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If you're going to optimize for money, optimize for money. I optimized for money for years and have no regrets. I'm now enjoying the fruits of that choice livin

If you're going to optimize for money, optimize for money. I optimized for money for years and have no regrets. I'm now enjoying the fruits of that choice living in Asia and the amount of effort sacrificed was totally worth it. You have a wife and kids now, I would heavily advise against E. (From the tone of your post it looks like you know this). This is what I do now, but I'm currently not optimizing for money. C is doable. One leetcode question a day for five months then one month of hardcore interviewing will get you there without much sacrifice for family life. You can find that extra hour in your day by waking up an hour early. Remember, we're optimizing for money here, not short term happiness, if you feel frustrated every day trying to re-learn how to reverse a linked list, remind yourself that's the _correct_ feeling to have and it means you're moving closer towards your goal. The end result is a better life for your family. D is basically C, except without doing one leetcode question a day. You still need to do a 1-2 months of hardcore interviewing. 80% of the effort for 1/2 of the results is a bad trade. However, if you're _not_ optimizing for money, there's option F: move somewhere cheaper and work get a remote gig. I'm currently in Taipei and am friends with a lot of people who've made this decision. Some with families, some without, some single. The main thing we had in common was we valued autonomy over everything else. I have other friends who stayed in Canada/USA because they value extended family over autonomy, and that's OK too! This sounds cheesy, but if you haven't already write down your 4-7 core values then make decisions based on those. Making decisions that align with my values has reduced my anxiety drastically.

randomopining 5y ago
Good brutally honest logical take. Did you optimize for money to save up, then move to cheap col in Taiwan, and now changed to prioritize autonomy?
- jameshush 5y ago
  I realized after going through that seemingly cheesy core value exercise that I'd always been optimizing for autonomy, I was just using money as the proxy. I was trying to optimize to get a green card (I'm Canadian) "quickly" and took a job that promised to help me but didn't deliver. Looking back, I shouldn't have been in such a rush to find a shortcut and just grinded leetcode longer. The whole time I was saving money because my end goal was to go full American Dream and start a business after I got a green card. It all worked in the end though because it lead me to where I am now. As for moving to Taipei, when the green card fell through I started _really_ doing the leetcode grind because my friends at FAANG companies told me how much better of a job they did for immigration. While I was doing that I decided to interview at some startups for "practice" and ended up getting an offer to move to Taipei (CEO split his time between Hong Kong and Taipei). I'd been learning Chinese for a couple of years and always wanted to check out Asia. Taiwan had zero COVID cases (not exaggerating, literally zero domestic cases for most of 2020/2021) and I was getting no benefit paying Los Angeles rent and not being able to meet new people in person. It wasn't until about 8 months into the startup job I realized just how affordable Taipei was, and it sunk in I didn't need to keep a job for immigration anymore (Taiwan has a Gold Card visa that's super easy to get and isn't tied to employment like the USA). That's when I decided to go all in taking Chinese lessons every day and starting an engineering training business in the afternoons/evenings. I gave my last job one month notice to not burn any bridges and now I'm on my own. If you anyone wants to move, I highly recommend not worrying too much about the money and just finding a job and moving. Having some income lined up before you go is nice, even if it's just beer money teaching English. If you're indifferent about the money I recommend at least signing up for a language school so you have a routine you can follow during the week while your friends are at work.
  - randomopining 5y ago
    Sounds like a nice little journey and good old mixing it up. Putting the effort in to learning the language is definitely key.
ac2022 5y ago
Thank you, this is really helpful. At this point in my life, I should optimize for money. > but if you haven't already write down your 4-7 core values then make decisions based on those. Making decisions that align with my values has reduced my anxiety drastically. This is great advise. I will definitely do it. I sort of have some idea about my values, like I value autonomy, creativity, family, and comfortable lifestyle. But I really need to sit down and think hard what is the most important value to me.
- jameshush 5y ago
  This helped me a lot too: https://tim.blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/dreamline.pdf https://tim.blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/dreamline.pdf basically you write down exactly the lifestyle you want, figure out how much it will cost per month and work your way backwards to get that number. It's usually cheaper than you think. Just from reading "I value autonomy, creativity, family, and comfortable lifestyle." without any other context tells me a 9-5pm gig at Google (including leaving at 4pm on the odd Friday to see your kid's dance recital) sounds like a good fit. I'm the weirdo who'll take revenue splits and equity deals, roll the dice on random startups, and move somewhere where I'm completely illiterate. If you leaned towards that though, you'd probably have a post asking how you could get a job at crypto company in Signapore :)

randomopining 5y ago

Good brutally honest logical take. Did you optimize for money to save up, then move to cheap col in Taiwan, and now changed to prioritize autonomy?

jameshush 5y ago
I realized after going through that seemingly cheesy core value exercise that I'd always been optimizing for autonomy, I was just using money as the proxy. I was trying to optimize to get a green card (I'm Canadian) "quickly" and took a job that promised to help me but didn't deliver. Looking back, I shouldn't have been in such a rush to find a shortcut and just grinded leetcode longer. The whole time I was saving money because my end goal was to go full American Dream and start a business after I got a green card. It all worked in the end though because it lead me to where I am now. As for moving to Taipei, when the green card fell through I started _really_ doing the leetcode grind because my friends at FAANG companies told me how much better of a job they did for immigration. While I was doing that I decided to interview at some startups for "practice" and ended up getting an offer to move to Taipei (CEO split his time between Hong Kong and Taipei). I'd been learning Chinese for a couple of years and always wanted to check out Asia. Taiwan had zero COVID cases (not exaggerating, literally zero domestic cases for most of 2020/2021) and I was getting no benefit paying Los Angeles rent and not being able to meet new people in person. It wasn't until about 8 months into the startup job I realized just how affordable Taipei was, and it sunk in I didn't need to keep a job for immigration anymore (Taiwan has a Gold Card visa that's super easy to get and isn't tied to employment like the USA). That's when I decided to go all in taking Chinese lessons every day and starting an engineering training business in the afternoons/evenings. I gave my last job one month notice to not burn any bridges and now I'm on my own. If you anyone wants to move, I highly recommend not worrying too much about the money and just finding a job and moving. Having some income lined up before you go is nice, even if it's just beer money teaching English. If you're indifferent about the money I recommend at least signing up for a language school so you have a routine you can follow during the week while your friends are at work.
- randomopining 5y ago
  Sounds like a nice little journey and good old mixing it up. Putting the effort in to learning the language is definitely key.

ac2022 5y ago

Thank you, this is really helpful. At this point in my life, I should optimize for money. > but if you haven't already write down your 4-7 core values then make decisions based on those. Making decisions that align with my values has reduced my anxiety drastically. This is great advise. I will definitely do it. I sort of have some idea about my values, like I value autonomy, creativity, family, and comfortable lifestyle. But I really need to sit down and think hard what is the most important value to me.

jameshush 5y ago
This helped me a lot too: https://tim.blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/dreamline.pdf https://tim.blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/dreamline.pdf basically you write down exactly the lifestyle you want, figure out how much it will cost per month and work your way backwards to get that number. It's usually cheaper than you think. Just from reading "I value autonomy, creativity, family, and comfortable lifestyle." without any other context tells me a 9-5pm gig at Google (including leaving at 4pm on the odd Friday to see your kid's dance recital) sounds like a good fit. I'm the weirdo who'll take revenue splits and equity deals, roll the dice on random startups, and move somewhere where I'm completely illiterate. If you leaned towards that though, you'd probably have a post asking how you could get a job at crypto company in Signapore :)