Some experiences stay with you long after they’re over. For me, Canada is one of them. It’s not just a line on a résumé — it’s a chapter of life that unfolded over several years, between Montreal and Vancouver, with back-and-forth journeys that felt less like indecision and more like a genuine love affair with a country.
Montreal: a city you leave and always come back to
It all starts in 2013. I land in Montreal for a graduate degree in e-business at HEC — one of the top French-speaking business schools in North America. First shock: here, work is a practice, not a theory. Courses are grounded in real cases, professors all have one foot in industry, and students come from every corner of the world.
Montreal keeps me. After graduating, I return in 2016 as a web advisor at HEC — this time to build, supervise and evolve WordPress sites, coordinate complex projects, and get hands-on with cybersecurity. It’s a school of discipline and prioritization that no classroom could have offered me.
Montreal teaches you that French-speaking culture can be ambitious, international, and laid-back all at once. It reconciles things that France tends to keep apart.
Vancouver: autonomy at full speed
In 2018, after some time in Montreal (and a brief return to Paris), I cross the country to join Vancouver. A different city, a different world: the Pacific coast, ocean and mountains, a cosmopolitan metropolis where English is the language of work and ambition is the norm. CBRE takes me on — end-to-end web project management, real estate platforms, advanced SEO, security. A demanding role in a global firm where you’re judged on results, not appearances.
North American work culture makes complete sense here. No micromanagement. Trust granted from day one — yours to keep. If something broke at 11pm, it was my responsibility to fix it. Demanding — and incredibly formative.
Vancouver is where the word “ownership” became concrete for me — before it became the very core of my professional identity as a Product Owner.
What those years left me with
Between Montreal and Vancouver, Canada gave me what’s hard to find when you stay close to home: real international exposure, a no-nonsense results-driven culture, a different relationship with space and time — and above all, a self-confidence that only comes from figuring things out far from everything familiar.
If you’re on the fence about taking the leap and working abroad: do it. The worst that can happen is that you come back changed. And that’s exactly the point.
You never really come back from Vancouver. Part of you stays there — the part that needed to be shaken up to grow.