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Good grief do I ever work in the wrong part of the world. I’m well established in my career (and I don’t have SV costs of living to be fair) - but anywhere eve

Good grief do I ever work in the wrong part of the world. I’m well established in my career (and I don’t have SV costs of living to be fair) - but anywhere even in the galaxy of $200 an hour would be life-changing for me.

NotPavlovsDog 6y ago
I remember meeting a taxi cab driver in the US that told me about his experience coming on a tourist visa, getting married to stay and working towards starting to work as an engineer. There are ways to move anywhere you want, and ways to get remote work at us companies, especially now, if you don't want to move. They are not easy, but they exist.
- literallycancer 6y ago
  You don't have to move to the US to make 200. That's easily available for remote people. For the big bucks, moving maybe helps but it's unlikely you make it from driving Uber to 1k/hr unless you run your own business.
  - kofejnik 6y ago
    > That's easily available for remote people. Not easily at all, clients usually avoid working with offshore freelancers directly, and established freelance platforms tend to cap the overseas rates (because they want their cut and also clients expect offshore devs to cost much less) Or am I totally wrong here?
    - NotPavlovsDog 6y ago
      My experience is, as I read the job ads, they want US based remoters for the easy accounting. So at the minimum, one would have to set up a US company. At the "easiest for the employer", one would have to bill/apply and work through a US resident. If someone has other solutions for out-of-the-US, non-US-tax-reporters to applying to US remote jobs that list "US based" as a requirement I would love to hear about it.
    - girvo 6y ago
      You don’t present as a freelancer, but as a remote employee to get access to these sorts of things, for the exact reasons you correctly stated
garretraziel 6y ago
I work as a Senior Software Engineer for big international corporation in the 2nd world country and $45/hour would be life-changing for me and most of the people I know.
- wincy 6y ago
  I live in the US in a metro of less than 2 million, and my very first contract job as a self-taught developer who barely knew JavaScript was $45/hour. The guy didn’t even blink when I asked for that much. It was life changing for me too, going from desktop support to doing dev work.
ryanmercer 6y ago
Shoot, the $45 an hour mentioned up this chain would be life changing for me (yes, I live in the U.S.), after 15 years at my job I make 17.26 an hour. It's why this talk of $15 minimum wage mildly terrifies me, I know people need it but man, it suddenly thrusts me nearly to minimum wage (minimum wage is currently 7.25 here).
- imtringued 6y ago
  The problem with minimum wages is that they don't do anything. There is a mild psychological effect that forces people below minimum wage to find a new job. However, if the economy doesn't have enough jobs above minimum wage, then it does nothing. If the government offered jobs at the minimum wage there would be an effective price floor for wages. Better yet, if those government workers spend their income they can drive economic demand which ends up creating jobs above minimum wage. Eventually every job pays more than minimum wage and nobody is dependent on the jobs guarantee.
  - heyoni 6y ago
    And if there are enough jobs, then it does something, and does it well. It forces companies to spend a bit more on their employees and in some ways, redistributes wealth. Your solution isn’t better. The government cannot be everywhere the way that Walmart is. I really don’t think its impact is going to be that big. Low skilled labor will still find ways to get hired for less, off the books if the need is great enough...it happens all the time.
    - 8note 6y ago
      The government is already in more places than Walmart is though? The government already offers jobs like that too, just that it's through the prison system and the floor is much too low
      - heyoni 6y ago
        Look, as much as I hate Walmart, they exist in places at levels that the federal/state does not. Either way, that's not the only thing my argument stands on. I'm as liberal as they come, and would never suggest expanding the government just to fit that capacity.
systemBuilder 6y ago
A good idea in most parts of the world is not to measure $$$ but to measure compensation in sq. ft. of real estate per year. At my lowest-paid job (professor at top-30 school), i was paid 107 sq ft of take-home pay per year. I quit that tenure-track job @2y and took another job that paid 1800 sq. ft. per year. I currently earn about 300 sq. ft per year.

NotPavlovsDog 6y ago

I remember meeting a taxi cab driver in the US that told me about his experience coming on a tourist visa, getting married to stay and working towards starting to work as an engineer. There are ways to move anywhere you want, and ways to get remote work at us companies, especially now, if you don't want to move. They are not easy, but they exist.

literallycancer 6y ago
You don't have to move to the US to make 200. That's easily available for remote people. For the big bucks, moving maybe helps but it's unlikely you make it from driving Uber to 1k/hr unless you run your own business.
- kofejnik 6y ago
  > That's easily available for remote people. Not easily at all, clients usually avoid working with offshore freelancers directly, and established freelance platforms tend to cap the overseas rates (because they want their cut and also clients expect offshore devs to cost much less) Or am I totally wrong here?
  - NotPavlovsDog 6y ago
    My experience is, as I read the job ads, they want US based remoters for the easy accounting. So at the minimum, one would have to set up a US company. At the "easiest for the employer", one would have to bill/apply and work through a US resident. If someone has other solutions for out-of-the-US, non-US-tax-reporters to applying to US remote jobs that list "US based" as a requirement I would love to hear about it.
  - girvo 6y ago
    You don’t present as a freelancer, but as a remote employee to get access to these sorts of things, for the exact reasons you correctly stated

garretraziel 6y ago

I work as a Senior Software Engineer for big international corporation in the 2nd world country and $45/hour would be life-changing for me and most of the people I know.

wincy 6y ago
I live in the US in a metro of less than 2 million, and my very first contract job as a self-taught developer who barely knew JavaScript was $45/hour. The guy didn’t even blink when I asked for that much. It was life changing for me too, going from desktop support to doing dev work.

ryanmercer 6y ago

Shoot, the $45 an hour mentioned up this chain would be life changing for me (yes, I live in the U.S.), after 15 years at my job I make 17.26 an hour. It's why this talk of $15 minimum wage mildly terrifies me, I know people need it but man, it suddenly thrusts me nearly to minimum wage (minimum wage is currently 7.25 here).

imtringued 6y ago
The problem with minimum wages is that they don't do anything. There is a mild psychological effect that forces people below minimum wage to find a new job. However, if the economy doesn't have enough jobs above minimum wage, then it does nothing. If the government offered jobs at the minimum wage there would be an effective price floor for wages. Better yet, if those government workers spend their income they can drive economic demand which ends up creating jobs above minimum wage. Eventually every job pays more than minimum wage and nobody is dependent on the jobs guarantee.
- heyoni 6y ago
  And if there are enough jobs, then it does something, and does it well. It forces companies to spend a bit more on their employees and in some ways, redistributes wealth. Your solution isn’t better. The government cannot be everywhere the way that Walmart is. I really don’t think its impact is going to be that big. Low skilled labor will still find ways to get hired for less, off the books if the need is great enough...it happens all the time.
  - 8note 6y ago
    The government is already in more places than Walmart is though? The government already offers jobs like that too, just that it's through the prison system and the floor is much too low
    - heyoni 6y ago
      Look, as much as I hate Walmart, they exist in places at levels that the federal/state does not. Either way, that's not the only thing my argument stands on. I'm as liberal as they come, and would never suggest expanding the government just to fit that capacity.

systemBuilder 6y ago

A good idea in most parts of the world is not to measure $$$ but to measure compensation in sq. ft. of real estate per year. At my lowest-paid job (professor at top-30 school), i was paid 107 sq ft of take-home pay per year. I quit that tenure-track job @2y and took another job that paid 1800 sq. ft. per year. I currently earn about 300 sq. ft per year.