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Why do developers who could work anywhere flock to the most expensive cities?

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Re: Why do developers who could work anywhere flock to the most expensive cities?

#101

Post by anovikov »

apexalpha wrote: post #82

> it was always a country to keep offshore companies/accounts, so every rich developer in ex-USSR already been there and knew the place, but since 2014 it started to make sense to move physically as well I'm sure that has nothing to do with the fact that since 3 years ago Cyprus (among others) 'sells' EU permanent residency permits to rich foreigners. You can imagin that an EU permanent residency permit, allowing you…

That is not a EU permanent residency permit. It is just for Cyprus. Cyprus is not even in Schengen, and this permit doesn't even allow free travel, you still need a visa to go even to Greece. It also gives no right to work or do any kind of business (even in Cyprus), i.e. it is against the goals of these people, it is mostly for retirees.

A 2-year residence permit which becomes permanent in 5 years is easy to get in any Baltic country, and it is a lot less restricting. That is, if you are too rich to work, but not rich enough to buy a passport. Otherwise you can get a permanent permit in Germany after 2 years of work which will give you full rights similar to U.S. green card, in all of the EU.

Re: Why do developers who could work anywhere flock to the most expensive cities?

#102

Post by stupidcar »

arjie wrote: post #93
apexalpha wrote: post #82

> it was always a country to keep offshore companies/accounts, so every rich developer in ex-USSR already been there and knew the place, but since 2014 it started to make sense to move physically as well I'm sure that has nothing to do with the fact that since 3 years ago Cyprus (among others) 'sells' EU permanent residency permits to rich foreigners. You can imagin that an EU permanent residency permit, allowing you…

Everyone sells residency and citizenship. The list of desirable countries that don't is probably shorter than the list that do. Latvia, for instance, is much cheaper and gets you into Schengen with an investor visa followed up by investor citizenship.

Yep. Want to become resident in the UK? Agree to invest £1m and a "Tier 1" visa is yours: https://www.gov.uk/tier-1-investor. The US has a similar programme to sell Immigrant Investor Visas: https://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/immigrate/Immigran....

Re: Why do developers who could work anywhere flock to the most expensive cities?

#103

Post by expertentipp »

Because that's where the jobs are. I'm always wondering why the most interesting and best paid sofware openings in EU are in the shithole cities cities like London, Paris, Zurich, Munich etc (I'm not talking about these "best cities to live" rankings). Try renting anything livable there - it's not only extortionate but can be very difficult in terms of required documentation, try to eat out or use any services (prices), hanging out is difficult (Germany is simply old in terms of demographics, Switzerland boring and formal), etc. Don't make me relocate there.

Re: Why do developers who could work anywhere flock to the most expensive cities?

#104

Post by danmaz74 »

ivanvanderbyl wrote: post #63
rdtsc wrote: post #25

Because there is no critical mass to "work from anywhere". Amazon/Facebook/Google/Microsoft doesn't let its workers work from home in general. A lot of tech companies don't as well. So moving to CheapSmallTown means when losing the job still having to go back to ExpensiveTechHub to network and find a new job. So might as well stay in ExpensiveTechHub just to be sure. Imagine if all those large tech companies and othe…

It's worth pointing out that the "big four" tech companies aren't the only tech companies worth working at. You could very well have a higher upside working at a small, remotely friendly company, from Chiang Mai or Bali where the cost of living is 1/15th of SF, and still have a relative mass of expats doing similar things. Speaking from experience, I'm much more relaxed working from Bali, and I get paid only 20% less…

> and I get paid only 20% less than I did in SF

Out of curiosity, did you start your current job while in SF and then moved? Or did you find the job while you were already overseas? If the latter, was the hiring process remote too?

Re: Why do developers who could work anywhere flock to the most expensive cities?

#105

Post by StavrosK »

anovikov wrote: post #101
apexalpha wrote: post #82

> it was always a country to keep offshore companies/accounts, so every rich developer in ex-USSR already been there and knew the place, but since 2014 it started to make sense to move physically as well I'm sure that has nothing to do with the fact that since 3 years ago Cyprus (among others) 'sells' EU permanent residency permits to rich foreigners. You can imagin that an EU permanent residency permit, allowing you…

That is not a EU permanent residency permit. It is just for Cyprus. Cyprus is not even in Schengen, and this permit doesn't even allow free travel, you still need a visa to go even to Greece. It also gives no right to work or do any kind of business (even in Cyprus), i.e. it is against the goals of these people, it is mostly for retirees. A 2-year residence permit which becomes permanent in 5 years is easy to get in…

Do you need a visa to go to Greece? Cypriot citizens can definitely travel to Greece with just their ID cards, but I'm not sure about immigrants.

Re: Why do developers who could work anywhere flock to the most expensive cities?

#106

Post by anovikov »

StavrosK wrote: post #105
anovikov wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not a EU permanent residency permit. It is just for Cyprus. Cyprus is not even in Schengen, and this permit doesn't even allow free travel, you still need a visa to go even to Greece. It also gives no right to work or do any kind of business (even in Cyprus), i.e. it is against the goals of these people, it is mostly for retirees. A 2-year residence permit which becomes permanent in 5 years is easy to get in…

Do you need a visa to go to Greece? Cypriot citizens can definitely travel to Greece with just their ID cards, but I'm not sure about immigrants.

Of course, because they are EU citizens. All EU citizens can travel freely. But immigrants need a visa since Cyprus is not in Schengen. This is the case with all non-Schengen EU countries, like, immigrants living in London need a visa to go to Paris, but a Romanian doesn't need visa to go to London. An immigrant in a Schengen country can travel to any other Schengen country plus new non-Schengen entrants: Cyprus, Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia. For example, i am an immigrant in Lithuania (Schengen) and i travelled to Cyprus and Romania with no visa (i can't even technically apply for one), plus many Schengen states.

Re: Why do developers who could work anywhere flock to the most expensive cities?

#107

Post by StavrosK »

randomsearch wrote: post #84
adamors wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moving to the US is not a rational decision in 2017.

For many people I work with, even visiting the US is something they're trying to avoid.

I can confirm, I'm definitely thinking twice before visiting my friends and coworkers in the US again, and I'm positively not going to book a flight that goes through the US when flying to another American country (eg Canada).

Re: Why do developers who could work anywhere flock to the most expensive cities?

#108

Post by pjmlp »

Etheryte wrote: post #87
twblalock wrote: post #80

I know someone who was a remote worker from the early 1990s until a year or two ago. He was working from home in the Bay Area for a while, and moved somewhere else to get a lower cost of living. Well, he pulled that off for a long time, but eventually he got laid off and couldn't find remote work. It's actually harder to find remote work now than it used to be. So, he settled for a local job with a lower salary than…

I'd say the situation is quite the opposite - it's now easier to find remote work than ever before. With numerous known companies embracing remote work, it's becoming both a lot more common to work remotely and also a lot more acceptable to inquire whether remote work would be an option.

Here in Europe, it pretty hard, because companies considering remote work will rather do it with eastern or asian companies, not local people.

If you are on the same country, the expectation is that remote work is to be done occasionally, mostly between one to two days per week, if at all.

Re: Why do developers who could work anywhere flock to the most expensive cities?

#109

Post by fest »

arjie wrote: post #93
apexalpha wrote: post #82

> it was always a country to keep offshore companies/accounts, so every rich developer in ex-USSR already been there and knew the place, but since 2014 it started to make sense to move physically as well I'm sure that has nothing to do with the fact that since 3 years ago Cyprus (among others) 'sells' EU permanent residency permits to rich foreigners. You can imagin that an EU permanent residency permit, allowing you…

Everyone sells residency and citizenship. The list of desirable countries that don't is probably shorter than the list that do. Latvia, for instance, is much cheaper and gets you into Schengen with an investor visa followed up by investor citizenship.

In Latvia you either have to buy a property worth more than 250kEUR, invest more than 35kEUR in a business or deposit more than 280k.

From my standpoint, the biggest risk is a certain neighbour country with historical appetite for "preserving it's territorial interests".

Re: Why do developers who could work anywhere flock to the most expensive cities?

#110

Post by barilla1234 »

Ok. Let's look at Mark Zuck. He and his facebook plan were going to succeed anyway. If he had said, I need 10 000 devs working right next to me in Managua, Nicaragua, that is where they would be today. He didn't do it, but Zuck could have. Doing Facebook out of Managua would have worked, just like doing Skype out of Talinn, Estonia today works perfectly-well too.
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