It has been few years since I was last in Qatar so I cannot really be too specific with my advice regarding jobs in Qatar. What I can give is an image of what I lived and what I have continued to witness after leaving Qatar.
Qatar is a small country with a lot of wealth and resources. They have realized the importance of research and development to their future and are injecting a lot of money into this arena. Qatar National Research Fund is well funded and is trying to recruit a lot of talent into Qatar. They have succeeded to some extent, but this has not come cheap. The competition with other countries in the region such as Saudi Arabia and UAE will not make it any easier, in the future. An important point to make here is that although there is no doubt that recruiting scientists from outside into Qatar is a quick way to increase research productivity, the model is quite different from that in the US and Canada.
These scientists and researchers are there for earning wages and doing work in return of those wages. They do not have a pathway for becoming citizens of Qatar or any of the other countries in that region. The relationship is similar to a hired gun whose loyalty is simply for money. To some, this may be one of the main drawbacks of living in the Gulf. They may never feel like they belong. They may always feel as foreigner and be treated as foreigners for as long as they live in Qatar or any of the other Gulf areas. For others, however, the earning levels may well compensate for this drawback since there are no taxes on income compared to the US or Canada. I have known many who lived almost all their adult lives in the Gulf without any ill feelings and would choose that same career path again if given the chance.
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