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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

#171

Post by dang »

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…

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14114500 and marked it off-topic.

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

#172

Post by humanrebar »

zumu wrote: post #41
humanrebar wrote: post #3

> For all sorts of reasons, New Zealand suddenly makes sense. The cost of living is less than in San Francisco. Commuting is less wearying. And American politics, “Brexit” and the Islamic State are on the other side of the world. For the most part, this is all true in, say, Tulsa. Especially if you stay off Facebook. You especially don't have to go to New Zealand to find a cheaper, commuter-friendly place to work. No…

> For the most part, this is all true in, say, Woah woah woah, as someone who used to live in Tulsa, don't even joke. It is easily one of the most aggressively conservative and corrupt cities in the US.

Given these comments in this thread, not just this one, I must have missed some dog whistle where this was a pitch to liberal engineers that can't afford San Fransisco anymore.

Anyway, I picked a medium-small city arbitrarily. Look at Lawrence, Kansas or Bloomington, IN then. They each have big state universities in town. Or Eugene, OR.

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

#173

Post by humanrebar »

gdulli wrote: post #50
humanrebar wrote: post #3

> For all sorts of reasons, New Zealand suddenly makes sense. The cost of living is less than in San Francisco. Commuting is less wearying. And American politics, “Brexit” and the Islamic State are on the other side of the world. For the most part, this is all true in, say, Tulsa. Especially if you stay off Facebook. You especially don't have to go to New Zealand to find a cheaper, commuter-friendly place to work. No…

Conflating politics with what shows up in your Facebook feed is how we got into this mess.

Agreed. I've just observed that the really agitated people tend to agitate themselves more than their environment does. Social media being an obvious example.

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

#174

Post by pxlpshr »

qume wrote: post #168
geebee wrote: post #158

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 Zeala…

NZ takes in 50k and have a population of 4mm. So 1 per 80 population. US takes in 1mm per 300mm population, or 1 per 300. NZ takes proportionately much more than the US. A similar calculation can be done for immigrants per area of land.

Not saying I disagree with you but... historical immigration policy certainly impacts "today's" population size that you're using to draw your comparison.

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

#175

Post by Apocryphon »

humanrebar wrote: post #3

> For all sorts of reasons, New Zealand suddenly makes sense. The cost of living is less than in San Francisco. Commuting is less wearying. And American politics, “Brexit” and the Islamic State are on the other side of the world. For the most part, this is all true in, say, Tulsa. Especially if you stay off Facebook. You especially don't have to go to New Zealand to find a cheaper, commuter-friendly place to work. No…

When I think of NZ, I imagine South Pacific beaches, lush forests of emu and kiwi and other exotic animals, and the landscape of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy.

What natural beauty does Tulsa have?

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

#176

Post by gnat »

ox_magnet wrote: post #159
scalatohaskell wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The further outside Auckland, the cheaper it'll be. Some bits of Agtech are harder than others in NZ because biosecurity rules, etc. Feel free to flick me email and I'll help if I can: me@gnat.me

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

#177

Post by joenot443 »

eggie5 wrote: post #9

I'm in that looksee contest the article says got works wide interest but when I look at the online dashboard it says only 556 people are registered and in the running....

Yeah - I'm very curious for where that 48,000 figure comes from.

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

#179

Post by GFischer »

ivm wrote: post #149
jankotek wrote: post #16

Ireland is similar, minus the isolation. In Shannon you can leave a car 100 meters from terminal, and board direct US flight in 30 minutes.

Ireland is under the radar. One more hidden gem is Chile, especially considering land/property prices and freelance-friendly visas.

Salaries in Chile aren't that great though (except for some top-level talent I guess). I've been told about USD 3000/month tops. But it's definitely the best country in South America for IT talent.

I live in Uruguay, and Americans think it's great, but it's not (barring an exceptional job offer/salary as usual). Lots of jobs but very low paying (USD 1000/month take home salary for entry level dev, USD 2000 for experienced dev. Gross salary can be almost twice because taxes are very harsh) and extremely expensive on a standard salary. We do have a tremendous amount of immigrants from the poorer Latin American countries, especially Venezuela and Dominican Republic.

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

#180

Post by craigds »

lj3 wrote: post #86
TheAlchemist wrote: post #13

That's interesting ! I'm intending to make a move with my family in near future, and we actually went to visit the northern island for 15 days last month. The country is really beautiful, and there are not a lot of people around, so you can't help but feel blessed by the surrounding nature. The people are great, probably the nicest I've ever seen (as a whole). I've noted some cons though (not blocking for us thankful…

> We were pretty much shocked because we naively thought that in such a beautiful and clean country everybody is running / biking all the time. Surprisingly, NZ is not a good place for cycling. A guy and his wife[0] did a world cycling tour a while back and Wellington is the only place where he had serious issues with the locals[1]. [0]: http://www.pathlesspedaled.com/ [1]: https://www.seattlebikeblog.com/2012/01/12/…

Auckland at least is making steady progress, depending on where your commute is. I cycle an hour each way to work, and there's only about 500m total where I have to join the car lanes. Rest of the way it's bus and cycle lanes.
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