16 ms·

I'd guess it will be a harder sell to get software developers in Europe, Australia, NZ, etc. to move to the US.

by sjm 10y ago

xupybd 10y ago
NZ dev here. Trump getting in doesn't worry me I'd love to work in the US. I think it's all been overblown.
- nathan_f77 10y ago
  I'm also a dev from NZ, and I worked in the US a few years ago. Honestly it's not all it's cracked up to be, and I wouldn't choose to go back there. Trump didn't factor into that decision, but now it's even less enticing.
  - ryanhuff 10y ago
    In what city did you work?
    - nathan_f77 10y ago
      I was in San Francisco. Admittedly, that's a very unique situation. But I was shocked to see so many homeless people, and that the streets were so dirty. I was shocked to hear so many reports of gun violence coming from Oakland. There is just so much hopelessness in America. I had a really bad experience with health care. In New Zealand, I never had to think twice about visiting the ER or hospital, where it's free, very high quality, and there's no long waits. In the US, a few trips to the ER including x-rays cost me something like ten thousand dollars, even after health insurance. My startup's plan might have not been great, but I understand why so many Americans go bankrupt from medical debt. I have a friend who went through cancer, which ended up costing millions of dollars. His family would have literally lost their home without the Affordable Care Act, which prohibits lifetime limits. Having said that, I do like most things about San Francisco. There's some great food, great people, and so many things to do. It's a great place to live if you are wealthy. I wouldn't go back there as an employee or a startup founder, but maybe one day as an investor.
      - BatFastard 10y ago
        I would love to give New Zealand a try! Sign me up!
        nathan_f77 10y ago
        New Zealand is pretty awesome if you're wealthy, enjoy nature, can work remotely, go to bed early, and enjoy driving everywhere. I think it's also an ideal place to raise a family.
    - humanrebar 10y ago
      Yeah, the U.S. is a diverse place. Even the American people don't understand their own diversity, as you can see from the shock about the results of this election.
  - josephg 10y ago
    Aussie dev here with a similar story. I lived and worked in the bay area for a couple of years a few years ago. I wouldn't choose to go back there either, especially now. And I have Australian friends in the bay area now who are reconsidering which country they want their tax dollars to go to.
    - SunShiranui 10y ago
      How come?
      - josephg 10y ago
        Here's what I wrote about it when I left: https://josephg.com/blog/goodbye-sf/ https://josephg.com/blog/goodbye-sf/
        jackgolding 10y ago
        Sydney and Melbourne have had massive increases in homelessness since you wrote this unfortunately. How have you found London? And where would you recommend a Perthian turned Melbourian dev head to if we have to go overseas to find ourselves?
        l33tbro 10y ago
        Homelessness in Sydney/Melbourne is extremely tame compared to SF. Especially areas like The Mission. I was floored on a recent visit at how bad the problem was.
Normal_gaussian 10y ago
Or easier. Hillary is a face of western corruption to much of the world. So long as Trump delegates the tech stuff properly and doesn't do anything too unusual the moral choice of the US should be easier.
- onion2k 10y ago
  Hillary is a face of western corruption to much of the world. That's not even slightly true here in the UK.
  - lern_too_spel 10y ago
    The UK is part of the west. He's talking about the face of corruption from Russia's point of view.
    - johncolanduoni 10y ago
      Then that's a pretty bad argument that Trump's election will make software developers from "Europe, Australia, NZ, etc." more willing to come to the US.
    - Normal_gaussian 10y ago
      I'm not actually. It was a reference towards the belief of many but not most that most of the west is dominated by a special political class that strikes underhand and immoral deals which they justify through the claim that they were democratically elected despite not having been elected for anything resembling those actions (often completely ignoring things they were elected for) and despite the process through which they were elected not actually being 'completely' democratic. For these people Hillary and her ilk represent a local minima, and votes for her a stagnation or move away from actual democracy. The harm Trump will cause is indefinite and the claims that have been made are hard to substantiate, whilst he is obviously not an ideal POTUS it is not obvious that Hillary would be better.
      - lern_too_spel 10y ago
globalgobble 10y ago
This is not the problem. You will get the top 1-5% anyway if they decide they want to move to the US. USA needs to stop this "middle-class-men" brain drain from other countries. It is for your own and the rest of the world good. You guys need to start training the newbies otherwise you will end up just creating more isolated groups of people.
hueving 10y ago
Well you wouldn't want a developer that made snap judgments based on presidential elects anyway. Remember that the number of people that have voted for Trump only represent about 1/5th of the population.
- android521 10y ago
  That's a lot...
  - hueving 10y ago
    A higher percentage of people in Australia voted for the liberal party.[1] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_federal_election,_2016 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_federal_election,_2...
ClassyJacket 10y ago
Eh... The Prime Minister of Australia is actively working against the technology industry here, and he actually states that preventing Australians from having better internet access is his biggest accomplishment.
- majewsky 10y ago
  Is there any (hopefully hilarious) argument behind this statement?
  - i336_ 10y ago
    Background: - Behold, the Australian "IT tax" makes everything 60% more expensive here Just Because™. - There's absolutely nothing like Silicon Valley here. If there is I've never heard of it, and I live in Sydney, the most population-dense area. Situation: the two political parties here (Labor and Liberal) have opposing ideas about how to implement our new fiber network. I forget who wants what (which says a lot). - One wants fiber to the node, where you get a fiber termination box inside your house. - The other wants fiber to the <some other term I forget>, where the fiber link terminates under the street or on a telegraph pole, and you get VDSL service along existing copper lines. The problem: both solutions actually work, but the second one is a few million less expensive because fiber cable is a bajillion dollars per meter and it really does add up. (And then there's the problem that installers are nailing the fiber boxes to the first thing that looks like a wall because they have so many installations to do and insufficient resources, and then people are all like "???" when they realize their box is mounted to the ceiling... or at least that's what I think I heard...) The other problem that nobody talks about: 1Gbps briefly got a "oh hey yeah that sounds awesome, we should look at that sometime around 2187" very early in the discussion a couple years ago, but I haven't really heard much to suggest this sort of capacity is actually going to happen anytime soon. And VDSL maxes out at 100Mbps. It's a very difficult situation: do you create a technically-1Gbps-capable network capped at 100Mbps, or create a 100Mbps network for a few million less? Remember, there's no established Silicon Valley or similar scene here. Sure, there are tech companies, but it's not the same, there's no startup thing. (Case in point: how many .au companies are on Hacker News? Problem.) Anybody can go out right now and get 500Mbps fiber for something like $499+/mo (business only - expensive Just Because™ \o/ (see? :/) and also due to SLAs etc) if you have fiber in your area (and the month has a Z in it), but that doesn't put it in the hands of random individuals. To enable the entire country (or at least the urban areas), the 1Gbps connectivity would need to be utterly ubiquitous, unconditionally deployed to everyone. And so, in amongst all of this, all new dwellings are required (I think by law, or something close to one) to have fiber runs installed, and terminated in the street. Apparently the two new apartment blocks down the road from me have functioning NBN service, and I can see the "NBN" trench cover in the middle of the footpath outside the one I checked, so... it is rolling out, sort of, but all the political wrangling is creating a level of uncertainty that's slowing everything down horribly. Oh, and the NBN (national broadband network)'s plan for rural Australia? 6Mbps satellite. What's latency? (Not much else they can do though :/) I'll end on a good note though - this map is a lot more full than I make it sound like. http://www.nbnco.com.au/learn-about-the-nbn/rollout-map.html http://www.nbnco.com.au/learn-about-the-nbn/rollout-map.html
rurban 10y ago
Actually it will be easier. I was very worried about a Clinton, but with Trump I hope for more legality and fairness in the processes. And the visa caps may get raised, so less cheap workers will flood the quotas, and more good devs will have a chance. The Trump bashing in Europe was evil though. As they preferred to have another criminal presidency, with enough leverage on them to blackmail them on everything. As it happened with the previous ones. Media is very naive, and not even moralistic. Assholes are still better than criminals.
- croon 10y ago
  So you elected a politically inexperienced criminal instead. Brilliant.
  - rurban 10y ago
    So far we have only proof of Hillary's criminality thanks to Wikileaks, nothing for Trump.
    - croon 10y ago
      You mean the torch/pitchfork mob has "proof" of it, much like the witch burning sheriffs of yesteryear. Either way, neither of them are getting convicted of anything, but not because Clinton is especially colluding, and that Trump is clean, but because they're both rich white people. But if you actually believe your second part, you've obviously only acted towards your own confirmation bias and are incapable of seeing truth. * Deleting of emails against a court order [1] * Scamming students out of money [2] * Refusing to pay workers [3] * Violating visa rules [4] * Violating the Cuba embargo [5] etc etc... [1] http://www.newsweek.com/2016/11/11/donald-trump-companies-destroyed-emails-documents-515120.html http://www.newsweek.com/2016/11/11/donald-trump-companies-de... [2] http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/06/trump-university/485060/ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/06/trump-un... [3] http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/06/09/donald-trump-unpaid-bills-republican-president-laswuits/85297274/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/0... [4] https://apnews.com/37dc7aef0ce44077930b7436be7bfd0d https://apnews.com/37dc7aef0ce44077930b7436be7bfd0d [5] http://europe.newsweek.com/donald-trump-cuban-embargo-castro-violated-florida-504059?rm=eu http://europe.newsweek.com/donald-trump-cuban-embargo-castro...
zo1 10y ago
I'm actually more inclined to move to the US now that Trump has won the presidency. It works both ways, you know.

I'd guess it will be a harder sell to get software developers in Europe, Australia, NZ, etc. to move to the US.

by sjm 10y ago

I'd guess it will be a harder sell to get software developers in Europe, Australia, NZ, etc. to move to the US.

xupybd 10y ago

NZ dev here. Trump getting in doesn't worry me I'd love to work in the US. I think it's all been overblown.

nathan_f77 10y ago
I'm also a dev from NZ, and I worked in the US a few years ago. Honestly it's not all it's cracked up to be, and I wouldn't choose to go back there. Trump didn't factor into that decision, but now it's even less enticing.
- ryanhuff 10y ago
  In what city did you work?
  - nathan_f77 10y ago
    I was in San Francisco. Admittedly, that's a very unique situation. But I was shocked to see so many homeless people, and that the streets were so dirty. I was shocked to hear so many reports of gun violence coming from Oakland. There is just so much hopelessness in America. I had a really bad experience with health care. In New Zealand, I never had to think twice about visiting the ER or hospital, where it's free, very high quality, and there's no long waits. In the US, a few trips to the ER including x-rays cost me something like ten thousand dollars, even after health insurance. My startup's plan might have not been great, but I understand why so many Americans go bankrupt from medical debt. I have a friend who went through cancer, which ended up costing millions of dollars. His family would have literally lost their home without the Affordable Care Act, which prohibits lifetime limits. Having said that, I do like most things about San Francisco. There's some great food, great people, and so many things to do. It's a great place to live if you are wealthy. I wouldn't go back there as an employee or a startup founder, but maybe one day as an investor.
    - BatFastard 10y ago
      I would love to give New Zealand a try! Sign me up!
      - nathan_f77 10y ago
        New Zealand is pretty awesome if you're wealthy, enjoy nature, can work remotely, go to bed early, and enjoy driving everywhere. I think it's also an ideal place to raise a family.
  - humanrebar 10y ago
    Yeah, the U.S. is a diverse place. Even the American people don't understand their own diversity, as you can see from the shock about the results of this election.
- josephg 10y ago
  Aussie dev here with a similar story. I lived and worked in the bay area for a couple of years a few years ago. I wouldn't choose to go back there either, especially now. And I have Australian friends in the bay area now who are reconsidering which country they want their tax dollars to go to.
  - SunShiranui 10y ago
    How come?
    - josephg 10y ago
      Here's what I wrote about it when I left: https://josephg.com/blog/goodbye-sf/ https://josephg.com/blog/goodbye-sf/
      - jackgolding 10y ago
        Sydney and Melbourne have had massive increases in homelessness since you wrote this unfortunately. How have you found London? And where would you recommend a Perthian turned Melbourian dev head to if we have to go overseas to find ourselves?
        l33tbro 10y ago
        Homelessness in Sydney/Melbourne is extremely tame compared to SF. Especially areas like The Mission. I was floored on a recent visit at how bad the problem was.

Normal_gaussian 10y ago

Or easier. Hillary is a face of western corruption to much of the world. So long as Trump delegates the tech stuff properly and doesn't do anything too unusual the moral choice of the US should be easier.

onion2k 10y ago
Hillary is a face of western corruption to much of the world. That's not even slightly true here in the UK.
- lern_too_spel 10y ago
  The UK is part of the west. He's talking about the face of corruption from Russia's point of view.
  - johncolanduoni 10y ago
    Then that's a pretty bad argument that Trump's election will make software developers from "Europe, Australia, NZ, etc." more willing to come to the US.
  - Normal_gaussian 10y ago
    I'm not actually. It was a reference towards the belief of many but not most that most of the west is dominated by a special political class that strikes underhand and immoral deals which they justify through the claim that they were democratically elected despite not having been elected for anything resembling those actions (often completely ignoring things they were elected for) and despite the process through which they were elected not actually being 'completely' democratic. For these people Hillary and her ilk represent a local minima, and votes for her a stagnation or move away from actual democracy. The harm Trump will cause is indefinite and the claims that have been made are hard to substantiate, whilst he is obviously not an ideal POTUS it is not obvious that Hillary would be better.
    - lern_too_spel 10y ago

globalgobble 10y ago

This is not the problem. You will get the top 1-5% anyway if they decide they want to move to the US. USA needs to stop this "middle-class-men" brain drain from other countries. It is for your own and the rest of the world good. You guys need to start training the newbies otherwise you will end up just creating more isolated groups of people.

hueving 10y ago

Well you wouldn't want a developer that made snap judgments based on presidential elects anyway. Remember that the number of people that have voted for Trump only represent about 1/5th of the population.

android521 10y ago
That's a lot...
- hueving 10y ago
  A higher percentage of people in Australia voted for the liberal party.[1] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_federal_election,_2016 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_federal_election,_2...

ClassyJacket 10y ago

Eh... The Prime Minister of Australia is actively working against the technology industry here, and he actually states that preventing Australians from having better internet access is his biggest accomplishment.

majewsky 10y ago
Is there any (hopefully hilarious) argument behind this statement?
- i336_ 10y ago
  Background: - Behold, the Australian "IT tax" makes everything 60% more expensive here Just Because™. - There's absolutely nothing like Silicon Valley here. If there is I've never heard of it, and I live in Sydney, the most population-dense area. Situation: the two political parties here (Labor and Liberal) have opposing ideas about how to implement our new fiber network. I forget who wants what (which says a lot). - One wants fiber to the node, where you get a fiber termination box inside your house. - The other wants fiber to the <some other term I forget>, where the fiber link terminates under the street or on a telegraph pole, and you get VDSL service along existing copper lines. The problem: both solutions actually work, but the second one is a few million less expensive because fiber cable is a bajillion dollars per meter and it really does add up. (And then there's the problem that installers are nailing the fiber boxes to the first thing that looks like a wall because they have so many installations to do and insufficient resources, and then people are all like "???" when they realize their box is mounted to the ceiling... or at least that's what I think I heard...) The other problem that nobody talks about: 1Gbps briefly got a "oh hey yeah that sounds awesome, we should look at that sometime around 2187" very early in the discussion a couple years ago, but I haven't really heard much to suggest this sort of capacity is actually going to happen anytime soon. And VDSL maxes out at 100Mbps. It's a very difficult situation: do you create a technically-1Gbps-capable network capped at 100Mbps, or create a 100Mbps network for a few million less? Remember, there's no established Silicon Valley or similar scene here. Sure, there are tech companies, but it's not the same, there's no startup thing. (Case in point: how many .au companies are on Hacker News? Problem.) Anybody can go out right now and get 500Mbps fiber for something like $499+/mo (business only - expensive Just Because™ \o/ (see? :/) and also due to SLAs etc) if you have fiber in your area (and the month has a Z in it), but that doesn't put it in the hands of random individuals. To enable the entire country (or at least the urban areas), the 1Gbps connectivity would need to be utterly ubiquitous, unconditionally deployed to everyone. And so, in amongst all of this, all new dwellings are required (I think by law, or something close to one) to have fiber runs installed, and terminated in the street. Apparently the two new apartment blocks down the road from me have functioning NBN service, and I can see the "NBN" trench cover in the middle of the footpath outside the one I checked, so... it is rolling out, sort of, but all the political wrangling is creating a level of uncertainty that's slowing everything down horribly. Oh, and the NBN (national broadband network)'s plan for rural Australia? 6Mbps satellite. What's latency? (Not much else they can do though :/) I'll end on a good note though - this map is a lot more full than I make it sound like. http://www.nbnco.com.au/learn-about-the-nbn/rollout-map.html http://www.nbnco.com.au/learn-about-the-nbn/rollout-map.html

rurban 10y ago

Actually it will be easier. I was very worried about a Clinton, but with Trump I hope for more legality and fairness in the processes. And the visa caps may get raised, so less cheap workers will flood the quotas, and more good devs will have a chance. The Trump bashing in Europe was evil though. As they preferred to have another criminal presidency, with enough leverage on them to blackmail them on everything. As it happened with the previous ones. Media is very naive, and not even moralistic. Assholes are still better than criminals.

croon 10y ago
So you elected a politically inexperienced criminal instead. Brilliant.
- rurban 10y ago
  So far we have only proof of Hillary's criminality thanks to Wikileaks, nothing for Trump.
  - croon 10y ago
    You mean the torch/pitchfork mob has "proof" of it, much like the witch burning sheriffs of yesteryear. Either way, neither of them are getting convicted of anything, but not because Clinton is especially colluding, and that Trump is clean, but because they're both rich white people. But if you actually believe your second part, you've obviously only acted towards your own confirmation bias and are incapable of seeing truth. * Deleting of emails against a court order [1] * Scamming students out of money [2] * Refusing to pay workers [3] * Violating visa rules [4] * Violating the Cuba embargo [5] etc etc... [1] http://www.newsweek.com/2016/11/11/donald-trump-companies-destroyed-emails-documents-515120.html http://www.newsweek.com/2016/11/11/donald-trump-companies-de... [2] http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/06/trump-university/485060/ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/06/trump-un... [3] http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/06/09/donald-trump-unpaid-bills-republican-president-laswuits/85297274/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/0... [4] https://apnews.com/37dc7aef0ce44077930b7436be7bfd0d https://apnews.com/37dc7aef0ce44077930b7436be7bfd0d [5] http://europe.newsweek.com/donald-trump-cuban-embargo-castro-violated-florida-504059?rm=eu http://europe.newsweek.com/donald-trump-cuban-embargo-castro...

zo1 10y ago

I'm actually more inclined to move to the US now that Trump has won the presidency. It works both ways, you know.