How I was looking for a QA job in Thailand in 2019

Once I’ve decided to leave the UK, I wanted to secure the job before the actual move. I had 12 years of experience in the IT field, and more than half of them as a Quality Assurance Analyst and Engineer. This post “How I was looking for a QA job in Thailand in 2019” describing how I did it.

My search criteria for QA job in Thailand

1) An employer who provides a working visa for expats. This was a must, as I wanted to stay legally in Thailand. the Thai government is very strict when it comes to foreigners who avoided legal visa requirements. You can have banned entering the country after deportation, as well as to spent some time in jail. And you can’t do any job in Thailand if you are not a Thai citizen or have a working visa.

2) Salary 60 000 Baht (1468 GBP or 1754 EUR on 22 February 2020). I thought this is a quite medium level salary for experienced IT professionals in Thailand. Don’t know where I get this idea from, to be honest. I was getting much more in the UK, so I thought I need to sell my awesome skills cheaper to be attractive to employers in Thailand. Employers will also spend time on visa bureaucracy. This salary is quite real for a senior position in Bangkok. In any other city in Thailand expect to get less.

I was looking anywhere across Thailand and was considering any industry.

This is also was not my first move to a new country. When I relocated to the UK I still stayed in IT. But from being mid-level in one IT field, I changed to junior level in another IT field. So I kind of was prepared to start from scratch and that my skills and experience from the previous country will not be taken seriously.

CV and cover letter for QA job in Thailand

I will not tell you how to prepare a CV, as I used the same CV I used to apply for jobs in the UK. There are million books and tutorials about what makes your CV great, so not sure which percent of them works. Anyway, my CV was in the English language. In the cover letter, I said that I would like to come to live and work in Thailand. I also mentioned that I was there before as a tourist and loved this county a lot. I also said that I had experience in relocating and experience of working in multicultural environments. Working in multicultural environments is a great experience because Thailand’s culture is very different from European cultures in many ways.

Where I searched for QA job in Thailand

Websites I used to search for IT work with keywords – QA, quality assurance, tester, test analyst, test engineer, automation engineer, SDET, software testing.

1) The main IT jobs portal in Thailand as far as I know – https://th.jobsdb.com/th. I applied for around 60 job ads there. I applied to ones that had full or more than 50% of ad text in the English language, and not clearly said “only Thai citizen or native Thai speakers”. After around 30 unanswered application I decreased my initial salary requirements by the third, as I started to think that I’m just asking too much.

2) LinkedIn. This one is quite good, as HR can directly see your LinkedIn profile. I think that your LinkedIn profile should match your CV. I applied for around 15 job ads there, but I expended my search a bit to the neighboring countries like Vietnam at that point.

3) Stack Overflow jobs and Glassdoor. These two are mainly duplicating LinkedIn jobs, but I’ve applied to a few ads anyway. Maybe three job ads on each website.

Response rate

From around 80 applications, I got four interviews scheduled. I also had one online test that I’ve not passed to get to the next stage. The test was some sort of IQ tests 🙂

From four scheduled interviews, I went to three. Last one I sent an email that will not be able to attend because I accepted the offer from another company already.

Note that your interview more likely will be in Thai time. I needed to wake up early and be presentable to sit and answer questions like a professional. At the moment of the interviews, I was unemployed. I just finished my master’s degree, so I could sleep more after these early interviews. It might get tricky if you will need to combine these early interviews with your job.

Interviews for QA job in Thailand

The first interview didn’t go well. The first stage was to complete three Java programming language tasks within a 2 – 3 hours time limit. I passed it, even my Java skills are enough only for automation testing. The next stage was a Skype interview. The guy just continued to ask me to solve Java programming language tasks. I was expecting to answer questions about testing instead. I knew that I’ve failed, so email that I will not have another stage was not a surprise.

The second interview was with the company that had 20 or 40 developers and zero QAs. I had a great conversation with their HR and he said that I sound quite alright for the job. They want me to do a testing task for them from home. I said sure, just send it to me. Didn’t do it thou. I accepted an offer from another company before I even started to work on the testing task. I sent an email with an apology and that I got a job in another place.

The third interview was a two-stage process. I talked with HR first, and then I talked with HR and Management. This was a very good interview. For a couple of hours, I was asked about my QA skills, IT projects experience, team communication, etc. All relevant things to do the job I’ve applied to. I got an offer quite quickly from this company. Accepted it without hesitation, as I just wanted to move to Thailand as fast as possible.

I send an email to one more company that I had an interview scheduled with. It was also an apology and that I got a job in another place, so will not join the interview.

Documents

List of documents that you better have an electronic version of (for example scanned), before starting to look for the job in another country. You will be able to quickly send them based on request. Have common sense and don’t send it to anyone. Also, don’t send confidential information.

• Passport
• Residency certificates or driving license
• Bachelor and Master diplomas in English
• Education courses certificates in English
• Previous contracts of employment in English
• Employment history certificates. This is a letter from your previous employer that says company name, your position, employment period and short characteristics, basically that you were not fired. Of course in English

Moving to Chiang Mai Thailand

The job was in Chiang Mai and I had one month to prepare everything and go there.

They send me electronic documents like immigration permissions and invitation letters that required to make a visa in the Thai embassy. Making a visa in the Thai embassy was an easy and cheap process to do.

Alternatives

Need to say that I had also two more options in case Thailand would not work:

1) Upwork. I’ve applied for up to 50 ads and got only one interview. I passed it and got offer the same time as an offer to work in Chiang Mai. I’ve declined it. It was the possibility to work remotely and go live somewhere as a digital nomad. Unfortunately with remote work you still stuck with most of your team members’ schedules. Most of the team members for this particular job were located in Europe. Also, it’s quite hard to work in Thailand remotely, because you will need to do the border runs for a travel visa. And bureaucracy for sorting out travel visas will also be your headache. It’s possible to get a longer education visa or merry visa or retirement visa, but they have their specifics and much more pain that normal working visa.

2) I had an interview with a UK company that opened an office in Barcelona in Spain. They said that I could stay in the UK until I’m ready to move there. I passed an interview with their QA manager. I had to do one task at home to get the job. Declined it, as I got an offer in Thailand. But Spain and Greece are the two countries in Europe I would probably be glad to live in.

Job ads in Thailand

Remember that Thailand doesn’t have equal rights policies for people who are looking for work. You can see a lot of ads where they put limits on an applicant’s age or gender. This is a bit bizarre after the UK. I think in most European countries (or all of them) it’s illegal to do this. Once again before you start screaming, it’s a different culture with different rules.

Teaching English in Thailand

A lot of people work in Thailand by teaching English. You can see plenty of ads in specifics Facebook groups for each city in Thailand. Requirements usually are native level English speakers with a TEFL certificate. Salaries are quite nice and have relocation packages provided as well. I’ve recently read the article about this topic “3 solutions to Thailand’s English teacher shortage” published on The Thaiger on February 19, 2020 by Eric Haeg.