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Stagnating wages, rapidly increasing house prices, bad terms for renters, increasing university costs. If I were 20 I'd consider working remote and just go li

• CorvusCrypto 10y ago
  God yes, this is a big issue. The rent in cities alone is enough to make me want to GTFO of US and go somewhere else.
  • ghaff 10y ago
    The rent in a handful of cities. There are plenty of places in the US (both urban and not) where $1K or so per month will get a decent apartment. Yes, there is a lot of tech concentrated in the expensive cities but the same could be said of other countries like the UK. Of course, there are cheaper places in the world to live but then you may be looking at remote work or lower salaries and the same logic applies in the US.
• openfuture 10y ago
  Omg thank you for affirming my choices!
• trentmb 10y ago
  It seems hard enough to establish credibility for an in-office job these days. I can't even imagine trying to get a remote gig. Perhaps that says more about me though? Granted, I've deliberately eschewed larger cities, and as a consequence I've had a harder time convincing people that just because my degree was in math I can still be a competent developer.
  • bbcbasic 10y ago
    This is a problem definitely. Freelancing may be required. Save up 5k and that should keep you fed and accommodated in say Laos for a year ... plenty of time to get the freelancing going. Charge as if you are in the US and invest most of it!
    • lmmlzxx 10y ago
      Yep, I did this (after going the traditional college route and languishing for a few years after) but more like 15k over three years. I'm a pretty good web developer now but it's still very tough establishing that initial credibility. Plus, I wanted to have many experiences outside of just programming, like learning the language for instance.
  • joshontheweb 10y ago
    I've found that my past employers actually didn't care at all about my degree. I actually never finished university but it never comes up. They want to see what I've built and hat is the determining factor. The first job is the hardest since you have to build a portfolio on your own. After that it has seemed pretty easy. Not trying to refute your point but rather to suggest that there are other ways to get n the door aside from leaning on your degree.
    • trentmb 10y ago
      > Not trying to refute your point but rather to suggest that there are other ways to get n the door aside from leaning on your degree. I guess I didn't articulate myself well- I think we're in accord here. The degree seemed to hamper me-at best not help-in getting a CRUD gig in smaller cities. I'm 'coming around'- started looking into work in Kansas City or St. Louis. Those are probably as large a city as I can handle.
• icpmacdo 10y ago
  What the best way to get gigs thats not race to the bottom style jobs on Upwork? I am in that exact situation right now trying to work remote, I have some professional experience but I'm still a junior dev.
  • warkon 10y ago
    Work on open-source software: https://bountysource.com/ https://bountysource.com/
  • imron 10y ago
    What sort of development do you do? For remote work, you're only a junior dev if you tell them you're a junior dev. If you can show potential employers a profile of existing work and can convince them that you will bring worth to their company then you can find work.
    • CorvusCrypto 10y ago
      I think this is the hardest thing for me to do. While I can show my skills and a portfolio of work, I am the worst at providing an air of confidence and will often find myself in the moment of hearing their requirements and thinking, "I'm so screwed... I am useless to them." This to me is the hardest thing I've been trying to overcome lately. At the keyboard I'm calm and collect, but dear god am I a lamb facetime to facetime.
• vacri 10y ago
  As an X-er watching the millenials and the boomers lobbing grenades at each other, it amuses me that the millenial argument sounds like this: "Those greedy boomers have fucked up the world for everyone else with their overly lavish and unsustainable lifestyles... and they won't let us into their cushy club!" Point of fact is that if you were to give the choice between today's 20-year-old lifestyle and the same in 1970, you'd be insane to choose 1970, especially if you were a minority or a woman. Sure, houses are cheaper in `70, but the jobs are much more menial, life is less comfortable, medicine is less advanced (particularly pain medication), social opportunities are much more stratified, entertainment is much harder to get, communication is considerably more limited, shopping times are much more limited, so on and so forth. Summing up the differences between now and then as merely "houses and uni costs" is basically just propaganda.
  • bottled_poe 10y ago
    It seems perverse to say that just because previous generation had it tougher, that they should be entitled to a better quality of life.
  • bbcbasic 10y ago
    First that first paragraph is a Straw man argument. So I will ignore. Your other point is they if A gets better it is ok if B gets worse. I think lack of affordability of essentials like somewhere to live is of grave concern. Unaffordable housing causes homelessness. It means people have to start families later and have less time to raise their children.
    • vacri 10y ago
      My first paragraph wasn't meant to be a summation of yours, sorry, it's just that your statement reminded me of the last part of it. It's just odd that the criticisms of the boomers includes both "they're being unsustainable" and "they won't let us be unsustainable wtih them". As for starting families later, that happens with wealthy, stable societies. People were starting to have children later well before housing costs j-curved. Family sizes have reduced as well - plenty of western democracies are now below replacement birthrate. In short, the problem is this: housing costs are a problem. Bitching about the boomers is going to help no-one, especially the millenials. Rather than spend that energy creating division, find forward-thinking solutions. Instead of being bitter about the one problem that generation has, be happy that things like job quality has improved[1] (yes, for the slightly lower amount of jobs per worker these days), education is more available[2], society is less discriminatory, food supply is of better quality, entertainment is more easily accessed, travel is much easier, so on and so forth. Hence why I say that focusing only on house + uni price is just propaganda. [1] Those jobs that immigrants do in modern western societies, the ones that the natives don't do because they're too menial? Those were the jobs that the young boomers and earlier had to do. [2] Uni courses are more expensive, but there's a ton of education out there that isn't in the form of a four-year degree, and that's independent of the amazing resources available on the internet.
• uola 10y ago
  I know a couple of people who've done that, they all regret it to some extent. Not necessarily doing it, but ignoring other factors of their lives and not being able to easily quit when it wasn't fun anymore. Not saying people shouldn't do it, but it's just not comparable. Once you've realize you don't have to be part of the rat race there are a lot of opportunities, but at the same time societies rules unfortunately doesn't go away. Having some sort of degree and experience to show helps a lot whether it's being involved in a project or getting a visa.
• huherto 10y ago
  Probably better to live your productive years in a place where there is money available and then retire on a much cheaper country.
  • dkersten 10y ago
    I really dislike this attitude. We don't know if we'll live that long and I'll enjoy it more now when I'm still young and healthy enough to do stuff.