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As New Zealand Courts Tech Talent, Isolation Becomes a Draw

nytimes.com

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Re: As New Zealand Courts Tech Talent, Isolation Becomes a Draw

#151

Post by cookiecaper »

ryandrake wrote: post #88
flexie wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't most tech guys be able to support a family working for any of the local web developers, app developers or IT departments of non tech companies that you find all over Florida, New Zealand and most of the Western world? In urban areas of Florida and New Zealand you will find these jobs everywhere within a 5 mile radius. Maybe not always so interesting or well paying as some jobs in IT corporations, but good to…

Others have also replied but yea: with all due respect to IT helpdesk support staff and Wordpress maintainers and the guy who does the web site for the local nail salon, there's no way any of that compares to a career in software. Living in a low cost of living area is nice but it's not worth that.

Those aren't the only jobs in low-cost areas. Almost every mid-size or larger company has an internal software group making real software, and every metropolitan area has at least several of these.

Lots of that is on older "enterprise" stacks v. cool open-source or experimental stacks, but it's still a plenty legitimate career path, and you'd be surprised how modern a company that looks like a dinosaur at first glance can be when you look a little deeper. Example: Walmart runs lots of stuff on Node.js.

If you want to slave away in a startup, then yeah, you're probably going to want to be in SF, SEA, or NYC.

If you want a long-term job at a stable employer where most people don't take themselves too seriously, overtime is rarely or never expected, and you work with a bunch of smart, established people (even if they're a bit change averse), there is plenty of opportunity outside of the tech hubs.

And on salary, the average may be an OK guideline but it is by no means the top of the market. Lots of good people will hire in at 1.5-2x the area's average.

Re: As New Zealand Courts Tech Talent, Isolation Becomes a Draw

#152

Post by user5994461 »

mywittyname wrote: post #107
pilom wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GP's point is that Median Income would be valuable but "average" i.e. Mean Income, is much less valuable.

The according to the BLS, the median wage nationally is $100,080 and the average is $104,300. I'm not convinced a 4% difference takes away a whole lot of value, especially when salaries are close to a normal distribution. I'm willing to bet that as you limit you data set to a smaller region, salaries normalize even further.

Salaries are not a normal distributions. They are a multimodal distribution (usually 2 waves).

Re: As New Zealand Courts Tech Talent, Isolation Becomes a Draw

#153

Post by cookiecaper »

vkat wrote: post #147
hueving wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>which is decidedly Trump's America Look at the results for something like Kansas City, MO.[1] It's about 50/50 between the two candidates. If you look at the Bay Area counties[2], it's 1/6th to 1/5th of the voters supporting Trump. So in a room filled with a random ~10 people will have 2 Trump supporters in the Bay and 5 in Kansas City. >they were just the people I was obligated to spend time with. I suspect this is…

I lived in Kansas City metro for 6 years and politics is rarely discussed at work. The people I hang out with are very welcoming and don't treat immigrants any differently. When there was racial induced killing in one of the suburbs(Olathe) there was an outpouring of grief and support. Basic human premise.

Also note that a [white] local attempted to defend the targeted men and got himself shot in the process. There was also a racially motivated killing in NYC shortly thereafter.

The Midwest has its share of people who are off the rails, but so does the rest of the world. The overwhelming majority of people and interactions are just fine.

Re: As New Zealand Courts Tech Talent, Isolation Becomes a Draw

#154

Post by gregw134 »

throwaway729 wrote: post #98

> For the most part, this is all true in, say, Tulsa. Especially if you stay off Facebook. Really only the cost of living. > Commuting is less wearying Not really. There's a near zero percent chance your commute involves anything other than driving. The walkable areas of midwestern cities are certainly cheaper than SF, but they're also not exactly cheap. You're still looking at half a million for a decent house, 200k…

You can get a decent house (3 bedrooms, large yard) for 150k in many Midwestern cities as long as you're willing to live in the suburbs.

Re: As New Zealand Courts Tech Talent, Isolation Becomes a Draw

#155

Post by throwaway729 »

hueving wrote: post #148
throwaway729 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The myth that Republican areas are hostile wastelands with poor quality of life for minorities has much more to do with confirmation bias and a desire to justify high cost of living than anything else, IMO. If only that were true, I'd move back to the midwest in a heart beat. > This is not to discount any personal experience you may have had, just my opinion on the sentiment in general. Name a "that doesn't happen…

>Name a "that doesn't happen here" scenario -- from blatant racial discrimination/brutality in policing to "bobby's parents sent him to pray-the-gay-away camp" -- and I experienced or directly witnessed a friend experience it before coming of age. So you were born 20+ years ago? It sounds like your notion of the Midwest is about as stuck in the past as the notion that San Francisco is a hippie mecca. >Whenever people…

> So you were born 20+ years ago?

And left less than 3 years ago. Not much had changed. In some ways, it got a lot worse. My perceptions aren't stuck in the past.

Again, don't believe me? Go person-by-person down your general assembly and send an email to each asking how they feel about allowing business owners the freedom to not serve LGBT people, or whether they will sponsor a bill to ban conversion therapy.

Or for that matter, ask if they support legislation to outlaw incrimination against LGBT individuals in hiring! Most midwestern states don't have such a law on the book.

And not just your representative -- all of them. Or even just yours and all from surrounding counties. After all, we wouldn't want to generalize.

> And you should feel guilty for continually shitting on a place you have no association with anymore.

Why?

I don't think the midwest is, on balance, a nice place to live. I think the cultural downsides of the region eventually bleed into your life, even if you try to cloister yourself in one of the urban liberal islands. My opinion may not be fair (I think it is, but allow the possibility that a lifetime of bad experiences was somehow unrepresentative). But it sure as hell isn't uninformed.

I think people who are considering moving to the midwest from a coastal area -- or especially from abroad -- should hear this perspective.

Re: As New Zealand Courts Tech Talent, Isolation Becomes a Draw

#156

Post by wired8 »

nbrempel wrote: post #25

If you like the sound of NZ but don't want to commit to such a big move, come check out British Columbia. We're like NZ lite. :)

NZ lite... more like the inverse. Vancouver and specifically BC has a lot of similarities to NZ yes, including the frequent liquid sunshine.

Having spent approx half my working life in (Wellington/Vancouver) I'd say Vancouver would be a more natural fit for our US cousins.

However that said you can't beat NZ for internal travel, day trips, adventure tourism. Its basically a compact version of British Columbia.

Re: As New Zealand Courts Tech Talent, Isolation Becomes a Draw

#157

Post by throwaway729 »

gregw134 wrote: post #154
throwaway729 wrote: post #98

> For the most part, this is all true in, say, Tulsa. Especially if you stay off Facebook. Really only the cost of living. > Commuting is less wearying Not really. There's a near zero percent chance your commute involves anything other than driving. The walkable areas of midwestern cities are certainly cheaper than SF, but they're also not exactly cheap. You're still looking at half a million for a decent house, 200k…

You can get a decent house (3 bedrooms, large yard) for 150k in many Midwestern cities as long as you're willing to live in the suburbs.

FWIW my experience is closer to 200k minimum. Especially if you want to be in one of the 1 or 2 best school districts in the area. But yeah, right ballpark. Definitely cheaper than CA. you can also go way south of 150k if you're not in a major metro area, though.

But for not much more (and with a higher salary) you can get a decent suburban house in any number of western or eastern cities. Maybe a tad less land here or there.

And the cities are still expensive with bad schools.

Re: As New Zealand Courts Tech Talent, Isolation Becomes a Draw

#158

Post by geebee »

New Zealand does sound pretty incredible. A massive national park, the size of California, with only 5 million people, and very liveable and appealing cities.

Here's the thing. Would New Zealand stay that way if it pursued a policy of large scale immigration, they way the US has? The US takes well over a million new immigrants into the country every year. 10 years of our immigration would triple the size of New Zealand.

I'm sure they could find takers. Plenty of people would love to move to New Zealand.

I do wonder why the US, which takes over a million immigrants a year, takes so much heat for enforcing immigration policy, while New Zealand receives so much praise for being an ideal society.

It sounds like New Zealand may use its selectivity to allow in immigrants, but only those likely to contribute significantly to the bottom line. In a way, their exclusivity may actually help them cherry pick the very best. As strategy, I get it. But again, the NYTimes has been immensely critical of deportations in the US. Why do they give NZ a pass on this? And if they're going to praise New Zealand, doesn't that mean they're praising a very limited immigration policy?

I mean, how about this last quote: “It’s boom time for the next 10 years,” Mr. Drury said. The more immigrants, the better. “We’ll take a lot. We’ll take hundreds.”

Woah, not hundreds?

Re: As New Zealand Courts Tech Talent, Isolation Becomes a Draw

#159

Post by ox_magnet »

scalatohaskell wrote: post #46
nandreev wrote: post #2

Has anyone here made the move? It would be interesting to hear some real life stories, and post honeymoon-phase pros/cons evaluation of NZ.

I have, from EU. I've been living in Auckland for 2 years. Scala dev. I left recently though. I think I may have good perspective, shoot me questions if you want.

Thinking of moving there to create an agriculture start up - looking to rent a property with 5-20 acres outside of auckland. Bad idea/good idea?

Re: As New Zealand Courts Tech Talent, Isolation Becomes a Draw

#160

Post by SmellTheGlove »

eropple wrote: post #129
SmellTheGlove wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I left DC for Maine. So far, the novelty hasn't worn off. I like to think of cold, snowy winters as the natural repellent that prevents us from getting too crowded. I am screwed if my job goes away (screwed in that I'd have to move). For one, there aren't a lot of fortune 500 companies up here, and I've noticed a desire for smaller companies to prefer people with small/startup experience. I don't blame them, some of…

For a different viewpoint, I moved away from Maine after college, to Massachusetts, and wouldn't move back. The politics of the area are backwards and profoundly broken in the "boy, I hope you're a straight white male or things are gonna get rough " sort of way you don't expect from the general oasis of New England sanity, the drug issues in the places I grew up are rampant, and the public schools are being actively…

I'm in the Portland area, which I think helps. Occasionally we miss city life, so we head down to Boston, which is a pretty reasonable 90 minute drive.

I don't think I could live too far north of Freeport or Brunswick, and I'm not very interested in living too far west of 95. Parts of this state are certainly backwards. Actually, the majority is if you go by land area, but I think we have a nice thing going in York and Cumberland counties.

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