u/contrawarp

Hi everyone,

I’m a software engineer based in Boston, Massachusetts, exploring UAE opportunities, especially Abu Dhabi.

Quick background: I'm a US citizen/passport holder, US-born and raised, Arab (Palestinian-Jordanian) by ethnicity, fluent in Arabic and English, with a B.S. in Computer Science from a Massachusetts university, and 3+ years of full-time software engineering experience.

My work is mainly backend/API development, microservices, partner integrations, production support, and enterprise systems at a large Fortune 100 US company.

On a personal level, I’m a 29-year-old man, and after visiting the UAE and genuinely enjoying it, Abu Dhabi feels especially attractive to me as a stable, ambitious, Muslim-majority place where I could see myself building a life long-term, especially if I eventually start a family.

I don’t currently have a UAE visa, but I could relocate quickly for the right role. I’m mainly looking at backend, platform, full-stack, cloud/API modernization, data/AI platform, technical consulting, or forward-deployed engineering roles.

I know the UAE market is competitive and has many strong engineers already, so I’m asking this realistically: would a floor of about AED 350k–400k+ total annual compensation be possible for someone with my background?

I’m asking about that range because it’s roughly the level where relocating from a U.S. software role would start to make financial sense for me, especially factoring in current U.S. compensation, relocation, and the UAE’s tax structure.

If anyone works in UAE tech, recruiting, consulting, fintech, G42/Core42/Presight/AIQ, or similar companies, I’d appreciate honest advice. Happy to share my resume privately if someone has serious feedback or knows relevant roles/referrals. Thank you!

TLDR: US-based Arab software engineer exploring Abu Dhabi/UAE tech roles and trying to understand if AED 400k+ total comp is realistic for my background.

I’m a few years into my SWE career at a large company. I got promoted once pretty quickly already, and all my formal reviews have been really positive, which is great. But now, people I joined the company with around the same time who are on other teams are all getting promoted again, while I’m being told now by my manager that they got “mixed feedback” around consistency, engagement, visibility, etc.

There are no actual concrete deliverables to improve on. It just feels vague and perception/vibes based.

But here's the context. Those same teammates who gave her "mixed" feedback, are the ones who consistently nitpick small mistakes or have had a passive aggressive “how do you not know this?” attitude toward me since the day I joined, even when I was a fresh engineer and they knew this was my first swe job.

I’ve literally had some of them say things like “Do you have a CS degree?” in such a condescending way if I ask about a system, or “I showed you this 7 months ago” while I'm sharing my screen and driving in front of the entire team, and then basically refuse to help further while I sit there and hear crickets. It's extremely awkward and uncomfortable.

What really threw me off is that a newer teammate who joined recently privately called me after one of the meetings and asked me if I was okay because they noticed how hostile the team was being toward me for completely normal stuff, especially as a newer engineer who is expected to ask relevant questions on company specific info/procedures that I couldn't figure out myself through googling/researching.

At this point I can’t tell if I just need to continue to ignore it and accept this is just the cards I'm dealt, or if this environment is genuinely hurting my growth and reputation long term, and I need to escalate it to someone higher up or request to switch teams.

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TLDR: Newer engineer, got a great review on paper from manager, but passive aggressive teammates + vague “perception” feedback from those same teammates are stalling my promotion and I can’t tell if I should keep grinding through it or get off this team.