Ask HN: I feel trapped in my job and city

I'm not sure how you can't afford a house in London with your jobs; maybe you're not as highly paid as you think, maybe you need to save / invest more, maybe your standards for housing are above what you can find in London (truly horrendous overpriced properties).

That said, as a fellow Londoner who is about to leave for sunnier places, I think you can find a better balance in terms of location and compensation.

If you can't work remote for less in your field, learn some coding and spend a couple of years in some medium sized company / startup in London. Not Google, find a place you enjoy working for: most likely you won't have to grind leetcode to pass an interview, you'll get more flexibility, less stress - and you'll get way less money. I've seen (capable and very smart) people switch jobs, do a bootcamp and earn 80k£ per year 2 years after the bootcamp. Likewise, I've seen people with 15 years experience making 40k£ (and being less effective than the 80k£ person).

Once you have some experience in London as a developer you should be able to land a fully remote gig and then you can work from wherever you prefer.

In terms of motivation, I think I will never be satisfied working for someone else, hence why I decided to run my own business (after both contracting and full time positions). You get to solve a wider array of problems (from accounting, to coding, to whatever is needed), there is no politics, promotions or performance involved. If you do a good job and solve problems for someone else, you get more money, else, you starve. Spend some time thinking if entrepreneurship is something for you. In case it is, set yourself small goals. Start by thinking where you want to live, how much money would you need, etc. Maybe use your existing savings from the high paid job to purchase a property (surely cheaper than London) and have lower expenses (bills, food, entertainment).

In regards to your partner - life is all about choices and it's too short to waste. Some people care a lot about their career. Some people see it as a rat race.

If you strongly care about living somewhere else and your partner can't find a compromise, maybe it wasn't destiny. I lost a 5 years old relationship because our goals weren't compatible, with me dreaming of running my own business from the beach and her dreaming a safe, high paying government job in her native country.

Best of luck!

London is hard. My take on it was; People go there to "make it" and put huge pressure on themselves to, and as a result live to work. People end up socialising pretty much only in work circles, and ex-work circles (including uni), a lot of the time because after work is the only time they're in proximity with their social group (as nobody lives closer than 30 mins to anyone else) As a freelancer I tried to fight this and floated from group to group. Looking back on my career, the best jobs/work were based almost solely on whom I was working with.

Whilst its not a quick fix (finding the perfect place), if you can't leave london, my perspective would be to try and find an employer/job with people you enjoy being around. If a job is inevitable, spent 50 hours a week amongst people you want to be around.

Money comes and goes. Sure housing is always good to have N-10 years ago.

I had to cram for a FAANG interview earlier this year after being unexpected invited to apply. I came close but didn't get the job and was told I can try again in 6 months. BTW, I'm in Los Angeles.

Then the past few months I've had several other big tech companies reach out and told them I'm not going to interview this summer.

I recently had a former Microsoft Program Manager tell me that "the more experienced the person being interviewed the worse they are at interviews because that haven't used that part the brain in 20 years".

The interviews are such a pain now make me kind of wish I was doing something other than Computer Science.

Bank enough money to formulate an exit plan that includes what you're going to do for money next, after this.

I just bought a 10-acre farm in Ireland. I paid cash. Not all of my cash. There's cash left to buy a pickup, animals, spruce up the house, startup capital for some farm enterprises, etc. That's what my sometimes soul-killing job in Finance-Tech has done for me. That's what yours can do for you: provide you the means to do something else. Figure out what it is, and do it.

I agree mostly. But staying at my parents’ grand house really brings home the difference in quality of life.. I like baking but barely have any worktop space in my tiny kitchen in London; they have a massive kitchen with a table in it etc etc