11 ms·

Optimal Employment

123 points by primodemus 16y ago

patio11 16y ago
If you're disciplined about it, English teaching in Japan / Korea is also a decent option, depending on whether you end up with better deals. (Humming a few bars: JET salaries in this prefecture are $45k per year post-tax, rents are subsidized in this town to $80 a month, and the Japanese equivalent of the social security tax which your employer is paying ~10% of your salary to is 100% yours when you leave.) That said: generic non-JET English teachers have it kind of rough (worse salaries and conditions), people's enjoyment of their time is all over the map (depends on who you are and where you end up), and English teaching is notorious for having few forward paths out of it.
- cdavid 16y ago
  In Japan, consumptions taxes are very low (at least compared to Europe, I am not too familiar with comsuption tax rate in the US). If you don't have a family, you often don't need a car thanks to a great public transportation system (never driven a car in 7 years since I am in Japan), which is a lot of spared money as well. Food is expensive, but restaurants are cheap (you can find a lot of restaurants with good, healthy meals, for a price not higher than Mc Donalds). As for the - of Japan (compared to western Europe): the health system which is borderline scary in terms of service and quality, and the housing. Unless you can afford the expensive stuff, most housing is really low quality (no acoustic/heat isolation, etc...), without mentioning the obvious size issue.
  - oostevo 16y ago
    That's really surprising on the health care front. I think many westerners (myself included) think of Japan as a paragon of efficiency and effectiveness in nearly everything. Can you elaborate on what's wrong with the system?
    - jcampbell1 16y ago
      I haven't lived in Japan, but my understanding is that it is bizarre. For instance they don't do organ transplants at all. period. none. They also visit the doctor 15 times per year on average, which means they go to the doctor when they are not actually sick, so the doctors are in the habit of not actually treating anyone. Japan may have the highest life expectancy of any country in the world, but Japanese people in the US live about 5 years longer on average than Japanese people in Japan.
      - yummyfajitas 16y ago
        ...Japanese people in the US live about 5 years longer on average than Japanese people in Japan. 2 years longer, not 5 years. http://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/templates/browse.aspx?lvl=2&lvlID=53 http://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/templates/browse.aspx?lvl=2&#3... http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_dyn_le00_in&idim=country:JPN&dl=en&hl=en&q=japan+life+expectancy http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_dyn_le... Of course, it's hardly clear that this effect is caused by health care. Most studies with good controls show very little relationship between variation in health care and health outcomes. (To measure the effect of lifestyle factors on health outcomes, you need a few hundred people for clear results. To measure the effect of health care on health outcomes, sample sizes of thousands give you muddled results.)
      - pauldelany 16y ago
        They do transplants, but the rate is extremely low - mainly due to no donors: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6156925.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6156925.stm
    - lemming 16y ago
      I've not had personal experience with this although I go to Japan relatively frequently, but I remember reading a scathing review of the Japanese health system, I think it was in the Lonely Planet. I'll look for it when I go home. I was also surprised since due to the general efficiency of everything and longevity of the people I was expecting the system to be amazing, but they painted a truly scary picture of it.
- noodle 16y ago
  i've also heard that JET experiences were all over the map. for example, i know one guy who spent most of his time cleaning. on a slightly different topic, do you have any thoughts on the availability of non-teaching positions for people who don't have business fluency? i know there are some, but the bulk of jobs for foreigners are clearly in language and cultural instruction.
  - patio11 16y ago
    That actually isn't correct: the bulk of jobs for foreigners are in factories. Assuming we scope this to "licit jobs a middle class American would actually consider doing", illiteracy is about as big a barrier to gainful professional employment as one would expect. The exceptions are English teaching, service work at particular bars/etc, and doing weddings as a fake minister (orders of magnitude rarer than teaching). In particular, so help me, I was ready to kill interviewees at a Japanese megacorp who expected to be placed as engineers despite total inability to read a design document or discuss technical topics. ("No! It is not kawaii that you cannot describe what the black boarded algorithm does in Japanese. No! Knowing the word "kawaii" is not worth points on your application.")
    - noodle 16y ago
      good point, i forgot about the factory work. although, thats the case for most first world countries, really. i imagine there's a good bit of fanboy culture creep in any job that allows foreign applications. does a megacorp software position not require N1?
      - patio11 16y ago
        I only officially have a 2kyuu, although that is mostly a function of never organizing myself to take the 1kyuu exam. Our company required only "advanced proficiency in written and oral Japanese", and due to process defects that I will not go into, that filter was not rigorously applied until frustratingly late in the pipeline in some cases. I know of some engineers in Tokyo who I would guess have actual ability closer to "exactly sufficient to pass 2kyuu". Never met anyone below that working in a professional capacity.
_delirium 16y ago
I can buy most of these points, but it seems to ignore that people have subjective preferences for some cultural environments over others, so the Q/A answer citing Australia's education and secularity doesn't necessarily answer that question. Presumably not every intelligent person will subjectively find Australia's culture versus the US's culture either a win for Australia or a tossup; some may prefer American culture. Some people may also place utility on things like "living in my home country, where I don't feel like a foreigner"; though of course other people may consider living in another country to be an inherently positive experience. I'm currently an American living in Denmark, so clearly I don't think it's impossible for the utility functions to work out that way. =] But it's not just a matter of weighing the income, the expenses, the commute times, etc.; living in Copenhagen is subjectively fairly different from living in, say, Boston or Los Angeles, and I could imagine some people putting very large positive or negative utility scores on that difference.
- andrewce 16y ago
  "Presumably not every intelligent person will subjectively find Australia's culture versus the US's culture either a win for Australia or a tossup; some may prefer American culture. Some people may also place utility on things like "living in my home country, where I don't feel like a foreigner"; though of course other people may consider living in another country to be an inherently positive experience." Fair point. I'd like to add, though, that even within the United States, there's a lot of cultural variation, adn even among larger trends there are quite a few smaller pockets. I find, for example, that I'm happiest in big-ish cities in the Midwest, but only when I can engage with the arts scene and a little bit with the tech scene. What I mean to say is that I think you're right in that the author does not offer any qualification for those points, but will also say that living in Perth or Darwin is likely to be very different from living in Melbourne, if for no other reason than location, demographic, and the purposes that people have in being there.
meterplech 16y ago
I like the article for the added perspective of going elsewhere. But, like recent anti-tax blog posts I have trouble believing a $6-figure salary is that bad. No way you only have 4k of disposable income. How is that calculated? Even in NYC you do not need to spend 30k a year on housing like his percentages would suggests. People should stop trying to describe the plight of the 6-figure earner.
- pragmatic 16y ago
  Depends where you live. Also (as you state) it depends on your spending habits. $100K in Fargo is a lot different than $100K in Manhattan. If the Millionaire Next Store is correct, you're likely to spend more if you live in a nice neighborhood (keeping up with the Joneses). I notice this myself. A coworker who lives in very nice neighborhood has a BMW. I drive a 14 yead old vehicle and live in a "down scale" neighborhood. So our roughly equivalent salary is going to seem much different to him (money is tight) vs me (lots of disposable income).
- andrewce 16y ago
  I think the author tried to justify those figures by way of "Keeping up with the Joneses" and the societal pressures that come with 6-figure salaries, but I agree with you that the numbers are not particularly optimistic. It seems like one of the basic assumptions he makes is that people in this income bracket buy nice things and big things. When I was a teacher, earning a low salary (even by teacher standards), I still had over $10k of disposable income. I can't imagine that'd go down at all if my salary tripled or quadrupled (thereby bringing it into the range he discusses).
  - yummyfajitas 16y ago
    Not quite. In his comment posted at 31 January 2011 09:44:16PM, he explains: I'm presenting what happens by default in both options, not one optimized and one non-optimized option. What you discovered here is that, the plan to save money in the outback is robust and succeeds by default, while the plan to save money in the US is fragile and fails by default.
krschultz 16y ago
Alternate data point: I make 90k a year. +$5,000 net income (after taxes, healthcare, and 6% contribution to my 401k) -$1,400 for rent (pertty high) - $400 for food - $120 for car insurance - $200 for gas - $200 for internet, TV, and cell phone - $200 for electricity That leaves me with $2500 a month that is discretionary. That's $30,000 a year. I save $2000 a month.I play with the remaining $500. Give me an extra $10k and get me to the $100k number and it would be pure discretionary for me. I live in CT, so it isn't that cheap. There are certainly places in this country with lower rent. And moving to NYC probably would only up my rent to $2,000 which wouldn't really change the numbers becasue I'd dump the car insurance and gas. (No car payments because I paid cash for my car 2 years ago).
- tomsaffell 16y ago
  And as an added data point: living in silicon valley isn't much more expensive either. You can rent an apartment for 1400 [1]. State income taxes are a bit higher, but you'll also spend a lot less on gas :). Otherwise it's pretty similar (unless you want to live in the swanky parts of PA) [1] http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/apa/pen?query=&srchType=A&minAsk=1000&maxAsk=1400&bedrooms=&nh=81 http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/apa/pen?query=&srchTy...
- klbarry 16y ago
  You might save more money in NYC, even. 1,400 will also get you a 2 bedroom an hour commute from Manhattan (Ozone Park, Forest Hills), or a one bedroom with a 30 minute commute to Manhattan (Astoria, certain parts of Brooklyn).
  - gawker 16y ago
    Where's the best place to find a place to rent in NYC? And how would I tell if it's a relatively safe neighbourhood?
    - jfager 16y ago
      Craigslist, as the answer to both questions. You can tell the safe/desirable neighborhoods by getting a good neighborhood map (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Manhattan_neighborhoods http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Manhattan_neighborhoods) and paying attention to which neighborhoods CL ads lie about being in (for instance, in Brooklyn, it's common to see ads for apartments that are physically in Gowanus saying they're in Park Slope or Carroll Gardens instead).
jasonkester 16y ago
Here's the thing though. You're way better off earning your money in a place with a high cost of living. There are lots of things that cost the same regardless of where you buy them. New cars, flat screen TVs, plane tickets to Thailand (and 6-month winter climbing trips to Thailand), and pretty much everything else besides housing all cost the same everywhere. With that in mind, your best bet is to find a job in LA/SF/NYC then dig in and find the absolute cheapest way to live while you're there. My personal angle was to take short (3-6 month) contracts in LA and find cheap rooms for rent while there. You can save up a ton of money in a short time, then head back to whatever low cost place you prefer to call home. So to modify the author's idea, instead of setting up shop in Oz full time, go work in LA for half the year. Using his numbers you'll save the same as you would working an entire year in Australia. Then go back to Australia and spend the other half of the year doing whatever you want. End result: you spend the same, save the same, and get an extra 6 months off work with which to improve your surfing. Sorted.
- dagw 16y ago
  There are lots of things that cost the same regardless of where you buy them. New cars, flat screen TVs Not really true. You're ignoring local taxes, import tariffs and other markups. I nice car costs at least 3 times as much in Norway as it does in Germany for example. A lot of countries have tariffs on electronics meaning TVs and computers can cost up to twice as much you'd pay in the US.
  - jasonkester 16y ago
    You're right. I wasn't thinking about crossing borders when I wrote that. Within the US, it's essentially true. Comparing US to Europe or anywhere else and it's all over the map. I guess that's just another variable to throw in when working on your arbitrage strategy. Personally, I'd opt to take that contract job in Oslo if it were an option. Given how much they charged me for beer when I was there, I can only assume the wages must be nice and high!
    - dagw 16y ago
idlewords 16y ago
I love the idea of bars in the Australian outback coming to be staffed exclusively by rationalist aspies.
- endtime 16y ago
  FWIW, I attend the Less Wrong/Overcoming Bias NYC meetup regularly, and while there are maybe a couple borderline aspies (and I do mean maybe), most of the regulars are far from it. The NYC group may be atypical, but our "sex, drugs, and rock and roll" factor* is pretty high, and I'd say the emotional intelligence of the group is above average by a decent margin. *Of course, I'm being metaphorical here, since this is written down and all.
- gwern 16y ago
  "G'day mate. What'd you like?' "Some amber would be ace!" "No, are you aware of the caloric value of beer and the negative effect on longevity found by a recent JAMA study? Here, have some nice red wine."
  - Dylanlacey 16y ago
    I am highly amused that the colloquialisms applied are exactly opposite to reality.
    - gwern 16y ago
      I got them wrong? Are you sure? I looked them up in an Australian dictionary, and amber was supposed to mean beer, and ace mean great.
      - rdouble 16y ago
        Nobody would ever order an "amber." Beer is always ordered by brand name, and by size. In Victoria and Tasmania, beer is usually served in a half-pint glass called a "pot." Beer bottles are usually called "beakers." In every state, Foster's is by far the most popular beer. There are usually other unpopular regional beers available for old people and sheilas, but the national love of Foster's goes so deep, you risk starting a fight if you try ordering something else. So in most of Australia, you'd want to say something like "Cheerio Mate, beaker of Foster's willya?"
BoppreH 16y ago
Maybe I'm missing something, but what if I want to work as a software engineer? Spending the rest of life as a bartender or receptionist doesn't seem like a good prospect, regardless of pay. And if I ever have the chance to go back to work as a software engineer, the years working as a bartender or receptionist won't help. Or maybe I just don't like money that much.
- flatline 16y ago
  I think the problem with most software jobs is that's where you spend all your mental resources. I tend to think about work projects a lot outside of business hours, and it takes a lot of work to stay on top of your game in the industry. This is fine and well unless you want to do real research in your spare time. Especially when you get older and have other responsibilities, it gets very difficult to find contiguous blocks of time when you are fresh.
  - dspeyer 16y ago
    Or if what you do at work qualifies as "real research".
lukev 16y ago
Interesting, and I think people should definitely consider "off the beaten track" opportunities like this more. But for most of us here... it doesn't account for the fact that you're working as a bartender. I don't know about everyone else, but I want to enjoy and be fulfilled by my work. When I'm building awesome software I loose track of the workday... slinging rum for 8 hours a day sounds like some terrible purgatory. And from anecdotal evidence, I don't think there's nearly so many great income arbitrage opportunities in the high tech sector.
- tomjen3 16y ago
  I think you are undervaluation the benefits of being a bar tender. Granted you are not writing software but after the first couple of weeks you should be able to start hacking/innovating new drinks and since you properly became a software developer because you like creating new things, this should give you some of the same feeling. But an additional huge plus: unlike being a code geek, being a bartender is not a low status job and there is going to be a lot of females around - combine the two and you should have a relative easy time getting laid (and plenty of chances to practice).
  - lukev 16y ago
    > hacking/innovating new drinks Not that this can't be fun, but my ambitions are a bit higher. > being a bartender is not a low status job I'm pretty sure being a software developer is a higher status job than a bartender. Of course being a bartender can be more fun for the "partygoer" demographic - which, I suspect, has a narrow intersection with the LessWrong or HN demographic.
    - yummyfajitas 16y ago
      I'm pretty sure being a software developer is a higher status job than a bartender. I'm pretty sure you are wrong, at least if we take ability to get laid as being an indicator of status.
      - 16y ago
jsavimbi 16y ago
Bartending: a part-time job that provides the lazy with easy access to alcohol and a stable social life where the only requirement is to have passable looks and the ability to show up, stay awake and not steal (too much). It looks like fun, but it's a very dangerous occupation if you're thinking of actually doing something with your life post-booze dalliance. The fact that someone would promote dropping out to live in the outback serving beer to a bunch of tourists is insane. To back it up with tax-reimbursement math is ludicrous. Working as a slave for more than one tourist season should dispel any rational thinker of the notion that they're better off scraping by on minimum wages than working at a real job. To be successful in the real world, you need to acquire domain experience, competent skills and build lasting relationships with people who also work in your industry, not to mention developing your talents in order to have access to higher-paying/rewarding employment. All of them take time and none can be done while you're picking your nose at a tiki bar in Florida, Thailand or Australia. Don't kid yourself. Work is hard and there are no easy way about it.
- generalk 16y ago
  I upvoted this by accident (meant to downvote), so I might as well respond: > The fact that someone would promote dropping out to live in the outback > serving beer to a bunch of tourists is insane. I know several career bartenders who love mixing drinks and the social aspect of being behind the bar. What's insane for you is absolutely heaven for them. Quality bartenders can make fantastic money, but let's discount that and say that, for some folks, being happy with their job is more important than how much they earn doing it. > Don't kid yourself. Work is hard and there are no easy way about it. You yourself say that bartending for tourists during the busy season is so horrible that you can't survive one season before bailing. That doesn't sound easy, but if you love bartending, it's not so bad. Similarly, some of my clients are hard to work with sometimes, but I love developing software, so it's not so bad. tl;dr: grow up and learn that there are valid viewpoints that differ from yours.
  - tomsaffell 16y ago
    >tl;dr: grow up.. I'd liked your post up to that point.
javanix 16y ago
Has anyone here had experience working in Australia (or as an expat in another developed country) as an actual software developer? I do enjoy what I do but I'd love to be able to see a different part of the world while I do it.
- patio11 16y ago
  I worked in Japan for 3 years as a technical translator and the better part of 3 years as a software engineer at a large software consultancy. Software engineers do lots of things, but theoretically the main reason I was there was to develop software (mostly Big Freaking Enterprise Java web applications, for universities, and software which supported the development of the same). I would be happy to talk to you about that experience at length. The capsule summary is that I cannot recommend working for a Japanese megacorp as a means of broadening one's horizons unless one has the very specific desire to learn about Japanese megacorps. The work/life balance works out such that -- even if you enjoy software development very, very much -- you will likely have insufficient time/energy/health to see much of Japan in your rather few non-working hours.
  - javanix 16y ago
    That's the impression I've gotten from a lot of people who have worked in Japan. It isn't really an option for me anyway (since I don't know the language and wouldn't have too much of a reason to learn it) but it is certainly interesting how incompatible many people find Japanese workplace culture with American workplace culture.
orangecat 16y ago
As noted in the comments, the major problem is that he compares the "rational" strategy of moving to the Australian outback with the "default" strategy of having a US job and spending the statistical average on housing, food, etc. But if you're assuming a highly rational person, the second strategy has loads of room for optimization: you don't need a McMansion, a new car every 5 years, or to engage in status games of conspicuous consumption with your neighbors. With a relatively small amount of planning and discipline, it's easy to save lots of money earning $100k/year in the US.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- klbarry 16y ago
  You said it exactly right. If you're single (even in NYC) it's easy to save lots of money making 50k a year.
  - crpatino 16y ago
    And if you pick wisely, you can keep doing it after married. :)
arjunnarayan 16y ago
Most young people with 100,000$ a year jobs are not in it for the 100,000. They're in it because it leads (if they are successful enough) to a 250,000$ job in a decade or two.
dspeyer 16y ago
US$16500/y transporation costs? What are you doing, buying a new car every year? Also, "Companies pay professionals more based on their abilities and their age as opposed to their actual years of experience"? Who would want to work for a company like that? Would it even be legal? Ignoring more subjective points, like the appeal of living in the outback vs. a city or of having a "no responsibilities" job.
- crpatino 16y ago
  > US$16500/y transportation costs? That's the cost to fly to Australia and back, plus the cost of the Visa. For day to day transportation, the OP explicitly said he'd walk to work.
  - noodle 16y ago
    i think you're misreading. $16,500 is what the post states are transportation costs in the US. $4000 is the stated cost for AUS, which is more reasonable considering a flight. i think 16.5% is probably off base, but not that far off. closer to 10% when you consider payments, gas, taxes, insurance, etc..
- dionidium 16y ago
  Here's an additional data point. My 2009 transportation costs in St. Louis, MO. ($220 car payment * 12) + (278.04 gallons of gas * $2.25 avg/gallon) + ~$175 property taxes + ($5 daily parking * 20 working days/month * 12) + (~$90 insurance/month * 12) = ~$5720 This excludes licensing costs and parking tickets, which probably add another ~$200. It also excludes maintenance. For example, new tires added another ~$400 this year. And you've got to change your oil. I commute only 6 miles each way, drive a cheap, fuel efficient car, do some of my own maintenance, and live in an area with low tax and gas rates, so I don't think it would be hard to spend at least twice what I do. Edit: added car insurance.
  - anamax 16y ago
    > I commute only 6 miles each way, drive a cheap, fuel efficient car, do some of my own maintenance, and live in an area with low tax and gas rates, so I don't think it would be hard to spend at least twice what I do. Your fuel costs are less than $700/year. Your car cost is $2650/year. It's easy to spend a lot of money on a car, but it's rarely necessary to do so.
pedanticfreak 16y ago
Something is wrong about the author's numbers here. The Consumer Expenditure Survey the author cites says the 25-34 year old that spends 37.1% of their salary on housing is only making $58,946 per year, NOT $100,000 per year. Whether intentional or not, the survey is being misrepresented to the benefit of the author's argument.
- doyoulikeworms 16y ago
  Good catch. There are a few other bits that bothered me as well. The employer's contribution to retirement is counted as a gain in Australia, but the employer's matching Social Security contribution in the US is ignored. It also assumes that a car is absolutely necessary in the US. I live in the Bay Area, and I haven't driven my car in any material sense in 4 months (by choice). Regardless, it's pretty obvious that one can earn six figures in the US, but choose to live within the means of a bartender in an Australian tourist trap. Which provides more disposable income?
  - pedanticfreak 16y ago
    There are other troubling inconsistencies as well. But I decided to stop there. I only want the author to go back and fix his numbers, I don't want to write the article for him. Without a doubt, this whole thing is a poor abuse of statistics. It doesn't take a genius to figure out you can make $100,000 and keep a lot in the bank by living like someone who makes $30,000. Which, by the way, there are quite a few of those people in the United States.
acabal 16y ago
I highly advocate people going to work or travel abroad for a year or two, but it's important to note that this article is specifically recommending going to work in the Australian Outback. I've been to Australia and it's a lovely place with lovely people, but living deep in the Outback also means relative isolation, dust, and probably more boredom than you're expecting. You'll be at the mercy of the mix of long-term travelers in your location at that particular time, which might be good or bad. Some folks (like myself) much prefer living in a bigger city with access to music, art, cuisine, culture, green space, and limitless people. Though that's not to say you can't enjoy living in the Outback--lots of people choose to live there and love it--but just be aware of what you're getting in to. There's a reason one place pays so much more than the other!
- te_chris 16y ago
  Exactly, and Aussie cities are VERY expensive to live in. Sure wages are higher, but Sydney especially is one of the most expensive and congested cities to live in in the world.
va1en0k 16y ago
Working abroad always appeared to me as something hard at the very beginning, especially for a Russian, especially in tired of immigrants Australia. I don't know, maybe it's all biases from my family members and friends. I'm 19 yo (minus one week), not so bad programmer (a lead developer of a small outsourcing firm with some "CTO" responsibilities for 2.5 years). All my attempts to find a job abroad (in USA especially) and leave the country left me thinking what I should save up some reasonable amount of money and be ready to show something impressive in my portfolio (or get a degree, which I can't even afford now whilst having no desire for spending four or five years doing something useless in cheap and easy college): 1. I've often been asked to be interviewed in person - its more than 500$ for a one-way ticket, plus some money for bed and breakfast, plus getting a visa isn't cheap and simple adventure. Okay, 20000$/yr is a "wow!" salary in Sankt-Petersburg for 18-25 year olds, do your math 2. I've been told that employers abroad don't like to hire foreigners because there're too much responsibility required by the law 3. And [as I've been told, I've read and I believe] due to these problems it's too simple to end up being a "janitor" developer in some heartless corporation just because visa doesn't allow to just walk out looking for a better job, and neither do living expenses. I only applied for developer jobs, though. Maybe bartenders have more luck. I don't know if it's really because of some division of the world or due to my narrow-mindedness and cowardice.
- syllogism 16y ago
  > I don't know if it's really because of some division of the world or due to my narrow-mindedness and cowardice. Mostly division in the world. If you're on the inside of the first-world gate you can hop on a plane and get an instantly approved visa to almost any other first world country. They all have these reciprocal agreements. The article's strategy relies on this --- a US citizen is pre-approved for a 1 year working holiday, unless they've done something substantially wrong. For people on the other side of the gate, the situation is completely different. Visa applications are expensive and slow, and governed by arbitrary rules and senseless bureaucracy. The message the governments send is, "there's plenty more just like you. We don't care."
bitwize 16y ago
You can keep your job bartending in the outback. I live in the expensive-to-live-in Boston area. I have an hour commute each way. Sometimes I stay late nights. And on days like today the option is either burn vacation time or telecommute because for my own safety's sake there's no way in hell I'm taking the T and the bus in this blizzard. But... (and this is the clincher) I program robot submarines for a living. I'm a significant contributor to the code that navigates and controls AUVs around the world -- Australia included. In short, I get paid to do something awesome. If I were still stuck in the webdev ghetto or doing enterprisey bullshit for banks, I'd be on the first plane outta Logan as soon as the snow clears. But the sheer ass-kickingness of my job -- and the doors of opportunity this experience will give me later -- keep me firmly anchored. And I think that's entirely rational.
- gills 16y ago
  Ditto...but Seattle, and my toys have wings. Yes, please, rational people: leave Seattle. Terrible, terrible place. No good at all. Wet, gray, the people are mean. Shoo!
rdouble 16y ago
Trades are booming in Australia. I've been traveling in Australia since January. I meet loads of tradesmen from places in Europe who come down here because the wages are high and there is a lot of work. My sister's husband is a builder, and his friend are electricians, and they do as well or better than any salaried programmer in Silicon Valley or New York. The electrician in particular makes about double what I did, and I was making well over $100K a year. Regarding being a bartender in the Northern Territory: The advice in the article is pretty good if you are in the USA and under 30 and don't have any prospects in the USA. The wages are pretty good for most types of seasonal service work. One downside the article doesn't mention, is that I think you can only do this visa once. Thus, it's not really a long term career plan.
bhoung 16y ago
There is a reason why people endure higher costs of living to be in locations of higher population density. I'd also like to see the same cost benefit analysis over a 5-10 year window. I guess the alternative US scenario mightn't be much better.
tastybites 16y ago
I'm ethnically Chinese. The thought of going go the outback to serve beer to a bunch of racist Australians (I think someone in this thread described it as "tired of immigration" LOL) for a pittance is about as appealing to me as slicing my face off with a cheese grater. Ans as far as teaching English in Asia goes ... this must be a SWPL thing because to me it just sounds like a giant waste of time. I'll stay in California and work at my six figure tech job. Thanks.

123 points by primodemus 16y ago

If you're disciplined about it, English teaching in Japan / Korea is also a decent option, depending on whether you end up with better deals. (Humming a few bars: JET salaries in this prefecture are $45k per year post-tax, rents are subsidized in this town to $80 a month, and the Japanese equivalent of the social security tax which your employer is paying ~10% of your salary to is 100% yours when you leave.) That said: generic non-JET English teachers have it kind of rough (worse salaries and conditions), people's enjoyment of their time is all over the map (depends on who you are and where you end up), and English teaching is notorious for having few forward paths out of it.

cdavid 16y ago
In Japan, consumptions taxes are very low (at least compared to Europe, I am not too familiar with comsuption tax rate in the US). If you don't have a family, you often don't need a car thanks to a great public transportation system (never driven a car in 7 years since I am in Japan), which is a lot of spared money as well. Food is expensive, but restaurants are cheap (you can find a lot of restaurants with good, healthy meals, for a price not higher than Mc Donalds). As for the - of Japan (compared to western Europe): the health system which is borderline scary in terms of service and quality, and the housing. Unless you can afford the expensive stuff, most housing is really low quality (no acoustic/heat isolation, etc...), without mentioning the obvious size issue.
- oostevo 16y ago
  That's really surprising on the health care front. I think many westerners (myself included) think of Japan as a paragon of efficiency and effectiveness in nearly everything. Can you elaborate on what's wrong with the system?
  - jcampbell1 16y ago
    I haven't lived in Japan, but my understanding is that it is bizarre. For instance they don't do organ transplants at all. period. none. They also visit the doctor 15 times per year on average, which means they go to the doctor when they are not actually sick, so the doctors are in the habit of not actually treating anyone. Japan may have the highest life expectancy of any country in the world, but Japanese people in the US live about 5 years longer on average than Japanese people in Japan.
    - yummyfajitas 16y ago
      ...Japanese people in the US live about 5 years longer on average than Japanese people in Japan. 2 years longer, not 5 years. http://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/templates/browse.aspx?lvl=2&lvlID=53 http://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/templates/browse.aspx?lvl=2&#3... http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_dyn_le00_in&idim=country:JPN&dl=en&hl=en&q=japan+life+expectancy http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_dyn_le... Of course, it's hardly clear that this effect is caused by health care. Most studies with good controls show very little relationship between variation in health care and health outcomes. (To measure the effect of lifestyle factors on health outcomes, you need a few hundred people for clear results. To measure the effect of health care on health outcomes, sample sizes of thousands give you muddled results.)
    - pauldelany 16y ago
      They do transplants, but the rate is extremely low - mainly due to no donors: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6156925.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6156925.stm
  - lemming 16y ago
    I've not had personal experience with this although I go to Japan relatively frequently, but I remember reading a scathing review of the Japanese health system, I think it was in the Lonely Planet. I'll look for it when I go home. I was also surprised since due to the general efficiency of everything and longevity of the people I was expecting the system to be amazing, but they painted a truly scary picture of it.
noodle 16y ago
i've also heard that JET experiences were all over the map. for example, i know one guy who spent most of his time cleaning. on a slightly different topic, do you have any thoughts on the availability of non-teaching positions for people who don't have business fluency? i know there are some, but the bulk of jobs for foreigners are clearly in language and cultural instruction.
- patio11 16y ago
  That actually isn't correct: the bulk of jobs for foreigners are in factories. Assuming we scope this to "licit jobs a middle class American would actually consider doing", illiteracy is about as big a barrier to gainful professional employment as one would expect. The exceptions are English teaching, service work at particular bars/etc, and doing weddings as a fake minister (orders of magnitude rarer than teaching). In particular, so help me, I was ready to kill interviewees at a Japanese megacorp who expected to be placed as engineers despite total inability to read a design document or discuss technical topics. ("No! It is not kawaii that you cannot describe what the black boarded algorithm does in Japanese. No! Knowing the word "kawaii" is not worth points on your application.")
  - noodle 16y ago
    good point, i forgot about the factory work. although, thats the case for most first world countries, really. i imagine there's a good bit of fanboy culture creep in any job that allows foreign applications. does a megacorp software position not require N1?
    - patio11 16y ago
      I only officially have a 2kyuu, although that is mostly a function of never organizing myself to take the 1kyuu exam. Our company required only "advanced proficiency in written and oral Japanese", and due to process defects that I will not go into, that filter was not rigorously applied until frustratingly late in the pipeline in some cases. I know of some engineers in Tokyo who I would guess have actual ability closer to "exactly sufficient to pass 2kyuu". Never met anyone below that working in a professional capacity.

_delirium 16y ago

I can buy most of these points, but it seems to ignore that people have subjective preferences for some cultural environments over others, so the Q/A answer citing Australia's education and secularity doesn't necessarily answer that question. Presumably not every intelligent person will subjectively find Australia's culture versus the US's culture either a win for Australia or a tossup; some may prefer American culture. Some people may also place utility on things like "living in my home country, where I don't feel like a foreigner"; though of course other people may consider living in another country to be an inherently positive experience. I'm currently an American living in Denmark, so clearly I don't think it's impossible for the utility functions to work out that way. =] But it's not just a matter of weighing the income, the expenses, the commute times, etc.; living in Copenhagen is subjectively fairly different from living in, say, Boston or Los Angeles, and I could imagine some people putting very large positive or negative utility scores on that difference.

andrewce 16y ago
"Presumably not every intelligent person will subjectively find Australia's culture versus the US's culture either a win for Australia or a tossup; some may prefer American culture. Some people may also place utility on things like "living in my home country, where I don't feel like a foreigner"; though of course other people may consider living in another country to be an inherently positive experience." Fair point. I'd like to add, though, that even within the United States, there's a lot of cultural variation, adn even among larger trends there are quite a few smaller pockets. I find, for example, that I'm happiest in big-ish cities in the Midwest, but only when I can engage with the arts scene and a little bit with the tech scene. What I mean to say is that I think you're right in that the author does not offer any qualification for those points, but will also say that living in Perth or Darwin is likely to be very different from living in Melbourne, if for no other reason than location, demographic, and the purposes that people have in being there.

meterplech 16y ago

I like the article for the added perspective of going elsewhere. But, like recent anti-tax blog posts I have trouble believing a $6-figure salary is that bad. No way you only have 4k of disposable income. How is that calculated? Even in NYC you do not need to spend 30k a year on housing like his percentages would suggests. People should stop trying to describe the plight of the 6-figure earner.

pragmatic 16y ago
Depends where you live. Also (as you state) it depends on your spending habits. $100K in Fargo is a lot different than $100K in Manhattan. If the Millionaire Next Store is correct, you're likely to spend more if you live in a nice neighborhood (keeping up with the Joneses). I notice this myself. A coworker who lives in very nice neighborhood has a BMW. I drive a 14 yead old vehicle and live in a "down scale" neighborhood. So our roughly equivalent salary is going to seem much different to him (money is tight) vs me (lots of disposable income).
andrewce 16y ago
I think the author tried to justify those figures by way of "Keeping up with the Joneses" and the societal pressures that come with 6-figure salaries, but I agree with you that the numbers are not particularly optimistic. It seems like one of the basic assumptions he makes is that people in this income bracket buy nice things and big things. When I was a teacher, earning a low salary (even by teacher standards), I still had over $10k of disposable income. I can't imagine that'd go down at all if my salary tripled or quadrupled (thereby bringing it into the range he discusses).
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  Not quite. In his comment posted at 31 January 2011 09:44:16PM, he explains: I'm presenting what happens by default in both options, not one optimized and one non-optimized option. What you discovered here is that, the plan to save money in the outback is robust and succeeds by default, while the plan to save money in the US is fragile and fails by default.

krschultz 16y ago

Alternate data point: I make 90k a year. +$5,000 net income (after taxes, healthcare, and 6% contribution to my 401k) -$1,400 for rent (pertty high) - $400 for food - $120 for car insurance - $200 for gas - $200 for internet, TV, and cell phone - $200 for electricity That leaves me with $2500 a month that is discretionary. That's $30,000 a year. I save $2000 a month.I play with the remaining $500. Give me an extra $10k and get me to the $100k number and it would be pure discretionary for me. I live in CT, so it isn't that cheap. There are certainly places in this country with lower rent. And moving to NYC probably would only up my rent to $2,000 which wouldn't really change the numbers becasue I'd dump the car insurance and gas. (No car payments because I paid cash for my car 2 years ago).

tomsaffell 16y ago
And as an added data point: living in silicon valley isn't much more expensive either. You can rent an apartment for 1400 [1]. State income taxes are a bit higher, but you'll also spend a lot less on gas :). Otherwise it's pretty similar (unless you want to live in the swanky parts of PA) [1] http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/apa/pen?query=&srchType=A&minAsk=1000&maxAsk=1400&bedrooms=&nh=81 http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/apa/pen?query=&srchTy...
klbarry 16y ago
You might save more money in NYC, even. 1,400 will also get you a 2 bedroom an hour commute from Manhattan (Ozone Park, Forest Hills), or a one bedroom with a 30 minute commute to Manhattan (Astoria, certain parts of Brooklyn).
- gawker 16y ago
  Where's the best place to find a place to rent in NYC? And how would I tell if it's a relatively safe neighbourhood?
  - jfager 16y ago
    Craigslist, as the answer to both questions. You can tell the safe/desirable neighborhoods by getting a good neighborhood map (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Manhattan_neighborhoods http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Manhattan_neighborhoods) and paying attention to which neighborhoods CL ads lie about being in (for instance, in Brooklyn, it's common to see ads for apartments that are physically in Gowanus saying they're in Park Slope or Carroll Gardens instead).

jasonkester 16y ago

Here's the thing though. You're way better off earning your money in a place with a high cost of living. There are lots of things that cost the same regardless of where you buy them. New cars, flat screen TVs, plane tickets to Thailand (and 6-month winter climbing trips to Thailand), and pretty much everything else besides housing all cost the same everywhere. With that in mind, your best bet is to find a job in LA/SF/NYC then dig in and find the absolute cheapest way to live while you're there. My personal angle was to take short (3-6 month) contracts in LA and find cheap rooms for rent while there. You can save up a ton of money in a short time, then head back to whatever low cost place you prefer to call home. So to modify the author's idea, instead of setting up shop in Oz full time, go work in LA for half the year. Using his numbers you'll save the same as you would working an entire year in Australia. Then go back to Australia and spend the other half of the year doing whatever you want. End result: you spend the same, save the same, and get an extra 6 months off work with which to improve your surfing. Sorted.

dagw 16y ago
There are lots of things that cost the same regardless of where you buy them. New cars, flat screen TVs Not really true. You're ignoring local taxes, import tariffs and other markups. I nice car costs at least 3 times as much in Norway as it does in Germany for example. A lot of countries have tariffs on electronics meaning TVs and computers can cost up to twice as much you'd pay in the US.
- jasonkester 16y ago
  You're right. I wasn't thinking about crossing borders when I wrote that. Within the US, it's essentially true. Comparing US to Europe or anywhere else and it's all over the map. I guess that's just another variable to throw in when working on your arbitrage strategy. Personally, I'd opt to take that contract job in Oslo if it were an option. Given how much they charged me for beer when I was there, I can only assume the wages must be nice and high!
  - dagw 16y ago

idlewords 16y ago

I love the idea of bars in the Australian outback coming to be staffed exclusively by rationalist aspies.

endtime 16y ago
FWIW, I attend the Less Wrong/Overcoming Bias NYC meetup regularly, and while there are maybe a couple borderline aspies (and I do mean maybe), most of the regulars are far from it. The NYC group may be atypical, but our "sex, drugs, and rock and roll" factor* is pretty high, and I'd say the emotional intelligence of the group is above average by a decent margin. *Of course, I'm being metaphorical here, since this is written down and all.
gwern 16y ago
"G'day mate. What'd you like?' "Some amber would be ace!" "No, are you aware of the caloric value of beer and the negative effect on longevity found by a recent JAMA study? Here, have some nice red wine."
- Dylanlacey 16y ago
  I am highly amused that the colloquialisms applied are exactly opposite to reality.
  - gwern 16y ago
    I got them wrong? Are you sure? I looked them up in an Australian dictionary, and amber was supposed to mean beer, and ace mean great.
    - rdouble 16y ago
      Nobody would ever order an "amber." Beer is always ordered by brand name, and by size. In Victoria and Tasmania, beer is usually served in a half-pint glass called a "pot." Beer bottles are usually called "beakers." In every state, Foster's is by far the most popular beer. There are usually other unpopular regional beers available for old people and sheilas, but the national love of Foster's goes so deep, you risk starting a fight if you try ordering something else. So in most of Australia, you'd want to say something like "Cheerio Mate, beaker of Foster's willya?"

BoppreH 16y ago

Maybe I'm missing something, but what if I want to work as a software engineer? Spending the rest of life as a bartender or receptionist doesn't seem like a good prospect, regardless of pay. And if I ever have the chance to go back to work as a software engineer, the years working as a bartender or receptionist won't help. Or maybe I just don't like money that much.

flatline 16y ago
I think the problem with most software jobs is that's where you spend all your mental resources. I tend to think about work projects a lot outside of business hours, and it takes a lot of work to stay on top of your game in the industry. This is fine and well unless you want to do real research in your spare time. Especially when you get older and have other responsibilities, it gets very difficult to find contiguous blocks of time when you are fresh.
- dspeyer 16y ago
  Or if what you do at work qualifies as "real research".

lukev 16y ago

Interesting, and I think people should definitely consider "off the beaten track" opportunities like this more. But for most of us here... it doesn't account for the fact that you're working as a bartender. I don't know about everyone else, but I want to enjoy and be fulfilled by my work. When I'm building awesome software I loose track of the workday... slinging rum for 8 hours a day sounds like some terrible purgatory. And from anecdotal evidence, I don't think there's nearly so many great income arbitrage opportunities in the high tech sector.

tomjen3 16y ago
I think you are undervaluation the benefits of being a bar tender. Granted you are not writing software but after the first couple of weeks you should be able to start hacking/innovating new drinks and since you properly became a software developer because you like creating new things, this should give you some of the same feeling. But an additional huge plus: unlike being a code geek, being a bartender is not a low status job and there is going to be a lot of females around - combine the two and you should have a relative easy time getting laid (and plenty of chances to practice).
- lukev 16y ago
  > hacking/innovating new drinks Not that this can't be fun, but my ambitions are a bit higher. > being a bartender is not a low status job I'm pretty sure being a software developer is a higher status job than a bartender. Of course being a bartender can be more fun for the "partygoer" demographic - which, I suspect, has a narrow intersection with the LessWrong or HN demographic.
  - yummyfajitas 16y ago
    I'm pretty sure being a software developer is a higher status job than a bartender. I'm pretty sure you are wrong, at least if we take ability to get laid as being an indicator of status.
    - 16y ago

jsavimbi 16y ago

Bartending: a part-time job that provides the lazy with easy access to alcohol and a stable social life where the only requirement is to have passable looks and the ability to show up, stay awake and not steal (too much). It looks like fun, but it's a very dangerous occupation if you're thinking of actually doing something with your life post-booze dalliance. The fact that someone would promote dropping out to live in the outback serving beer to a bunch of tourists is insane. To back it up with tax-reimbursement math is ludicrous. Working as a slave for more than one tourist season should dispel any rational thinker of the notion that they're better off scraping by on minimum wages than working at a real job. To be successful in the real world, you need to acquire domain experience, competent skills and build lasting relationships with people who also work in your industry, not to mention developing your talents in order to have access to higher-paying/rewarding employment. All of them take time and none can be done while you're picking your nose at a tiki bar in Florida, Thailand or Australia. Don't kid yourself. Work is hard and there are no easy way about it.

generalk 16y ago
I upvoted this by accident (meant to downvote), so I might as well respond: > The fact that someone would promote dropping out to live in the outback > serving beer to a bunch of tourists is insane. I know several career bartenders who love mixing drinks and the social aspect of being behind the bar. What's insane for you is absolutely heaven for them. Quality bartenders can make fantastic money, but let's discount that and say that, for some folks, being happy with their job is more important than how much they earn doing it. > Don't kid yourself. Work is hard and there are no easy way about it. You yourself say that bartending for tourists during the busy season is so horrible that you can't survive one season before bailing. That doesn't sound easy, but if you love bartending, it's not so bad. Similarly, some of my clients are hard to work with sometimes, but I love developing software, so it's not so bad. tl;dr: grow up and learn that there are valid viewpoints that differ from yours.
- tomsaffell 16y ago
  >tl;dr: grow up.. I'd liked your post up to that point.

javanix 16y ago

Has anyone here had experience working in Australia (or as an expat in another developed country) as an actual software developer? I do enjoy what I do but I'd love to be able to see a different part of the world while I do it.

patio11 16y ago
I worked in Japan for 3 years as a technical translator and the better part of 3 years as a software engineer at a large software consultancy. Software engineers do lots of things, but theoretically the main reason I was there was to develop software (mostly Big Freaking Enterprise Java web applications, for universities, and software which supported the development of the same). I would be happy to talk to you about that experience at length. The capsule summary is that I cannot recommend working for a Japanese megacorp as a means of broadening one's horizons unless one has the very specific desire to learn about Japanese megacorps. The work/life balance works out such that -- even if you enjoy software development very, very much -- you will likely have insufficient time/energy/health to see much of Japan in your rather few non-working hours.
- javanix 16y ago
  That's the impression I've gotten from a lot of people who have worked in Japan. It isn't really an option for me anyway (since I don't know the language and wouldn't have too much of a reason to learn it) but it is certainly interesting how incompatible many people find Japanese workplace culture with American workplace culture.

orangecat 16y ago

As noted in the comments, the major problem is that he compares the "rational" strategy of moving to the Australian outback with the "default" strategy of having a US job and spending the statistical average on housing, food, etc. But if you're assuming a highly rational person, the second strategy has loads of room for optimization: you don't need a McMansion, a new car every 5 years, or to engage in status games of conspicuous consumption with your neighbors. With a relatively small amount of planning and discipline, it's easy to save lots of money earning $100k/year in the US.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
klbarry 16y ago
You said it exactly right. If you're single (even in NYC) it's easy to save lots of money making 50k a year.
- crpatino 16y ago
  And if you pick wisely, you can keep doing it after married. :)

arjunnarayan 16y ago

Most young people with 100,000$ a year jobs are not in it for the 100,000. They're in it because it leads (if they are successful enough) to a 250,000$ job in a decade or two.

dspeyer 16y ago

US$16500/y transporation costs? What are you doing, buying a new car every year? Also, "Companies pay professionals more based on their abilities and their age as opposed to their actual years of experience"? Who would want to work for a company like that? Would it even be legal? Ignoring more subjective points, like the appeal of living in the outback vs. a city or of having a "no responsibilities" job.

crpatino 16y ago
> US$16500/y transportation costs? That's the cost to fly to Australia and back, plus the cost of the Visa. For day to day transportation, the OP explicitly said he'd walk to work.
- noodle 16y ago
  i think you're misreading. $16,500 is what the post states are transportation costs in the US. $4000 is the stated cost for AUS, which is more reasonable considering a flight. i think 16.5% is probably off base, but not that far off. closer to 10% when you consider payments, gas, taxes, insurance, etc..
dionidium 16y ago
Here's an additional data point. My 2009 transportation costs in St. Louis, MO. ($220 car payment * 12) + (278.04 gallons of gas * $2.25 avg/gallon) + ~$175 property taxes + ($5 daily parking * 20 working days/month * 12) + (~$90 insurance/month * 12) = ~$5720 This excludes licensing costs and parking tickets, which probably add another ~$200. It also excludes maintenance. For example, new tires added another ~$400 this year. And you've got to change your oil. I commute only 6 miles each way, drive a cheap, fuel efficient car, do some of my own maintenance, and live in an area with low tax and gas rates, so I don't think it would be hard to spend at least twice what I do. Edit: added car insurance.
- anamax 16y ago
  > I commute only 6 miles each way, drive a cheap, fuel efficient car, do some of my own maintenance, and live in an area with low tax and gas rates, so I don't think it would be hard to spend at least twice what I do. Your fuel costs are less than $700/year. Your car cost is $2650/year. It's easy to spend a lot of money on a car, but it's rarely necessary to do so.

pedanticfreak 16y ago

Something is wrong about the author's numbers here. The Consumer Expenditure Survey the author cites says the 25-34 year old that spends 37.1% of their salary on housing is only making $58,946 per year, NOT $100,000 per year. Whether intentional or not, the survey is being misrepresented to the benefit of the author's argument.

doyoulikeworms 16y ago
Good catch. There are a few other bits that bothered me as well. The employer's contribution to retirement is counted as a gain in Australia, but the employer's matching Social Security contribution in the US is ignored. It also assumes that a car is absolutely necessary in the US. I live in the Bay Area, and I haven't driven my car in any material sense in 4 months (by choice). Regardless, it's pretty obvious that one can earn six figures in the US, but choose to live within the means of a bartender in an Australian tourist trap. Which provides more disposable income?
- pedanticfreak 16y ago
  There are other troubling inconsistencies as well. But I decided to stop there. I only want the author to go back and fix his numbers, I don't want to write the article for him. Without a doubt, this whole thing is a poor abuse of statistics. It doesn't take a genius to figure out you can make $100,000 and keep a lot in the bank by living like someone who makes $30,000. Which, by the way, there are quite a few of those people in the United States.

acabal 16y ago

I highly advocate people going to work or travel abroad for a year or two, but it's important to note that this article is specifically recommending going to work in the Australian Outback. I've been to Australia and it's a lovely place with lovely people, but living deep in the Outback also means relative isolation, dust, and probably more boredom than you're expecting. You'll be at the mercy of the mix of long-term travelers in your location at that particular time, which might be good or bad. Some folks (like myself) much prefer living in a bigger city with access to music, art, cuisine, culture, green space, and limitless people. Though that's not to say you can't enjoy living in the Outback--lots of people choose to live there and love it--but just be aware of what you're getting in to. There's a reason one place pays so much more than the other!

te_chris 16y ago
Exactly, and Aussie cities are VERY expensive to live in. Sure wages are higher, but Sydney especially is one of the most expensive and congested cities to live in in the world.

va1en0k 16y ago

Working abroad always appeared to me as something hard at the very beginning, especially for a Russian, especially in tired of immigrants Australia. I don't know, maybe it's all biases from my family members and friends. I'm 19 yo (minus one week), not so bad programmer (a lead developer of a small outsourcing firm with some "CTO" responsibilities for 2.5 years). All my attempts to find a job abroad (in USA especially) and leave the country left me thinking what I should save up some reasonable amount of money and be ready to show something impressive in my portfolio (or get a degree, which I can't even afford now whilst having no desire for spending four or five years doing something useless in cheap and easy college): 1. I've often been asked to be interviewed in person - its more than 500$ for a one-way ticket, plus some money for bed and breakfast, plus getting a visa isn't cheap and simple adventure. Okay, 20000$/yr is a "wow!" salary in Sankt-Petersburg for 18-25 year olds, do your math 2. I've been told that employers abroad don't like to hire foreigners because there're too much responsibility required by the law 3. And [as I've been told, I've read and I believe] due to these problems it's too simple to end up being a "janitor" developer in some heartless corporation just because visa doesn't allow to just walk out looking for a better job, and neither do living expenses. I only applied for developer jobs, though. Maybe bartenders have more luck. I don't know if it's really because of some division of the world or due to my narrow-mindedness and cowardice.

syllogism 16y ago
> I don't know if it's really because of some division of the world or due to my narrow-mindedness and cowardice. Mostly division in the world. If you're on the inside of the first-world gate you can hop on a plane and get an instantly approved visa to almost any other first world country. They all have these reciprocal agreements. The article's strategy relies on this --- a US citizen is pre-approved for a 1 year working holiday, unless they've done something substantially wrong. For people on the other side of the gate, the situation is completely different. Visa applications are expensive and slow, and governed by arbitrary rules and senseless bureaucracy. The message the governments send is, "there's plenty more just like you. We don't care."

bitwize 16y ago

You can keep your job bartending in the outback. I live in the expensive-to-live-in Boston area. I have an hour commute each way. Sometimes I stay late nights. And on days like today the option is either burn vacation time or telecommute because for my own safety's sake there's no way in hell I'm taking the T and the bus in this blizzard. But... (and this is the clincher) I program robot submarines for a living. I'm a significant contributor to the code that navigates and controls AUVs around the world -- Australia included. In short, I get paid to do something awesome. If I were still stuck in the webdev ghetto or doing enterprisey bullshit for banks, I'd be on the first plane outta Logan as soon as the snow clears. But the sheer ass-kickingness of my job -- and the doors of opportunity this experience will give me later -- keep me firmly anchored. And I think that's entirely rational.

gills 16y ago
Ditto...but Seattle, and my toys have wings. Yes, please, rational people: leave Seattle. Terrible, terrible place. No good at all. Wet, gray, the people are mean. Shoo!

rdouble 16y ago

Trades are booming in Australia. I've been traveling in Australia since January. I meet loads of tradesmen from places in Europe who come down here because the wages are high and there is a lot of work. My sister's husband is a builder, and his friend are electricians, and they do as well or better than any salaried programmer in Silicon Valley or New York. The electrician in particular makes about double what I did, and I was making well over $100K a year. Regarding being a bartender in the Northern Territory: The advice in the article is pretty good if you are in the USA and under 30 and don't have any prospects in the USA. The wages are pretty good for most types of seasonal service work. One downside the article doesn't mention, is that I think you can only do this visa once. Thus, it's not really a long term career plan.

bhoung 16y ago

There is a reason why people endure higher costs of living to be in locations of higher population density. I'd also like to see the same cost benefit analysis over a 5-10 year window. I guess the alternative US scenario mightn't be much better.

tastybites 16y ago

I'm ethnically Chinese. The thought of going go the outback to serve beer to a bunch of racist Australians (I think someone in this thread described it as "tired of immigration" LOL) for a pittance is about as appealing to me as slicing my face off with a cheese grater. Ans as far as teaching English in Asia goes ... this must be a SWPL thing because to me it just sounds like a giant waste of time. I'll stay in California and work at my six figure tech job. Thanks.