I have a pretty specific question. I'm Canadian and studying in Canada to be a petroleum engineer, and I want to live in the UAE or Qatar. I'll be straight up with my motives:
Reason 1) I am fascinated by these countries, especially the larger cities, interested in the culture, would like to learn to speak Arabic, enjoy warm climates, want to travel throughout the Eastern Hemisphere.
Reason 2) I want to make as much money as possible in the shortest period of time. I decided to go to school later than most and will be graduating with my degree in PetrE when I am 27.
I would like to skip the tradition path of getting your engineering degree, working for the company for ~3 years until you're a professional engineer, and then hopefully get an expat assignment. I want to go straight to working in the abroad out of school.
So my question is, is this possible? I'm going to break the question down into a few other questions to make it easier.
I guess there would be two options, working for a native company or working for a North American company with operations in the these areas. From what I can tell the financial benefit of doing an expat assignment (for an American oil company as an engineer) is you get your American salary + a bonus for the assignment + pay no taxes (provided your tax residency is in order) + comped for living expenses.
1) Do the engineers that work for the native companies, like say Qatar Petroleum, make as much money as the expat engineers in terms of total compensation?
2) If Yes, is it even possible to get a job for a native company as a fresh Canadian graduate? I'm more asking if it's legally possible. I'm confident in my ability to get the experience through internships and make the right connections so that I'm a more attractive option than a native graduate, but I want to know, even if I am able to do that, will there still be no hope because of employment laws etc.
3) If No and No, is it possible to get on with any American oil companies (producers) and be given an expat assignment straight out of school. (I'm assuming no)
I'd like to thank anyone in advance who is willing to read through all of this and offer some guidance!
Reason 1) I am fascinated by these countries, especially the larger cities, interested in the culture, would like to learn to speak Arabic, enjoy warm climates, want to travel throughout the Eastern Hemisphere.
Reason 2) I want to make as much money as possible in the shortest period of time. I decided to go to school later than most and will be graduating with my degree in PetrE when I am 27.
I would like to skip the tradition path of getting your engineering degree, working for the company for ~3 years until you're a professional engineer, and then hopefully get an expat assignment. I want to go straight to working in the abroad out of school.
So my question is, is this possible? I'm going to break the question down into a few other questions to make it easier.
I guess there would be two options, working for a native company or working for a North American company with operations in the these areas. From what I can tell the financial benefit of doing an expat assignment (for an American oil company as an engineer) is you get your American salary + a bonus for the assignment + pay no taxes (provided your tax residency is in order) + comped for living expenses.
1) Do the engineers that work for the native companies, like say Qatar Petroleum, make as much money as the expat engineers in terms of total compensation?
2) If Yes, is it even possible to get a job for a native company as a fresh Canadian graduate? I'm more asking if it's legally possible. I'm confident in my ability to get the experience through internships and make the right connections so that I'm a more attractive option than a native graduate, but I want to know, even if I am able to do that, will there still be no hope because of employment laws etc.
3) If No and No, is it possible to get on with any American oil companies (producers) and be given an expat assignment straight out of school. (I'm assuming no)
I'd like to thank anyone in advance who is willing to read through all of this and offer some guidance!