Relocation from Türkiye to Germany – Courage Paying off

I recently relocated from Istanbul to Hanover and this is my journey.

The idea to leave my home was seeded by my oldest daughter. She dreamed of studying in Germany. First it was just a dream, but we discussed a lot, time passed by and the dream became a reality with me applying for a job in Germany.

As a server, storage and cloud analyst at Continental I am now helping build a cloud-based data center for the future for tire manufacturing. Even though I joined with quite some experience in the field, the onboarding was as intense as I imagined. Getting familiar with the new surroundings and with the processes always takes some time and is an information overload in the beginning. My colleagues received me with open arms, are very helpful and kind. That’s why now I’m already independent on my topics and can add value to the projects.

Starting a new job is a challenge already, but moving to a new country is a totally different level and comes on top.

The biggest challenge for me is that I miss my family, but luckily there is an end in sight. They could not join me yet, but they will relocate as soon as my daughter finished school and starts university in Germany. My younger son (9 years old) was afraid of that idea at first.  My wife is working as well and this also gave the plan more complexity. Now that we have a date for the move of the family she can apply for positions as well. It is tough to be separated over a year, but it makes things easier in adapting and relocating.

How we overcame the challenge

1. Support from Continental: I received great support with my relocation, visa process and so on. After living in an interim flat I finally have my own flat in the middle of the city.
2. Keeping something familiar: I was already familiar working in an international environment on global tasks, so this was something familiar to me. I am also experienced with the technological task I am in charge of and can bring my knowledge to the company.
3. Talking: We discussed a lot as a family and then took the decision together. We also took our time to decide.
4. Language: We all started learning German before coming here. We are not at good levels yet, but it brought us into the mood and it feels more comfortable in daily life to at least do the casual things like going to the supermarket etc. in German already. Even though in Continental IT you don’t need German, it makes it easier to adapt to the new life.
5. Pre-Visit: We spent the summer before my first day at the job in Hanover as a family. My son was hooked then as well and is very excited now to finally move here as well. A nice coincidence: Germany offered a temporary 9€ ticket for 3 months that we heavily used. For 9€ a month we could travel around the area a lot and are now much more familiar with the area already.
6. Know someone: Another thing that makes it easier for me is that my cousin is living in Hanover as well. He initially recommended the city and we could trust his stories about advantages and disadvantages.

Everything is new in your life from one day to the other. The more things you can do before to get familiar the better.

The things I already don’t want to miss anymore is the inner city forest (the biggest forest within a city in Europe) and the fact that I can easily reach everything in the city by bike.

Everybody is polite and whenever I miss something from my home I can easily reach it, because there is a big Turkish community in the city. The Turkish Döner of course is still better, but it feels almost like home if you try it here 😉.

For those of you who are thinking about this step as well I hope some of my experiences help you to take the best decision for yourself.

My next steps are to further adapt to the city and the country. I am also looking forward to see more places in the surrounding. At work I will further dive into the topics to become a real expert in my stuff.

And maybe in a year from now I can write the next article in German 😊