5 reasons why moving to the City of Lights is a bright idea

 Sian is an experienced design engineer from Northern Ireland currently working as an Employeneur with TMC Mechanical.

 After spending 5 years working in the automotive industry in England, she spent a year travelling through Latin America. Returning from her travels, it was time for a new professional challenge. The broad range of engineering opportunities within the Brainport region attracted her to the city & TMC. She found her first assignment working in the high tech industry at Demcon.

 Coming to the city as an expat, Sian didn't know what to expect. Let her tell you about her first few months settling into her new home town as a foreign employee.

Brainport. The City of Lights. The Home of Philips. All the names by which Eindhoven is known. All of which I was unaware of until 4 months ago.

"You have a job for me in Eindhoven! Where! ….. I think they have a football team." That was my first introduction to my new home.

City of Innovation

As it turns out, Eindhoven is a bit of a dark horse. Engineering and innovation are in the water here. Even the festivals have a touch of innovation about them. From Glow to Dutch Design Week, everything here showcases the incredible engineering happening behind the pretty ordinary looking office doors.

 When you meet someone socially, the first question they ask is "so do you work for Philips or ASML?" (or in my case they actually ask "who does your boyfriend work for?" but that's a story for another day). Because that's why you come here. To work for a top engineering company.

Welcoming co-workers.

The casual work atmosphere and lack of hierarchy means that even as the newest member of the team, you can walk into the project lead's office to chat about what you're working on. The flexible working hours also mean that you really can make work fit around the new life that you are building. Although my current assignment only has a handful of international engineers, every meeting I attend sees a room full of Dutch engineers speaking their second language just because I'm there, no questions asked (thanks guys!).

Language barrier?

What language barrier? I haven't experienced a single occasion when my lack of Dutch has been a problem. Although on the other hand maybe it's too easy not to learn Dutch (I'm working on it, but you have to be really motivated because you don't really need it in Eindhoven).

Easy to settle

Eindhoven makes it incredibly easy to set up a life in the city. I had my papers and a bank account ready by the second day I moved here. There are lots of apartments specifically built as short term rentals for people just like me who have recently moved. I was able to book an apartment online and moved in a couple of weeks after arrival.

The active expat community also makes it easy to meet people but most importantly I've also found some Dutch friends (I didn't move here just to meet people from my own country!).

 Building a network

Most weeks, I attend workshops outside of the office. So far, that's included a talk on "Design Sprints" methodology, an introduction to "Serious Play with Lego" and a tour of an additive manufacturing facility with experts on hand to talk about their materials.

All of these events help me expand my technical knowledge in person rather than just reading about it online. (Or travelling for several hours). It also provides an opportunity to talk to people in other industries, find out what they are working on, what their biggest problems are and provide me with ideas to take back to my day job. It's been so inspiring that I'm already planning to host my own events.

How to sum up my first two months in Eindhoven? Everything has been so easy! Granted, it's not the first time I've moved to a new country so maybe I'm used to the change. Even so, things just work. The professional environment is great, the location in Europe is perfect for hopping on a train for a city getaway and every weekend sees a new event in Eindhoven or another nearby city. There's been so much to do the time has just flown by!