You have everything you need to clone a SaaS offering for your local environment. Find a product that would be useful if it was local and copy it.
What should third world dev do in this economy?
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Re: What should third world dev do in this economy?
#12You could try entrepreneurship. Try publishing apps in the App Store. A friend makes $500usd/mo passively because he copied and existing app but focused the content on Southeast Asia.
There aren’t any easy answers any more, but I would spend as much time as I could building stuff and see what works.
Re: What should third world dev do in this economy?
#13There’s a flip side to being a dev from low income countries, where the cost of living can be freeing. The entire cost of building software is paying for programmers time. If you are skilled and talented, the arbitrage of your time being so cheap from low cost of living can pay massive dividends if you are working on something worthwhile. There’s a reason all of the best games in the last 5-10 years have been almost exclusively European and Asian devs. The US has priced itself out of being able to do anything but the most expensive high level software work that scales to billions of users. The result is that there’s a ton of room in the middle now for small software teams that are able to bootstrap.
Re: What should third world dev do in this economy?
#14The easiest way for me would be to find a product with an App Store e.g. Shopify, Confluence and build apps for it. Potentially find niches that would be useful just to Bangladesh and work from there. Or look for features that are popular in competitor products and add them. This at least won't cost you anything except your time.
I think this is good advice. I would also add: get in to the freelance mindset whereby, in times of slow business, you put on your sales and marketing hat and devote a significant proportion of your time to selling: contacting, networking, hustling.
Re: What should third world dev do in this economy?
#15You are mostly asking the wrong people, the reality for most in here has absolutely nothing to do with your situation, they can hardly comprehend it.
Look at what other people in your community did or ask them. As someone who left a developing country I would say get a degree any degree really and then get a job and some savings, you can then apply to a masters program abroad, a lot of countries this will be free with or without scholarships you might even get a stipend. EU especially.
Re: What should third world dev do in this economy?
#16[dead]
Re: What should third world dev do in this economy?
#17I’m curious what skills the pools of under employed “third word” devs mostly have? Which programming languages, which frameworks, how much Linux knowledge etc. For the various VC types on here it might help with brainstorming ideas on how to best utilize such a talent pool.
Re: What should third world dev do in this economy?
#18Hello, software dev. from the US, but I'm originally from E. Europe and went through Soviet Union collapse, societal disintegration,rampant crime, poverty and seen lot of very high caliber people (PhD scientists/engineers) who unfortunately were thrown into fringe of the society or life completely side-stepped them. What you can do ?
You are 19. Get physically strong (exercise), have a skill(s) to do manual job (like welding) so in case things go bad, you can fall back on it. In the meantime, work on your programming, math skills & imagination.
Good luck !
Re: What should third world dev do in this economy?
#19Undergrad is wholly unnecessary for most people. I don't have a particular solution for you, but where there's tremendous issues, there's tremendous opportunity. So, I'd encourage you to focus on trying to address the needs of your community and broader country, in one way or another - perhaps digitally, perhaps not. Look at what Grameen did for some inspiration.
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Re: What should third world dev do in this economy?
#20So-called "third world" "dev" here. Double-quoted "dev" because I'm actually a graphic designer who happens to do a tiny bit of coding.
I kind of understand what you feel because I went through the same on multiple ocassions. The situation here doesn't seem too nice either - people are fleeing not because they want to improve the situation in here or are being directly affected by it but because they want it to not reach them, which I think it's a really pathetic mindset. I have absolutely no desire to leave this place despite all of its problems - it seems to me in other places nowadays you're going to be hated/discriminated/ostracized just because you are you.
I struggled to get a job many times. I'm really fortunate to have a job now, and though it's not a super great income (it seems I lowballed myself a bit) the salary is enough to keep my family going and overall it has been great to learn and improve and I can actually spend the time working and not on inocuous and useless things like meetings and stress and stuff - but I suffer from impostor syndrome on a daily basis and I fear the project is going to end soon so I might find myself looking for a new job in the following weeks or (luckily) months so I'm going to get to first base.
You have the advantage to be young so you still can learn a lot of stuff you'll remember, so invest your time learning, but like actually diving deep into the stuff you really like. That alone will give you an advantage - everybody seems to be a jack of all trades nowadays but few seem to have a bit knowledge of things - if you market yourself as a person with a deep knowledge in something can be much better than trying to seem a know-it-all. Plus knowing english is a big plus you seem to have.
Also build yourself your online portfolio, the best you can do, showcasing the stuff you've done (or, if you haven't done stuff, just get time to create projects for fun, get involved with FOSS/Open Source projects where you can contribute and probably be seen, etc). Your portfolio is like your digital face so you'd want to write the best, cleanest, most readable code possible for your portfolio. The great thing about this part is that you don't actually need the newest, shiniest framework to do it - bare HTML and CSS and some JS will suffice. Believe me or not I suspect what has given me the little gigs I've got was not my portfolio itself but its code.
Oh and upwork and fiverr now are awful places to get freelance jobs. I got luck here in the "Seeking for a job?" posts, and if you search in this site, some people have left great recommendations for alternative places to look for freelance jobs that aren't as absurdly competitive or rigged.
Most importantly, don't lose hope and keep being persistent. You might get some luck between your dedication and perseverance.