My name is Magnus, I am 33 years old and born in Norway. I did a master’s degree in physics and a Phd in computational chemistry at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). After I completed my PhD, I started my first job at ALTEN.

“I had enjoyed the programming aspects of my PhD and was hoping to advance my abilities as a programmer. I saw that ALTEN was seeking people with experience matching my own, so I reached out. And that’s how I started my job within ALTEN.”

Moving from Norway to the Netherlands
“The reason why I moved to the Netherlands has also something to do with my study. During my study I chose to move to Amsterdam for one year as an exchange student. Here I met my wife who was doing her master’s degree at the UvA. After she had finished her Phd in Norway, she was hoping to go to the Netherlands for some time, so that she could be closer to friends she had made while studying there. I tagged along, while still working to finish mine.

We were always surprised at how smoothly moving to the Netherlands went for us. When moving here, we rented a short-term rental for the first few months, then we were fortunate enough to take over a permanent renting contract from one of my wife’s colleague who was moving for work to Taiwan.

The most challenging part was probably when we moved from the short-term rental, using a small rented van from bo-rent. We had some of our stuff stored in a storage facility which required me to drive through the city of Eindhoven to get to. Unfortunately, at some point the streets got confusing so I ended up driving in a circle for about one hour. Also, at one point my van ended up on top of the bike road! (this was totally the fault of the driver in front of me). However, we really enjoy the Netherlands and love living here. The weather is nicer comparing to Norway and the people are generally more approachable. I do wish there were noticeable hills and nature around, though.”

My job as an ALTEN consultant
“I am currently part of a team of ALTEN consultants embedded at a leading provider of semiconductor packaging and electronic assembly. Here we are attempting to clear out technical debt, as well as handling peripheral tasks to relieve the main product teams. Within my job I very much enjoy it when we are able to resolve larger technical debt items. It is nice to see things improve.
We also get many requests from the client to also handle side-tasks. That can be challenging sometimes, especially when a side task becomes something of a main task for my team. In those cases we try to make sure that we are always able to do some amount of improvements.” Advice
“My advice for people who are interested in relocating to the Netherlands is this: finding a place to stay can be difficult if you are not in the country already. Short term rentals are possible, but they can be somewhat expensive. Try to get help with finding somewhere to stay.”

Magnus Heskestad Waage

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