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A lot of Americans seem to have an idyllic notion of moving to NZ - often for political or LOTR movie reasons. If you're even toying with the idea, do yourself
by lacampbell 10y ago
A lot of Americans seem to have an idyllic notion of moving to NZ - often for political or LOTR movie reasons. If you're even toying with the idea, do yourself a favour and check out the following:
- Salaries
- Housing price
- Housing quality - expect to pay top dollar for luxuries like insulation, double-glazed windows, and kitchens built within the last few decades.
- The cost of a car, and the size and quality of the roads
- The cost of electronic appliances, food, etc
Completely unrelated, what's the going salary for an intermediate programmer/analyst in one of those really flat US states full of cornfields?
- debacle 10y agoThe politics of New Zealand, especially when it comes to land rights + individual freedoms, can be enlightening.
- lacampbell 10y agoHow so?
- bootload 10y agoWaitangi. The successful negotiation of land with Māori. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Waitangi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Waitangi
- antome 10y agoKiwi here, what happened is moreso that the British accidentally gave the Maori more rights than they anticipated in the translation, and as the country became more progressive in the 20th century, the govt decided to respect those rights.
- sitharus 10y agoAlso while the food is high quality don't expect the variety you're used to. Until recently NZ had a pretty bland palette.
- 0xADEADBEE 10y agoI think you're on the money; bland food is not only tolerated but revered, at least in my experience, and I'm not particularly 'foody'. Recently moved here from England via Thailand and Indonesia so take my opinion for what it is worth. Food is better in Wellington than places like Christchurch but still not generally up to scratch. Planning on starting something to fix this after a little contracting but while COL is lower than London, it's probably not up to SF salaries/options packages, so that should be considered. It's also not as cosmopolitan as I'm used to in European cities, although I can't speak for Auckland, as I'm yet to visit (something tells me it will be similar though!). NZ strikes me as very nice for a sight seeing trip but somewhat wanting when it comes to actual residence. Obviously YMMV.
- sitharus 10y agoAuckland is definitely more multicultural, but in my experience as an ex-wellingtonian it's more divided. Wellington's size and geography tends to force people together, whereas Auckland keeps them apart.
- 0xADEADBEE 10y agoWhy do you think that is? Aucklanders ostensibly lament mobility in my experience, but I'm new and thus open to the views of people who've lived here longer.
- wearsSweaters 10y ago>Completely unrelated, what's the going salary for an intermediate programmer/analyst in one of those really flat US states full of cornfields? Just based on my job hunting over the past three months - ~55k usd
- lacampbell 10y agoFWIW that's about the same as Auckland.
- santaclaus 10y ago> Salaries Are salaries that bad? I know a bunch of developers in the Wellington area (and used to be one), and most are making around ~100k USD a year. Yea, it isn't Bay Area Google money, but also not terrible. > the size and quality of the roads I can't speak too much for the south island, but on the north island the roads seemed fine. The roads in San Francisco and Oakland where I live now are way worse then I ever experienced in NZ.
- lacampbell 10y ago140,000+ NZD for permanent devs in Wellington? Doing what? From what I can tell that's management salary in Wellington.
- santaclaus 10y agoIn 2014 I was making 141 NZD writing C++ at Weta Digital (I had colleagues breaking 150). They were mostly contract jobs renewed annually, but I didn't know of any tech people there who were not renewed.
- lacampbell 10y agoInteresting. Is this C++ anyone could do, or were they wanting maths and physics qualifications? That salary doesn't sound far fetched for a contract though.
- santaclaus 10y agoIt was a mix. There were definitely MS/PhD level maths people, but also a lot of people writing more systems oriented code to deal with the metric tones of data that they generate, people writing code to specific APIs for software packages that they use, etc.
- cashmonkey85 10y agoThat's likely an exception being paid for out of deep Hollywood pockets