Moving to Montreal - advice

[aanand]

Hello everyone. I'm going to try my best to make this not sound like a
classified ad, as I'm aware that mailing lists like this aren't really
the place for it.

I'm a programmer living in England, and I'll be moving to Montreal in
May. I'm hoping to arrange a job before I arrive, and so I'm looking
for general advice on finding programming work over there. For
example:

- How large and active is the Ruby/Rails scene in Montreal? Is it
fairly easy to find Ruby work?
- Are there any good job listing sites for Montreal, particularly for
Ruby jobs?
- What's the (human) language situation like, employment-wise? Is it
important to have at least some level of competency in French? I've
got a basic grasp of the European flavour, having had it drilled into
me in school - will that be enough to get started with?

Any advice you guys could provide would be very much appreciated.
Thanks.

[Mathieu Jobin]

like any journey, the hardest path is the shortest, the easiest the longest.
go wild on the challenge and come to quebec city. might be harder to
find the rails job without you brining it to the shop.
it will also be quite of a challenge not to learn french. but there
are many rewarding advantages, although they may not be obvious.

all the best

--
the obvious is the prejudice.
l'évidence est un préjugé.
明白な事が偏見です

[Mathieu Martin]

Hey Aanand,


If you've found this mailing list, you've probably guessed already that there are recurring meetups with Ruby, Rails and the whole ecosystem. It used to be called Montreal on Rails, but the name has recently been broadened to Montreal.rb. The website is still the same for now though.

There are a few Rails consultancies and startups in Montréal. I'm at giraffesoft, there's also CodeGenome, there are undoubtedly a few others but these two are the most well represented at Montreal.rb.

Both hosts of Montreal.rb are Rails shops. Our current host is Bloom Digital, the previous host was StandoutJobs. The latter, you may have guessed, would also be a good starting point to look for other Rails shops (here or everywhere else). You should also have a look at MontrealTechWatch, which covers tech startups in general in Montreal. Probably another good place to find about local Rails shops.


Of course, when you get to Montréal, you should absolutely come to Montreal.rb (it's free!). This is gonna be your best bet at knowing the people around here. Presentations are mostly done in english, sometimes in french. I'm guessing the split is about 50/50 between french and english ppl at Montreal.rb.

You can get by just fine with only english at the meetings as well as in general in Montréal. However, french-speaking people do appreciate english people make the effort to learn the language and try to speak it a bit. Outside of Montréal, not speaking french is often more difficult, but you'll be able to get by with your best effort at french and the rest in english.


Cheers,

Mat

--
Rambling: http://programblings.com
git_remote_branch: http://grb.rubyforge.org