He Got a Product Designer Role at an AI Company in Paris. Here’s How He Did It — 1000 Ways to Japa

Someone you know has left or is planning to leave. 1,000 Ways to Japa speaks to real people and explores the endless reasons and paths they take to japa.

Michael traded freelancing in Nigeria for a Product Designer role at an AI company in Paris, landing an EU Talent Passport with no degree, no French test, and no proof of funds. Here’s how he made it work.

I currently live in Paris. I left Nigeria in August 2025, so it’s been almost a year now.

I actually dropped out of university in my final year. I was studying computer science, and around the 300 level, I took an interest in design and started learning it. 

By my final year, I had a back-and-forth with a lecturer over a course I had been stuck retaking.  In addition to the disruptions caused by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) strikes,  I was already looking at an extra year before I could graduate.

That was the tipping point for me. I was mentally done. I told my dad I couldn’t keep going, and while he was worried at first, he came around once he saw I already had a stable income from my design work.

I was mostly freelancing remotely for companies. I worked for a Kenyan startup remotely for about three years, from around 2021 to 2024. It was pretty successful, to be honest. I have about 84,000 to 86,000 followers on X, so I used that audience to keep work coming in. I didn’t have a month where something wasn’t going on. If I had too many jobs, I’d outsource the extra to other designer friends.

I always knew I’d leave at some point, but it wasn’t a pressing need for me. That changed around the time when the current government came in. 

I was comfortable. My mentality was  “I’ll do my best here, but I won’t work myself to death in a broken environment, so any real opportunity to leave, I’ll take it.” Interestingly, around 2018 or 2019, I actually had an offer to move to Finland, but I did the math on taxes and got scared about the language barrier, so I turned it down.

Not at all. Paris was never on my mind. I knew I didn’t want the United Kingdom (UK) because the constant changes to immigration policy put me off. My actual plan was to start in an African country first, maybe Kenya, before moving anywhere else. I didn’t want to leave Africa so quickly.

I got an offer from a United States (US) company.  I did a trial period with them, and the pay was very good. But around the same time, an AI company in Paris reached out to me on X about a Product Designer role. I had always wanted to work at an AI company, so I stalled the US offer to go through the interview process. 

I went through their process, got the role, and the US company eventually pulled their offer after I  stalled them too long. That was fine — they still paid me for the weeks I had worked. 

The company’s immigration team handled about 90% of it. All I had to do was go to the Visa Facilitation Services (VFS) office in Lagos for biometrics and submit my documents. It’s a European Union (EU) Talent Passport, similar to the UK’s Global Talent visa, except it’s tied to your employer; you need a company to sponsor you.

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I didnt need any of that. Normally, if you move to France on your own with a regular work visa, you need an A1 level in French, and the permit might only be valid for a year, but with the EU Talent Passport, there’s no French requirement, and it’s valid for four years from your first application.

The visa needs either five years of experience or a relevant degree. I already had 7 to 8 years of experience by the time I applied. 

I asked the immigration team if that was still feasible, and they said yes, as long as I could provide evidence that I had been working for that period. I had to provide old paychecks and contracts. I had all of that ready, so I sent it over, and that was accepted.

Honestly, I think I was an outlier here. Everything I had to pay for myself, like the flight and all, was reimbursed. The company had a loft I stayed in for about a month, then I moved to an Airbnb until I found my own apartment, and all of that was also refunded. The only thing I  paid out of pocket the whole time was food.

Start from whatever the company is offering, but check that your standard of living won’t drop once you account for tax. I used that as my benchmark; if my standard of living would be worse in the new country, I wasn’t taking it. 

France has some of the highest taxes in the world, but for me, it’s a functioning system, so it didn’t bother me. I’ll also say that being single at the time made this a lot simpler. If you have a partner or kids, you’ve got a lot more to factor in.

It was rough, in a funny way. My basic French and Duolingo lessons could not save me at all. 

On the first day, I tried to order Nigerian food on Uber Eats, and it was about €30. I did the conversion to naira in my head and screamed. Another time, I tried to book a ride to work and kept asking drivers in French if they spoke English; three cancelled on me immediately. I eventually just stopped asking and used basic French to get through interactions. 

My first week was a good mix of excitement and being scared, because this was going to be my life from now on.

Not really. I’m not yet fluent, but I can navigate a lot of daily life in French. My biggest tip for anyone in the same position is don’t overthink it. I spent my first few days too scared to walk into the supermarket, imagining I wouldn’t be able to explain what I wanted, but when I finally went in, the interaction was extremely simple. 

If you’re stuck, use Google Translate; it won’t cost you anything. I took an audio language course for a while and had a private tutor for the first two to three months, though I eventually stopped the sessions because they started to feel like a chore.

Paris is a completely different market from the rest of France; it’s expensive. The city is divided into 20 districts, and your cost of living depends heavily on which one you’re in. 

For rent: a comfortable, decent-sized solo apartment runs from about €1,400 to €2,000 a month. Something smaller might be around €900. If you’re sharing with others, it can go as low as €600. 

Food isn’t too bad, partly because my company gives me a monthly food allowance and a transport allowance. They also cover 50–60% of my biking costs since I cycle to work instead of taking transit. Aside from rent, my extra monthly spending — groceries, random things for the apartment— is maybe €150 to €200. Rent is easily where most of my money goes.

Mostly the food and my friends. I cook a lot here and have found someone who can deliver Nigerian food, but it doesn’t taste the same.

Nobody tells you that the hardest part of leaving is the small things. Back home in Nigeria. I’d end my day with a call with my guys.  And now the call ends, and I’m just alone in my apartment. I miss my friends and family a lot. That said, if all of them were here with me in the EU, I might not think twice about staying for good.

France has some of the strongest labour protections in the world, so it’s genuinely hard to get fired without serious cause. That said, the EU Talent Passport is tied to your employer — so if I ever did lose this job, I’d need to find a new company willing to sponsor me, or change my visa status, within a few months. 

I’ve also been intentional about building a personal brand, so even in a worst case, I think I’d be okay within a few weeks or months. 

Going back to Nigeria no longer feels feasible to me. I used to run 24 solar panels with battery backup, Starlink, and a generator just to have consistent power and good internet, and I don’t want to go back to managing all of that. My plan is to build something solid in Paris first before I think about moving anywhere else.

Surprisingly, it’s cycling. I hadn’t cycled in years before I moved here, and Paris has really good bike lanes, so I cycle to and from work daily. The architecture is beautiful and makes the whole experience worthwhile. 

I had read online that people in Paris are rude, but I’ve found the opposite; everyone I’ve interacted with has been helpful. I once fell off my bike, and a stranger rushed over to help me.

 There’s also a basic sense of safety here; I can walk past police without my heart racing, which isn’t something I could say living in Nigeria.

Some parts of the metro have a really unpleasant smell, not all of them, but enough places that it’s concerning. Honestly, I think that’s just a big-city thing; cities like Lagos and New York all have this smell issue, unfortunately.

Honestly, it’s been the hardest part. I went to an event for a group called Nigerians in Paris, and it felt lonely; everyone there already knew each other, and I went alone. I haven’t been back since.

What’s worked better for me is taking my time and letting it come to me easily. There’s a guy I met on X before moving here, who introduced me to the guy who now cuts my hair. There’s a friend who also moved to France on a scholarship, whom I meet up with occasionally, someone I met through ADPList (a mentorship platform for designers), and a colleague whom I hang out with regularly. I also joined a WhatsApp group for internationals living here, which has been more socially active than the Nigerian one.

I had an experience with someone I met on TikTok who turned manipulative. I noticed a pattern where she seemed to want to be my only source of community here. Knowing I was new and didn’t have many friends yet,  she behaved however she wanted and expected me to put up with it, but I blocked her. My advice from that is to build slowly and prioritise quality over quantity.

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