Relocating to JustPlay’s HQ: Three stories from the team

Moving for a job is never just about the job.

It is paperwork, apartment searches, first days, new routines, new people, and the very real question of whether starting over might actually be the right move.

At JustPlay, we support relocation because great talent is not limited by geography. But the real story is not the policy. It is what the move actually looks like when real people go through it.

So we asked three JustPlayers to share theirs.

From Vilnius, Tel Aviv, and Yerevan to Berlin — these are three stories about what made the move feel possible, what made it worth it, and what happened after they got here.

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What made the move easier

Relocation is never frictionless. But it should feel supported.

Here are some of the ways JustPlay has helped team members through the process:

• Guidance throughout the relocation process from People & Culture
• Support with registrations and admin steps
• Coverage of relocation-related legal and administrative costs, depending on the case
• Help with temporary housing, where applicable
• Flexibility during the transition, including remote starts in some situations
• A team that helps beyond the paperwork, from apartment tips to settling into city life

The logistics matter. But what people remember most is usually this: not having to figure it all out alone.

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Dima: From Vilnius to Berlin

“I was building something on the side — and that’s what got me in the door at JustPlay.”

While I was living in Vilnius, I was running a Telegram channel where I shared experiments with AI tools, automation, and creative projects. What I didn’t expect was that two leads at JustPlay, Slava and Stan, were already following it.

One day, they reached out. They had seen what I was building, liked my approach, and wanted to talk. That conversation opened the door to interviews, and eventually, to Berlin.

Leaving Lithuania after nearly three and a half years wasn’t easy. I had routines, friends, and a city I had grown to love. But the role at JustPlay felt like the one I had been waiting for: a place where I could work at the intersection of AI, automation, creativity, and marketing in a way that actually matched how I like to think and work.

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Why this role was worth the move

What made the opportunity exciting wasn’t just the city change. It was the fit.

At JustPlay, I saw room to:

• experiment, not just execute
• use my interest in AI and automation as a real strength
• work the way I naturally like to work: test boldly, iterate fast, and keep pushing for better ideas

That mindset clicked immediately.

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What made the move manageable

The timing, to put it mildly, was chaotic. I was juggling the interview process, documentation, and a marathon in Istanbul I had already signed up for and absolutely was not planning to skip.

But Camila and the People & Culture team made the whole thing feel manageable.

JustPlay supported me with:

• coverage of administrative and legal relocation costs
• guidance through each bureaucratic step
• reimbursement for degree validation costs I had to pay upfront

That removed a lot of friction from what was, in the end, a pretty high-stakes life decision.

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What confirmed I’d made the right call

I’m not someone who naturally walks into a room full of strangers and instantly feels comfortable. But from day one, I felt like I could ask anyone anything and someone would genuinely try to help.

One of the biggest early highlights was joining the company offsite in Bodrum not long after I started. It gave me a much better sense of the company than any welcome deck ever could. I got to see how cross-functional the work really is, how much energy people bring, and how seriously the company takes experimentation.

That part mattered most to me.

Even during onboarding, I had a conversation with Carl that went deep into marketing philosophy, creative strategy, and AI’s role in the industry. I had never had that kind of discussion with a company executive before. It made it clear that experimentation at JustPlay wasn’t just something people talked about. It was built into how the company actually worked.

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When Berlin started to feel like home

The apartment search was exactly what everyone says it is: a full-time job in itself.

JustPlay helped me secure short-term housing near Tempelhofer Feld, which gave me breathing room to settle into the role before diving into the long-term search. And when it was time to find something permanent, colleagues stepped in with listings, connections, and real help.

Before moving, I had some anxiety about what life in Berlin would be like. I had spent most of my life in smaller, calmer cities. But what surprised me was how quickly Berlin started to make sense to me. The green space, the visible layers of history, and the way the city keeps reinventing old places made it hard not to fall for it.

These days my rhythm is simple: gym, office, groceries, exploring. Once summer hits, I know I’ll be outside more — table tennis near the office, basketball with Tezcan, and making the most of the parks.

Looking back, accepting the offer at JustPlay was one of the best decisions I’ve made.

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Noam: From Tel Aviv to Berlin

“I wasn’t officially looking for a new job. Then one dinner in Berlin changed everything.”

My path to JustPlay was not exactly planned.

I was traveling, and Berlin happened to be my first stop. While I was there, I met Gil — my cousin’s cousin — for dinner for the first time. We had never actually met before. Somewhere in the middle of talking about work and life, I told him about my background and that lingering feeling that I could probably be doing more with my skill set.

He told me they needed someone with my background at JustPlay.

By the end of the evening, he was asking whether I would interview.

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Why I said yes

This wasn’t just a job decision for me. It was a life decision.

I had already thought for some time that I might want to leave Israel one day. But I was never going to move without a concrete reason. JustPlay became that reason.

That said, I had one firm position from the start: I was definitely not moving in the winter.

So I began the role remotely from Tel Aviv and planned the actual move to Berlin for May.

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What support looked like in practice

I was lucky in one sense: because I have Portuguese citizenship, moving didn’t come with a visa process or the kind of bureaucracy that makes everything ten times harder.

But even without that part, relocating is still a huge shift.

JustPlay supported me by:

• connecting me with relocation support services
• helping guide me through registrations
• making sure I knew what documents to prepare in advance

That support mattered because it meant I didn’t have to decode every step alone.

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The hardest part wasn’t the admin

What surprised me was that the biggest adjustment wasn’t logistical. It was emotional.

Israel is small. Family is close. Seeing the people I loved most went from being a normal weekly thing to something that now required a flight. That distance was one of the biggest shifts I had to get used to.

At the same time, arriving in Berlin made another part of my life much easier: work.

I’ve always found it easier to work in person than over Slack, so the months I spent working remotely were actually more challenging than being in the office. Once I arrived and was sitting with my engineering pod in person, things clicked quickly. The office became a kind of home base, especially in those first few months when I barely knew anyone in the city.

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How settling in actually happened

The parts that helped most were not formal onboarding moments. They were smaller and more human than that.

Cip and I ended up on the same team, which made collaboration feel easy almost immediately. Chante introduced me to some of her friends outside the office, which meant a lot more than people might realize when you’re new to a city.

That’s what integration actually looks like. Not an onboarding process or a welcome checklist. Just someone who’s been here a little longer making space for you.

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Building a life outside work

Outside of work, there was still the normal challenge of building a life from scratch.

Finding friends as an adult takes effort. You have to say yes to things, show up, try, repeat. But Berlin gives you plenty of ways in. I did karaoke, went to parties, took S-Bahn trips to lakes, and slowly started building my own rhythm here.

And weirdly enough, one of my favorite things about Berlin is still the supermarkets.

There are products here you just can’t get in Israel. It sounds minor, but it’s one of those small daily reminders that your life has genuinely changed.

Overall, moving here has made me more open. More willing to try things I probably wouldn’t have tried back home. That was part of the point.

I still think of my time here as an adventure without a definite return ticket — and I’m excited to see what the next years in Berlin, and at JustPlay, will bring.

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Maral: From Yerevan to Berlin

“We were comfortable, and that was the problem.”

Back in Armenia, my husband and I were comfortable. After eight years working in Yerevan, I knew everyone in the startup world there. I knew the rhythm. I knew what to expect.

And that was exactly why it was time to leave.

I kept thinking: this is not the time of my life to be this comfortable.

So when I came across JustPlay, I was already open to a new challenge. The role was listed as remote with a yearly visit to the Berlin HQ, but during the process Salome mentioned they would prefer someone open to fully relocating.

My immediate reaction was: okay, that’s more of a challenge. I like that.

I told my husband about it. His response was basically: “Yeah, why not?”

We had visited Berlin the previous August to surprise a friend, and during those ten days we had already fallen for the city. The architecture, the food, the people, the energy — it felt like a place where we could actually build a life.

By the time the offer came through, the decision had practically made itself.

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What the process actually looked like

When I joined, the relocation setup looked a little different than it does today. What made the biggest difference was having Camila there through every step of the process.

She helped me through everything:

• documents
• insurance
• registrations
• urgent embassy-related questions
• all the stressful in-between moments when things suddenly felt complicated

I sent her a lot of messages. Some more panicked than others. She always came through.

Because I needed a German work permit, the move also involved embassy appointments, long waiting times, and the usual bureaucracy that comes with that. To make things smoother, we agreed I would start the role remotely from Yerevan for my first three months, and then relocate to Berlin in March.

That flexibility made a big difference.

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The arrival

When my husband and I landed in Berlin, we had three suitcases and a signed lease for an apartment we had never seen in person.

Probably the one genuinely risky move in the whole process.

Still, we had prepared properly. Every document was organized. Every paper was ready. Border control went smoothly, and our immigration agent even welcomed us warmly — which I had not necessarily been led to expect.

A few days later, Berlin gave me my first proper city-life lesson.

I was on the train, a German announcement came over the speaker, everyone got off, and the train started going backwards. In Yerevan, trains do not do that. It took me a while to understand what was happening and get myself pointed back toward the office.

Now I love Berlin transit. But that first week was humbling.

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What made the transition easier

By the time I got to the office in person, everyone already knew me from Slack. That helped a lot. It didn’t feel like walking into a room of strangers. It felt more like finally meeting people properly.

A few things stood out immediately:

• how warm the welcome felt
• how accessible and kind the founders were
• and, very importantly, the daily Wolt lunch benefit

I still tell people about that one.

But more than the perks, what stayed with me was the feeling that I wasn’t starting from zero. Camila had already been a constant through the whole relocation process. Salome was the person who first introduced the possibility that changed everything. And once I was in Berlin, people across the company made those first months feel less like starting over and more like settling in.

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What changed once Berlin became normal

Since moving here, I have become a walker.

This would have genuinely shocked anyone who knew me in Yerevan, where I used to take taxis everywhere — and I do mean everywhere. My husband didn’t fully believe I was actually walking places at first.

Berlin changed that.

The city is green, flat, and easy to move through. Now I walk at least half an hour most evenings, usually with a coffee. It has made me healthier in ways I didn’t really expect.

Pilates also became part of my routine here, helped a lot by the Wellhub benefit. Being able to try different classes and instructors made it easy to build the habit.

And then there are the tiny Berlin moments that stay with you.

Like a woman staring at me long enough that I thought something was wrong, only for her to tell me she loved my eyebrows.

Or the sign near our apartment explaining six different species of bees in full detail.

That mix of oddness and care feels very Berlin to me now.

Moving abroad is never just a career decision. It’s a whole-life decision. But for me, it was worth it. I wanted to work with interesting people, in a vibrant city, doing work that challenged me. I got all of that at JustPlay.

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Different paths, same shift

Different countries. Different reasons. Different paths to Berlin.

But a few things came up again and again.

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Big moves rarely happen at the perfect moment

No one waited for a completely frictionless time to relocate. The move happened because the opportunity felt worth it.

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Practical support changes the equation

Paperwork help, registration guidance, temporary housing, and flexibility on timing — these are the things that make relocation feel possible, not just attractive in theory.

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Settling in is about people

Integration is not a checklist. It is the teammate who answers your questions, the colleague who sends apartment listings, the person who invites you to coffee, lunch, or a lake trip.

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Berlin has a way of winning people over

Sometimes through parks. Sometimes through public transport. Sometimes through supermarkets. But it does.

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Thinking about making the move?

Relocating is a big decision. It comes with uncertainty, admin, and a lot of change all at once.

But it can also mean a bigger challenge, a new city, new people, and work that pushes you further than staying where everything already feels familiar.

The paperwork is real. So is the leap. But for the right role, in the right place, it can be one of the best decisions you make.

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If you’re looking for a role that might be worth crossing borders for, take a look at our open positions.

Find open roles at JustPlay here.

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