Raphaël, Lucas, Alar­ic and Romain, four insep­a­ra­ble friends from UTC decid­ed, a few weeks ago, to leave every­thing to live, set up shop and work on the island of Bali, Indone­sia. For Inter­ac­tions read­ers, they talk about this dar­ing gamble. 

What courses did you take at UTC ?

Raphaël : I grad­u­at­ed from UTC with­the major “Com­put­er sci­ences and appli­ca­tions” ” and first direct­ed my pro­fes­sion­al career in soft­ware devel­op­ment & engineering.

Pierre : Like­wise for me, after grad­u­at­ing in 2020, hav­ing com­plet­ed the major “Com­put­er sci­ences and appli­ca­tions”, I have been doing loads of free­lance work in com­put­er apps development.

Alar­ic : I also grad­u­at­ed from UTC with the major “Com­put­er sci­ences and appli­ca­tions” but in 2018.

Romain : Can’t be dif­fer­ent can I ? I grad­u­at­ed from UTC with the major “Com­put­er sci­ences andap­pli­ca­tions” too.

So, why Bali?

Pierre : I had already had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to vis­it this island and I had a real crush on this place. It’s a place where it’s warm, where you can surf, a sport I love above all else, and where “life is good”.

Raphaël : For my part, I was thirsty for adven­ture, and “inter­na­tion­al­i­ty”. I did­n’t have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to go on an Eras­mus trip dur­ing my stud­ies, so I real­ly want­ed to soak in anoth­er cul­ture, anoth­er universe.

Alar­ic : I real­ly want­ed to change my sur­round­ings and remote-work from anoth­er coun­try, to see some­thing oth­er than France and my flat.

Romain : I joined the adven­ture a bit lat­er, they had already start­ed to go through the visa pro­ce­dures and I thought I would join them. We set­tled in the south of the island, in Jim­baran and the advan­tage of this small fish­ing vil­lage is that every­thing is cheap­er there.

What effects did the lockdown measures in France have on your desire to go international?

Raphaël : It’s a project we’ve have shared for a long time, the lock­downs just delayed it a bit. But as soon as cer­tain restric­tions were lift­ed, we were able to take out an express visa to be able to set­tle in as quick­ly as possible.

Alar­ic : For me, the health cri­sis accel­er­at­ed my desire to leave and change my sur­round­ings. Since March 2020, I have been remote-work­ing and I have lived through the suc­ces­sive lock­downs and cur­fews alone. I need­ed to be in the com­pa­ny of peo­ple again and to live in a nicer environment.

Pierre : I will admit that the fact that every­thing closed in France has made me want to head elsewhere…

What was the transition like, between your professional life in France and life in Bali? Did you, for example, have to resign from prior positions? 

Pierre : I’ve been work­ing free­lance for sev­er­al months, I’m what we call a “dig­i­tal nomad”, so the fact that I work in France or else­where has no impact on my clients. My only require­ment is to have a good wifi connection.

Raphaël : For my part, it was a big deci­sion; I was on a per­ma­nent con­tract and I took a sab­bat­i­cal for this change of life, the time to see if it would suc­ceed or not. I went free­lance and start­ed look­ing for devel­op­ment work. The advan­tage is that IT is a sec­tor where there is always a high demand.

Romain : For me it’s a bit more com­pli­cat­ed. At the moment I’m just on hol­i­day, I’m stay­ing for a month. But my objec­tive is to come back in August, and why not to set­tle per­ma­nent­ly like the oth­er boys. I’ll give myself time to think about it and, above all, to see what happens.

Alar­ic : I was lucky enough to be able to nego­ti­ate to keep my French per­ma­nent con­tract while work­ing in Bali with local hours (ed. note: 6 hours plus dif­fer­ence with France). In return, I have to make myself avail­able from time to time in French time to be able to exchange with my colleagues.

Describe a typical day working in Bali.

Pierre : There is the dai­ly work load, of course, but here every­thing is far more peace­ful. We live in a beau­ti­ful vil­la, we have access to the beach very quick­ly. In short, it’s real­ly anoth­er way of life that suits me perfectly.

Raphaël : When I told my par­ents that I want­ed to leave every­thing behind and move to Bali, they were a bit scared, but in the end they under­stood my choice. I’m afraid I won’t be able to find enough new assign­ments to stay, but I’m doing my best to succeed.