Moving to Belgium to work for Odoo

Meet Sergio!

Sergio Polo, Account Manager in Indirect Sales

Sergio started at Odoo in March 2022. To join Odoo, he had to relocate from Valencia (Spain) to Brussels. In this article, he'll tell his experience!

Living and working outside your home country is a scary thought. You may encounter bad experiences when you are living in a foreign country. After all you are about to share your life with new people and with a different culture than yours. In addition to that, you may end up spending your time in a job that doesn’t meet your expectations and in which you feel tied to.

Sergio, what do you think about relocating for Odoo?

After 3 months of starting my new life in Brussels and working at Odoo, I’m going to tell you how I experienced the opposite. Some coworkers already became true friends. I really work for a company that is beyond my expectations. And on top of that I’m lucky to live in an awesome city that offers more than what you may need.

I'll start with one the most frustrating thing you could experience when moving to another country.

Looking for an accommodation without knowing where to look nor where to start. Not knowing anyone. And of course the initial financial investment. Well, thanks to Odoo I avoided any of these frustrations as they took care of finding my accommodation and they paid for the first month. They also offered me the flight ticket from Spain, my home country, to Brussels. I work with people of different nationalities with whom I share both concerns and age. So building a network of friends with whom I can enjoy free time was anything but complicated.

To be honest I really have the feeling that Odoo takes care of my well being. On the one hand, I am sharing time with colleagues (friends), learning something new every day and enjoying the office (we even have a football team and a ping pong table!). And on the other hand, I am enjoying my daily work and am motivated to grow professionally in a company where growth seems to have no ceiling. I’m lucky to share my workday with leaders who care about teaching and understanding you.

I can't end up talking about Odoo without mentioning the thousands of activities organized within the company. We have access to so many things from team/ department/ company parties to sports like soccer, climbing, races... In short, it's hard to get bored while working for a company like this.

And what about Brussels?

Now that I have managed to get a raise with the previous paragraph (laugh), it's time to talk about Brussels. Before I started working here, I had never visited the city. My image of Brussels was actually based on comments from friends such as "the weather is very cold and rainy", "it is an ugly city " or "it is a city that has no life". After three months of living here, I can confirm that I will never ask these three friends for advice again. Indeed, the climate here is not like in Valencia (where I have 368 sunny days a year) but in general I can't complain about the sun, the cold nor the rain.

Ugly and lifeless city? Not at all. In Brussels, you have monuments and parks on every corner, thousands of museums, charming bars, shopping areas, MILLIONS of festivals... In short, if you don't want to, you don't get bored. Besides, look at the map of Europe! Even if you get bored in Brussels, you can take a short trip to Bruges or Antwerp, visit Amsterdam or Luxembourg, and even spend a few days in France or Germany. If I have to say something negative about the city, it is its price. But in the end, it is compensated by the average salary level with which you can live very comfortably.

To conclude, my experience during these 3 months has been really satisfactory. Living in a city that offers you all kinds of activities and that has an attractiveness that makes you fall in love. And working for a company where you enjoy at the same time that you progress in your working life, what else can you ask for?

I found all that in my job at Odoo and in Brussels.

Sergio