Hello, yes Air Astana is searching pilots at the moment.
There is no expansion in Almaty, all new pilots go to Astana since this will be the major hub for Air Astana.
Even Boeing flights starting to be flown more and more only from Astana (no more night stops on European flights in Astana for Almaty crew).
Since Air Astana will exchange the 757 with some A321's and 321LR, the single ail Boeings are leaving the fleet 2018/19 giving an increased need for A320 pilots.
Towards the end of 2018, also expect some new Embraer delivery including possibly an increased hiring, again for Astana base.
From what I knew, the city of Astana is possibly not the easiest place to live, specially in the winter with up to minus 40 degree and always very windy (but clean air) and not too much traffic. Expats preferred Almaty, despite having now a very very high pollution all over the city and very bad traffic!
Because of the devaluation, living is relatively cheap but the food is probably not really the highes quality (like Pizza etc....).
The training is straight forward, just about one month and you are on line. You have only a 6/2 contract or a full time contract to choose from. Other possibilities the company does not accept.
Like in many expat jobs, some pilots stay longer but usually pilots are leaving after 2-3 years. There are pilots who stayed already for 6-7 years in the company, usually some captains since they terminated many FO's (I think it was 2013 specially on the airbus fleet because of many cadets were arriving). So be prepared, if they don't need you the situation can change quickly. Air Astana is now focusing on connection traffic from east to west, south to north (China, UK or Russia to India...) and by this the company is hoping to get a higher margin on the tickets. If that strategy is working in the future we will see. I think still some work is needed in many aspects. I want to give one example: Arriving as PAX to Astana, you would have to go out of the new terminal 2 and enter again into terminal one (i believe it's domestic?). There were no signs at all and some ground staff at the airport hardly spoke english or did unterstand that I was looking for terminal 1 so the connection was not very well organized, also you had to do security again....
The interview is straight forward, a personal and technical interview, followed by an usual SIM session and to be followed by a Skype interview with HR of Air Astana asking just about your motivation, maybe what you knew about the company etc.
That's about it.