How Cian landed a tech job in Paris without speaking French
💖 The purpose of The Allyance is to help both companies and candidates: companies wanting to reach excellence in hiring and candidates wanting to find the perfect companies.
➡️ Cian got a job in Paris without speaking French.
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Who are you? Tell us everything!
My name is Cian, I’m 31 years old and I come from Galway in Ireland.
I studied electronic engineering and did my internship at Cisco, where I then worked for almost nine years.
Galway, Ireland
As I was ready to leave Cisco, I followed the Irish genetic need to emigrate and moved to Paris where my friend Nicole had already moved.
I have now been working as a Founding Engineer at Ewake for 4 months. It’s very different from Cisco but I am very happy about it!
How did The Allyance help you?
Nicole recommended Caroline and put us in touch. Having spent so much time at an old school company like Cisco, an update was very much needed as I had not been interviewed for 10 years! Coming from Ireland, I also needed to acquire knowledge about the French tech scene, but also the recruitment scene here.
After a call to touch base when I was still in Ireland, we proceeded because we got along and the contractual aspects of the coaching were very clear.
We then went through pretty intense coaching sessions: preparation for interviews, LinkedIn review, mock interviews… She sent me resources to help me introduce myself in a more efficient way.
Her feedback was super valuable and helped me progress on my behavior during interviews. On the other hand, she completely trusted me with the technical aspects so we did not work on them.
As I got close to getting an offer from Ewake, we got to talk about salary negotiation and logistics. Even after being hired, I was able to contact her for follow-ups regarding my recruitment, onboarding, French labour law and compensation packages.
As Caroline was hiring for Ewake, my coaching ended up costing me nothing, which frankly was ideal!
What do you do at Ewake ?
Although my role and scope are way broader than before at Cisco, my initial job is to build AI agents by writing code.
The company being very small, we’re all tech leaders making decisions about the product direction. I work with two other engineers and we’re free to bring up our ideas and vision to the project.
Some days, I have a code project and do only that with my headphones on. Some others, I will dig deep in AI and research literature or collect ideas for the future of our product. There is no daily basis at Ewake!
How do you keep up with the software methodologies?
Well it’s a combination of surfacing research and organic stuff.
I get the most of my research material from Chat GPT’s Deep Research tool.
I also stroll around Medium but it’s not always easy to find the good stuff.
Very often, I talk to other people at Station F, where Ewake.ai is located, to get inspiration.
As a foreigner, how was it to find a job in Paris?
It was not as scary as I thought it would be! The tech start-up and scale-up scene being very diverse and multinational, English is often the working language. For instance, at Ewake, there is only one French employee.
Of course, it would have been crucial to speak French if I was looking to join big French companies. But today, I could go on and live my life with English only.
Nevertheless, I do see a future for me here so now that my headspace is a bit wider, I have started French lessons and it’s been going well!
When you’re not working, what do you do?
I am in the beginning of my 30’s, so I’m doing the mandatory marathon thing and enjoy discovering new restaurants in Paris (laughs).
Other than that, I don’t have super defined hobbies. I just love being in Paris and living such a different experience from my tiny hometown. I also travel a lot around Paris and would like to discover a bit more of France, to the sea and the mountains.
Why would you recommend other engineers to work with The Allyance?
Caroline is super competent: the actual service that was provided as well as the result were both excellent.
When you work in tech, there are a lot of companies you don’t agree with morally or ethically. The fact that The Allyance specializes in tech for good was very appealing to me.
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CONCLUSION
Caroline, The Allyance CEO:
“When Cian got recommended by Nicole, I was scared not to be able to reproduce what happened with her. The trught is… I found both of them their current role!”
✔️ Want more?
If you are interested in knowing more about The Allyance, feel free to get in touch with us.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: ✒️ Léa C, The Allyance Contributor:
“I joined The Allyance after Caroline and I met at a ionnalee’s concert! I am a freelance translator and content writer (French, English, Spanish and German). I also work as an administrative employee in the health and data science sector. So, I am not far from Caroline’s core topic! I am very active as a volunteer in social and environmental NGOs, where I always try to put intersectionality at the center of actions because I am convinced that every cause is linked to one another. It is readily apparent that Caroline and I share a lot of common interests, which is why we as friends decided to work together!”