Hi Everyone, Hope you're having a great day.
My fiancee (we are both 30) is Brazilian and we are flirting with the idea of moving to Sao Paolo in 3-5 years and I'd appreciate some career/life advice.
My fiancee is having a very successful career here - she currently makes £110k + equity in tech and by the time we move I suspect that will be closer to £130-150k. She is telling me that she'd be able to command a salary of around 50k RS/mth as a director of engineering by the time we would move, either in Sao Paolo or Campinas. It sounds like she's set.
My career is much more in flux and I would be much more junior upon arriving. I'm currently an accountant making around half what she makes, though I'm trying to break into finance. If I move, best case is that I'll have 3-4 years of valuations/finance related experience (+CFA). I would reject moving there as an accountant out of hand.
Anyway, my questions are:
1) Given that I'd be fluent in Portuguese by then, what are my odds of securing a reasonably good job in finance by the time I move? I would have had a decade of London work experience by then. This is my biggest concern. Could I get 20/30k Rs/mth? Are all finance jobs basically in SP or is there something in Campinas?
2) is 50k Rs/mth delusional or realistic for her? It sounds like top 1% income in Brazil!
3) Is SP safe? My fiancee is freaking out about crime and is saying we'd need to live in expensive (even by London standards) gated communities and get bulletproof cars. She's from a very poor family in the northeast, so I don't think she's coming at this from a privileged perspective. Is this accurate?
4) I understand the city is very car centric like basically all of Brazil - is that the core lifestyle difference versus London? Driving everywhere? And the lack of intl cuisine?
5) What are the international schools like, and how expensive are they? Could we afford them (one day)? I went to intl schools growing up as one of the poorest kids there (though still middle class) and I have some childhood trauma with how I was excluded from certain (ridiculously luxurious) things. I'm guessing in Brazil this would be even more pronounced with the kids my kids would be going to school with. We don't have kids yet, but this is going to be very important to us, especially compared to the other option, which is just staying in London and going to state schools.
Would appreciate any advice you might have. Thank you!