Am on the right path? Non-EU Software Engineering graduate aiming for CS master's + job in Europe - no work experience yet

Career Advice
1

Hi everyone,
I’d love some advice or honest feedback from the community

I’m graduating this summer with a Bachelor’s in Software Engineering. I come from a non-EU country
(Albania) and plan to do a Master’s in Computer Science in Italy, Germany, Austria, or France after the
summer.

Here’s my situation:

No prior work experience (no internships, no jobs, only university projects)

mostly worked with Java during school but Im planning to focus on the MERN stack (MongoDB, Express, React, Node.js) and backend development

I want to start learning intensively and building real projects during the summer to improve my GitHub and resume

I don’t speak Italian, German, or French, but 'm planning to start learning the local language this summer alongside coding

My goal is to find paid work (internship, part-time, or remote job) as soon as possible, ideally before or during the master’s

My big questions are:

  1. How “cooked” am I? Is it too late to break into the European tech job market with no prior work experience before the master’s?
  2. How achievable is it to build a solid portfolio + job readiness over the summer if I put in consistent hours?
  3. Will I realistically have time during the master’s to keep learning and applying for jobs, or is the master’s workload usually too heavy?
  4. Any advice on what to focus on first to
    maximize my chances?

I’m really committed, but I want to make sure ľ’m not missing anything critical or wasting time on the wrong things

Any guidance, blunt advice, or encouragement would be massively appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

2

those countries often offer degrees in English, if you can enter in one of those, than for the learning part you should have much less issues. Consider also learning and practicing the local language if you intend to stay long term.
Use the university and professors connections while you are in university to get recommended for a job, partecipate in the job fairs.

There aren’t as many entry jobs as there were in the past, but if you are good at what you want to do, and network, you should be able to find a job.

is it the degree you want to do, or those specialization programs that are post-degree?
I am always confused, for me they have the same name.

The degree, if you have a job and don’t have time to do both, you can do part time (many universities offer this option, you would need to request it while you enroll).
The specialization programs are usually clustered in the weekends most of the time, it means you do not have free time but you can do both.

look at job postings and what is most in demands to know, it depends area by area