Readable code in practice

Relocating as a Software Developer: A Practical Checklist for Your First Months in a New City

Readable code in practice · By the Four Spaces editorial team · Published 2026-10-27

A new job in a new city changes everything at once: where you live, how you get to work, who you work with and which tools are on your laptop. Developers have some advantages in a move, such as work that travels well and an international community that exists almost everywhere, and some specific needs, starting with a reliable connection and a quiet place for calls. This checklist follows the order in which things tend to happen.

Before you sign anything

The order matters here. A lease signed before the job contract is final, or before you know your right to work is settled, can leave you paying for a flat in a city you cannot move to yet.

• The contract. Check the start date, the probation period, the notice period, whether the role is on-site, hybrid or remote, and which office you are attached to. Hybrid arrangements matter for housing: two days a week in the office makes a long commute far more bearable than five.
• Relocation support. Employers vary widely. Ask in writing what is covered: flights, moving costs, temporary accommodation, a relocation agent, help with registration or visa fees, and whether any of it must be repaid if you leave early.
• The right to work. Moving within the European Union, you can live and work in another member state as an EU citizen; the EU's Your Europe portal explains that some countries require you to report your presence soon after arrival, and that as an employed person you should register your residence, often at the town hall or local police station, after the first three months, when you receive a registration certificate (see Your Europe, "Residence rights for workers"). Moving to the United Kingdom, your employer must check your right to work before you start; GOV.UK explains how to prove your right to work to an employer, with an online share code where you are eligible. Elsewhere, the rules depend on the country and your nationality: rely on the official immigration authority's website and on your employer, never on forum answers.
• Tax and social security. Moving country can change where you are tax resident, which affects your salary, any equity you hold and pension contributions. If you hold stock options, ask a qualified tax adviser before the move.

Choosing where to live

Most people underestimate how different a city feels from the inside: neighbourhoods that look close on a map can be separated by a river with one bridge or a slow bus line. Before committing to a lease, work out what the daily journey will really cost you: look through the rentals along your future commute, from a short cycle ride to a single train line away from the office, and note for each one the rent, the travel time at rush hour and the price of a monthly pass, so that every viewing is judged on the whole monthly budget rather than on the rent alone.

The area that friends recommend may also suit a very different life from yours.

That is why many relocation guides suggest arriving into temporary housing: a furnished short-term let, a serviced apartment or the accommodation your employer offers, for the first few weeks. It lets you visit areas at the times you would actually use them, try the commute at rush hour, and avoid committing to a long lease from a distance.

For developers, a few criteria deserve more weight than usual:

• The connection. If you will work from home even part of the time, check what broadband is available at the specific address before you sign, and how long installation takes. A building with only a slow connection is hard to fix later. Ask the current tenant or the landlord what they use.
• A place to work. A spare room, or at least a corner away from the bedroom, makes long days and video calls much easier. Note the light and the noise at the times you would be working.
• The commute on office days, door to door, in both directions and at peak times, including how you would get home late after a release or an on-call incident.
• Time zones. If your team is spread across continents, early or late calls may be routine. Thin walls and a shared flat matter more then.

When renting from abroad or in a market you do not know, be wary of offers that look too good. Consumer protection agencies and police in many countries warn about rental scams that ask for a deposit or "reservation fee" for a property you have not seen, often from a landlord who is supposedly abroad. Do not transfer money before you or someone you trust has seen the property and you have checked that the person letting it has the right to do so. Read the lease carefully, especially the notice period, what the deposit covers and how it is protected, and who pays for which utilities.

The first week

The first days are mostly administration, and much of it depends on having an address. The usual order:

1. Register your address if the country requires it. In several countries, this registration unlocks everything else: a tax number, a bank account, health insurance.
2. Get a local phone number. Banks, landlords and delivery services expect one, and two-factor authentication codes for local services often go to it. Keep your old number active for a while too, because some of your existing accounts may still send codes there.
3. Open a bank account, since many employers pay salaries only into a local account. Be aware that in some countries your credit history does not transfer, which can affect rental applications and contracts.
4. Sort out healthcare: register with the public system or confirm your insurance, and find a doctor before you need one.
5. Learn the transport system and get the cards or apps it needs.

Keep copies of everything (contracts, registration certificates, payslips, the lease) in one folder, paper and digital. You will be asked for the same documents many times in the first months.

Setting up your work

A new job usually means a new laptop, new accounts and a new development environment, often all on the first day. A few habits make this smoother:

• Keep a setup log. Write down every command, setting and access request as you go. It becomes the onboarding document the team probably needs, and it helps you the next time you change machines.
• Follow the project's own tooling. Create the virtual environment the way the README says, install the pre-commit hooks, and run the formatter and linter the project uses before your first pull request; our guide to checking Python style locally covers the common tools.
• Set up your home workspace properly: a screen at eye level, a decent chair, a headset for calls. Ask whether your employer contributes to home-office equipment; many do for hybrid roles.
• Agree on working hours if the team spans time zones, and put them in your calendar so colleagues can see them.

Your first months in the new team

Onboarding into a new codebase takes longer than onboarding into a new city, and both happen at the same time. Being explicit about it helps.

• Ask for a first small task that goes all the way to production. Shipping something small teaches you the deployment process, the review culture and the tests faster than reading documentation.
• Read before you write. Read recent pull requests, the main modules and the test suite. Note the conventions: naming, error handling, how configuration is loaded.
• Review code early. Reviewing other people's pull requests, even only to ask questions, is one of the fastest ways to learn a codebase; our code review checklist gives a structure for it.
• Write things down, and share the notes: a glossary of internal terms, a map of services, the answers to questions you had to ask.
• Agree on expectations with your manager for the first thirty, sixty and ninety days, so you know what "settled in" means for this role.

It is normal for this period to be tiring. A new language, new systems and a new social circle all draw on the same energy. Planning fewer commitments outside work in the first weeks is not a weakness.

Building a life outside work

The professional community is an easy first door. Python has local user groups, meetups and conferences in many cities, and the Python Software Foundation lists community resources and events on python.org's community pages. A monthly meetup gives you people to talk to who share at least one interest, and often a view of the local job market.

Beyond that, the usual advice holds because it works: take a language course if the city speaks a language you do not, join one regular activity such as a sports club, a choir or a volunteering group, and say yes to invitations in the first months, even when unpacking seems more urgent. Regular, repeated contact is what turns acquaintances into friends.

Money and admin over the first months

• Check your first payslips against your contract: tax class or code, social contributions, any relocation allowance and how it is taxed.
• Driving licence. Rules on using or exchanging a foreign licence differ by country and sometimes by the country that issued it, often with a deadline. Check early.
• Close or redirect the old life: forward post, update your address with banks and authorities in your home country, cancel subscriptions and utilities, and keep the evidence.
• Your first tax return in the new country, and possibly a final one in the old, may be due the following year. Note the dates now.

A timeline you can copy

Sources

• European Commission, Your Europe: "Residence rights for workers", reporting presence and registering residence, consulted October 2026.
• GOV.UK, "Prove your right to work to an employer", consulted October 2026.
• Python Software Foundation, python.org community pages and the Python wiki's list of local user groups.
• National consumer protection and police guidance on rental fraud, for example Report Fraud, which replaced Action Fraud in December 2025 (United Kingdom) and the US Federal Trade Commission's consumer advice on rental listing scams.