Thursday, 6 June 2024
Joon du Randt, a South African native, spent the early part of the millennium working in various programming and IT architecture roles in and around Cape Town. His expertise includes managing large-scale custom and off-the-shelf software projects across industries such as financial services, insurance, and retail. Joon currently works as software architect with Globalization Partners supporting the data and security areas of the business. He works with data engineering teams, BI teams, Authentication and Authorization teams around the world from Donegal.
In 2012, Joon and his wife Taryn made the life-changing decision to relocate their family from South Africa in pursuit of better economic opportunities and a safer environment. With their children Frans and Isabella growing up, they sought a place that offered enhanced prospects for their future.
Joon and his family moved to Donegal in 2016. He states, “To be honest, I had never considered moving to Ireland, and certainly never to the wildest north-west of Ireland!” As they started looking into the various countries, they realized that Ireland had a lot going for it. “The immigration process for skilled immigrants compared very favourably with other English-speaking countries, both by being much simpler and in terms of providing a path to citizenship after 5 years”.
Their journey to Donegal was facilitated by a friend working at Pramerica in Letterkenny who shared glowing reviews of life in rural Donegal. Following a recommendation and a successful job offer, Joon and his family embraced the opportunity to relocate to Ireland. “He recommended me to the folks in the company for an open position, and within a few weeks of speaking to him I had a job offer in hand to move to Ireland with a critical skills employment permit.”.
While Joon was working with Pramerica, he completed a master’s degree in big data analytics at LYIT (now ATU). This degree allowed him to pivot his career from general purpose architecture into a big data specialty, which unlocked professional opportunities with subsequent companies that are based in the US but spread around the globe. “I have been able to further leverage these experiences with big data technologies to gain deep experience of the Azure and AWS clouds, and strong experience with Databricks – widely recognized as the best data platform available”.
Settling in Gortnavern near Ramelton, the du Randt family quickly found a sense of belonging within the community. Joon appreciates the warm reception they received and the seamless integration of his children into local activities and friendships. “With the bonds of friendship that we have established with various people who live in the area, and the kids being very settled and moving towards the end of secondary school, we decided that we would be very happy living here for the long term”.
Another important factor was the size and quality of property that they could afford. “For the price of a 3-bed semi-detached house in Dublin we’ve been able to buy a large new house with a big garden and lots of space for pets and gardening”.
There have been so many instances of people going out of their way to help Joon and his family feel welcome.
When they first moved here, the principal of the local primary school gave their kids school jumpers so they wouldn’t feel out of place and gave his daughter a book on Irish myths and legends when she noticed her looking at it in her office. “Our neighbours in Ramelton gave us a bottle of wine and some Christmas goodies to celebrate the first Late Late Toy Show”.
The move to Donegal has significantly enhanced their quality of life, offering a safe and welcoming environment. “In South Africa the night-time ritual would be to lock the doors at 6PM and arm the outdoors motion detectors in case our home gets invaded in the middle of the night. The educational system in Ireland provides ample opportunity for all, whether through the traditional CAO process or any of the myriad of other pathways to third level education or other forms of skills training. The Donegal ETB does fantastic work in creating pathways to employment based on local demands”.
Joon now sets himself clear boundaries to make the most of his work-life balance here in Donegal. “I find that it is important to set clear boundaries to maintain my work / life balance. I can stop work, pause notifications on my phone and enjoy family time or some leisure activities. We enjoy the pace of living here, and we make sure to get out and enjoy the jaw-dropping natural beauty that is available a short drive from our house in any direction”.
Joon’s children Frans and Isabella played hockey in South Africa. They both took up hurling as the closest game they could find to hockey. “The game was a bit too rough for our daughter (she prefers to cycle with her daddy), but our son did very well and ran on for the county at under 14 level. The warmth that the other parents showed towards us and the incumbent children towards our kids confirmed that we had made the right choice in moving to a more caring and friendly place. We are as integrated in Donegal as we ever were in Cape Town, and I feel very lucky to have been able to settle in a region where the people are so open and friendly”.
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