I love this ! Raw, insightful, practical and very honest :) I too have escaped the rat race but unfortunately I didn’t have valuable coding skills your have , so it took a bit longer . Loving living out the city and exploring and hiking through nature - time I would have to spend commuting if I lived in the big city ! Thanks for sharing your insights !
How to work 2 hours and have 80% of developer salary? Could you give an example of how one could do that? Are there companies willing to employ you for 2 hours a day or it different system? How you were doing that?
You have to explain to your clients how you can provide value: good companies do not care how many hours you work as long as you provide value to them. In the beginning, I suggest taking any remote job and get some experience. As you get more specialized, you can jump contracts until you find a company with a good work/salary/meetings balance.
What advice would you give to someone starting out in the tech sector (perhaps with a focus on on soft dev)? Start remote or in an office at junior level? If you were starting now how would you pick your niche / direction?
Good question. You can start offline, but it makes more sense to go once per week in the office as a Junior. You make friends, go for beers together, those things. I got bored of it soon though.
Thank you for sharing this! OK I really found here the content I need.
I'd like to ask you about location as a new coder: You started out in Italy, now you probably live in the UK. When you talk about a salary of $600-1000 a day, is that as a freelancer with American companies? How do you find out about working this way, and what are the legal constraints in each country?
Good article! A someone who lives in London by choice, since my work would allow me to work anywhere, I have toyed with the idea of moving to a smaller town or to the middle of the woods but after close examination I always find those options are quite idealised and not as practical.
From the top of mind, some pros I find from living in a big city:
- Easy access to home services: nannies, cleaning, repairs etc
- Choice of in person education options
- Lots of communities around interests: parent networks, education, hobbies etc
- Access to entertainment at doorstep: restaurants, bars, museums, concerts, sports events etc
- First access to new tech and services such as Fibre internet, 5G
- Easy access to airports/train stations
Some cons:
- Cost
- Rush hour/commutes
- Air quality
I agree about the definition of rat race hubs in the past 100% office world with long commute and high cost leaving not a lot of room to enjoy a relaxed life while building wealth.
But in the new hybrid/remote-first world that is coming I can see how, on top of all the current advantages, the rush hour and air quality pains are going to gradually improve and global cities such as London that are always competing to be best cities to live in are going to adapt to this new world quickly: more walkable areas, transforming retail/office space into residential areas, more green spaces and business catered towards the all remote which might tip the balance to make it ideal for all remote as well.
I'm sure you can have a great life in London, it's just quite expensive. But you can get 90% of the things you like of London in a smaller town, like Oxford or Cambridge, at a fraction of the price and air pollution. Or same price but bigger house, more greenery, less chaos.
London will have to get cheaper and cleaner if it wants to compete. This is also why I think houses in big cities are not a good investment going forward.
Those towns are also not cheap but I agree it should be possible to get a bigger property for a similar price. Its going to be very interesting to see how things estabilize post pandemic, might consider making a move then. And as of investment I agree, if I were to build a property portfolio in the UK, I would do it in smaller cities since the wealth is going to be better distributed moving forward and there are many better opportunities for growth.
Interesting post! I totally agree with basic principles you have described here - invest more then you spend and over the time you'll profit from compound effect. Still how could you request $ 500-1000 / day for you work, while "normal" salary for developers, even if we talk about senior level with several years of experience and master degree, is about 100-150k / year?
Yes, that sounds plausible! Anyway, if you work in Europe, you have almost 50% income tax. Btw, how long did it take by you to gain enough experience firmtest level of income? That is already senior dev salary, right?
You mentioned to specialise in something like: "AWS, JS, Python, React" so basically I just graduated at university with a high grade in Artificial Intelligence specifically. I would say I know how to code well, but these kind of jobs require some aspect of specialism, a portfolio an AWS certificate etc... I mean what I am about to ask here mainly more than anything is, what specifically do I need to do, to show I have such a specialism? Take for example you have AWS an official certification in this for machine learning is $300, I don't have that kind of money after university, but I could learn AWS off YouTube or something. I mean overall I can't figure out what to do to show people, "hey you I can do this job hire me" overall, a degree is not enough it seems, it does not help the constant invalidation of degrees online as well, in a world where I believe they still have value despite there expense, I still learned an awful lot that the regular public don't know on AI through academic research, talking to people (like what I am doing with this comment haha) and access to academic resources and so forth. But anyway any advice what I should do in my situation I would much appreciate it.
Ok to clarify firstly I am actually asking how you even get a basic low paid entry level job as a recent graduate, even with past experience. Secondly you said a junior role, which is very very different to an entry level graduate role in my opinion. So to clarify if you know how I can get a low paid junior role easily (where my rejection rate is usually higher for these) or more ideally an entry level graduate role then please let me know I would happy do one.
This does not help, similar to the previous comment, it tells me what to do but not how to do it. These jobs reject me at a rate of approximately 250 entry level jobs per week. No one will give me feedback on what I am doing wrong or anything, so I presume I need to learn more, but then how do I learn / specialise without paying for expensive courses and further qualifications? Is that actually the issue here?
You will learn how to do going into the topic, trying and trying, step by step, by yourself. Nobody will teach you that. If you keep on asking on how to do it, you will never learn how to do it. When I was a child my father used to tell me: "Jump in the sea and you will automatically learn how to float and swim. And floating is guaranteed to all the human beings. So you can never fail. Jump! Now ;-)
Direi "Studia". In Italia l'università è gratuita. Per molti è più facile fare una triennale in Informatica che imparare a programmare da soli, ma le strade sono molte. In generale direi che le basi di informatica sono ancora lo strumento migliore. Soprattutto lo saranno fra 10 anni quando forse AWS non esisterà più. Se conosci già le basi, allora AWS, JS, Python.
Is there an error in the compound example, isn't it? 0.5 -> 100.5 and not 105 after an year... but the compound effect is still massive later in time...
I like your definition of money:
"when we don't know what to do, we focus on making more money, assuming we are going to figure out what to do with it later."
Keep writing!
I love this ! Raw, insightful, practical and very honest :) I too have escaped the rat race but unfortunately I didn’t have valuable coding skills your have , so it took a bit longer . Loving living out the city and exploring and hiking through nature - time I would have to spend commuting if I lived in the big city ! Thanks for sharing your insights !
Very interesting story. Thanks!
what websites for remote work in Europe do you recommend?
How to work 2 hours and have 80% of developer salary? Could you give an example of how one could do that? Are there companies willing to employ you for 2 hours a day or it different system? How you were doing that?
You have to explain to your clients how you can provide value: good companies do not care how many hours you work as long as you provide value to them. In the beginning, I suggest taking any remote job and get some experience. As you get more specialized, you can jump contracts until you find a company with a good work/salary/meetings balance.
Thanks for this great article.
What advice would you give to someone starting out in the tech sector (perhaps with a focus on on soft dev)? Start remote or in an office at junior level? If you were starting now how would you pick your niche / direction?
Good question. You can start offline, but it makes more sense to go once per week in the office as a Junior. You make friends, go for beers together, those things. I got bored of it soon though.
Thank you for sharing this! OK I really found here the content I need.
I'd like to ask you about location as a new coder: You started out in Italy, now you probably live in the UK. When you talk about a salary of $600-1000 a day, is that as a freelancer with American companies? How do you find out about working this way, and what are the legal constraints in each country?
Ciao Amaca, posso contattarti in qualche modo? Anche rimanendo anonimi. Grazie!
Good article! A someone who lives in London by choice, since my work would allow me to work anywhere, I have toyed with the idea of moving to a smaller town or to the middle of the woods but after close examination I always find those options are quite idealised and not as practical.
From the top of mind, some pros I find from living in a big city:
- Easy access to home services: nannies, cleaning, repairs etc
- Choice of in person education options
- Lots of communities around interests: parent networks, education, hobbies etc
- Access to entertainment at doorstep: restaurants, bars, museums, concerts, sports events etc
- First access to new tech and services such as Fibre internet, 5G
- Easy access to airports/train stations
Some cons:
- Cost
- Rush hour/commutes
- Air quality
I agree about the definition of rat race hubs in the past 100% office world with long commute and high cost leaving not a lot of room to enjoy a relaxed life while building wealth.
But in the new hybrid/remote-first world that is coming I can see how, on top of all the current advantages, the rush hour and air quality pains are going to gradually improve and global cities such as London that are always competing to be best cities to live in are going to adapt to this new world quickly: more walkable areas, transforming retail/office space into residential areas, more green spaces and business catered towards the all remote which might tip the balance to make it ideal for all remote as well.
I'm sure you can have a great life in London, it's just quite expensive. But you can get 90% of the things you like of London in a smaller town, like Oxford or Cambridge, at a fraction of the price and air pollution. Or same price but bigger house, more greenery, less chaos.
London will have to get cheaper and cleaner if it wants to compete. This is also why I think houses in big cities are not a good investment going forward.
Those towns are also not cheap but I agree it should be possible to get a bigger property for a similar price. Its going to be very interesting to see how things estabilize post pandemic, might consider making a move then. And as of investment I agree, if I were to build a property portfolio in the UK, I would do it in smaller cities since the wealth is going to be better distributed moving forward and there are many better opportunities for growth.
Interesting post! I totally agree with basic principles you have described here - invest more then you spend and over the time you'll profit from compound effect. Still how could you request $ 500-1000 / day for you work, while "normal" salary for developers, even if we talk about senior level with several years of experience and master degree, is about 100-150k / year?
600$ per day * 252 working days = 151,200$ / year.
There is nothing exceptional about these salaries.
Anyhow, you can do similarly well even with 300$/day, as long as you spend very little. It's all about the savings rate.
Yes, that sounds plausible! Anyway, if you work in Europe, you have almost 50% income tax. Btw, how long did it take by you to gain enough experience firmtest level of income? That is already senior dev salary, right?
For italians like us, from a taxs point of view, Is better to work as an employer or freelancer ? ( Im a junior dev )
You mentioned to specialise in something like: "AWS, JS, Python, React" so basically I just graduated at university with a high grade in Artificial Intelligence specifically. I would say I know how to code well, but these kind of jobs require some aspect of specialism, a portfolio an AWS certificate etc... I mean what I am about to ask here mainly more than anything is, what specifically do I need to do, to show I have such a specialism? Take for example you have AWS an official certification in this for machine learning is $300, I don't have that kind of money after university, but I could learn AWS off YouTube or something. I mean overall I can't figure out what to do to show people, "hey you I can do this job hire me" overall, a degree is not enough it seems, it does not help the constant invalidation of degrees online as well, in a world where I believe they still have value despite there expense, I still learned an awful lot that the regular public don't know on AI through academic research, talking to people (like what I am doing with this comment haha) and access to academic resources and so forth. But anyway any advice what I should do in my situation I would much appreciate it.
Ok to clarify firstly I am actually asking how you even get a basic low paid entry level job as a recent graduate, even with past experience. Secondly you said a junior role, which is very very different to an entry level graduate role in my opinion. So to clarify if you know how I can get a low paid junior role easily (where my rejection rate is usually higher for these) or more ideally an entry level graduate role then please let me know I would happy do one.
My guide to getting into tech:
1. Target smaller companies, we all want the big tech job but rarely does one start at the top.
2. Read the job description well.
3. Update your CV or resume to show you meet as many requirements as you can.
4. Do interviews, do tons of them. More than one a week if you can.
5. Fail hard, then immediately try again.
This does not help, similar to the previous comment, it tells me what to do but not how to do it. These jobs reject me at a rate of approximately 250 entry level jobs per week. No one will give me feedback on what I am doing wrong or anything, so I presume I need to learn more, but then how do I learn / specialise without paying for expensive courses and further qualifications? Is that actually the issue here?
You will learn how to do going into the topic, trying and trying, step by step, by yourself. Nobody will teach you that. If you keep on asking on how to do it, you will never learn how to do it. When I was a child my father used to tell me: "Jump in the sea and you will automatically learn how to float and swim. And floating is guaranteed to all the human beings. So you can never fail. Jump! Now ;-)
So basically you don't know, why not just say that.
Ottimo articolo, ottimi spunti. Hai fatto qualche uni o sei self taught?
Che indirizzo daresti a qualcuno che deve crearsi ora una carriera, early 20? "Studia AWS"?
Direi "Studia". In Italia l'università è gratuita. Per molti è più facile fare una triennale in Informatica che imparare a programmare da soli, ma le strade sono molte. In generale direi che le basi di informatica sono ancora lo strumento migliore. Soprattutto lo saranno fra 10 anni quando forse AWS non esisterà più. Se conosci già le basi, allora AWS, JS, Python.
Is there an error in the compound example, isn't it? 0.5 -> 100.5 and not 105 after an year... but the compound effect is still massive later in time...
Yes, sorry I meant 5% per year. Corrected
Di nulla. E ottimo post!
No I think it’s right. $100 x 1.05= $105
that's 5% not 0.5%
Great and inspiring article, thank you a lot for it!
One question: do you buy physical gold or ETC (e.g. iShares Physical Gold ETC)?
ETC, but I don't what I'm doing. Most financial advisors would recommend 0% in gold.
How would you go about strategically choosing skills to specialize in for maximum pay and minimum effort?
Go to remoteok.com and check what companies are looking for.