those opportunities was not that straightforward, each had their pros and cons. I decided to take the job in Berlin for a few reasons and one key reason was that I felt I more closely resonated with the company values and the company culture .  
 
What did this experience teach me more importantly: The importance of being a part of the right slack groups is key and it helps even more when you want to connect directly with people working at international companies and also check if they are open to sponsoring one's work visas.  
 
P.S: It took me a good 6-8 months roughly to finally get my job offer in Germany even though I was already having International exposure and how did I spend my days at Jaaga and what kept me motivated/going each of those days during that period and what did I do to prepare for interviews and how were my applications to many other different companies abroad , I aim touch upon with regard to at least some of these topics in subsequent blog(s)