After a 4 months rollercoaster-ride, I can make this public! Manisha (my wonderful wife), son and I are moving to New Zealand in the next two months. Our current plan is to stay there for three years whereafter we’ll reevaluate our next step wether it is staying there, going somewhere else or coming back to South Africa.
I decided to write this post to proactively address questions that the local developer community, our existing clients and any prospective nReality clients may have:
- Why move away from beautiful sunny South Africa?
- What does it mean for nReality?
- What am I going to do?
- Why did I choose New Zealand?
This post is predominately aimed at the South African Software Developer community, as I am an active contributing member and feel a sense of duty to make sure my move isn’t misconstrued in any way.
Why move away from South Africa?
The burning question. This has been an ongoing discussion between my wife and I since we met and it got to a point that there were more compelling reasons for us to go than stay. This quote summarises it very well.
“One day you will wake up and there won’t be any more time to do the things you’ve always wanted. Do it now.” - Paulo Coelho
It is worth noting that with this decision there were personal (internal) and environmental (external) drivers that affected our final decision. (All listed in order of importance)
Reason to stay:
- Family and friends.
- Familiarity and comfort of being in my home country.
Being part of a community wether it is cycling or software development. - Quality affordable food, housing and consumer goods.
Amazing weather and beautiful nature with great vacation destinations.
Reasons to go:
- Becoming a world citizen. Going on an adventure seeing new places, experiencing new things, meeting new people, and exploring new trails on my bike
- Career limitations in South Africa. I’ve been wanting to go out of coaching for a while to work with a single development team over a long period of time. Unfortunately I couldn't find a software product company that was a good fit.
- Social, political and economic instability. As with all developing countries, South Africa has ebbs and flows of uncertainty and angst about the future. My wife and I want to take a break from it. Our country has a wealth of opportunity and I truly hope that we return to trend of positivity sooner than later.
South Africa is my home country and I hope to be back some day!
What does it mean for nReality?
nReality is going ahead full steam. The team is working on some great ideas on how we can help team going forward. Unfortunately (for me), I'm not going to be involved in the company (I’ll always be a phone call away across many time-zones).
I have developed the utmost faith and trust in Jacques to lead the team going forward. Hendri and Reinhard joined as associates in 2015 and have been growing from strength to strength as coaches and developers.
I believe the team will continue doing an excellent job in helping software development teams create magic.
What am I going to do?
I am joining a company called MYOB as a Development Manager. The position comes with very exciting challenges and I cannot wait to get started.
Why did I chose New Zealand?
New Zealand chose me. I saw a position for Agile Coach at MYOB in Melbourne, during my search for opportunities in the US, Europe, Singapore and Australia. Something told me to apply and the conversation led me to the position in Auckland.
Manisha and visited Auckland in January, we loved it and decided to make the move.
On to greater things! 😀