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Politicians and economists lament that certain alpha regions — SF, LA, NYC, Boston, Toronto, London, Paris — attract all the best jobs while becoming repellently expensive, reducing economic mobility and contributing to further bifurcation between haves and have-nots. But why don't the best jobs move elsewhere?
Of course, many of them can't. The average financier in NYC or London (until Brexit annihilates London's banking industry, of course...) would be laughed out of the office, and not invited back, if they told their boss they wanted to henceforth work from Chiang Mai.
But this isn't true of (much of) the software field. The average web/app developer might have such a request declined; but they would not be laughed at, or fired. The demand for good developers greatly outstrips supply, and in this era of Skype and Slack, there's nothing about software development that requires meatspace interactions.
[...]Some people will tell you that remote teams are inherently less effective and productive than localized ones, or that "serendipitous collisions" are so important that every employee must be forced to the same physical location every day so that these collisions can be manufactured. These people are wrong, as long as the team in question is small — on the order of handfuls, dozens or scores, rather than hundreds or thousands — and flexible.
Because the feedlot isn't hiring for Ruby?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04 2017, @11:53PM (2 children)
I assume it's because anyone dumb enough to write somebody else's programs for a living is dumb enough to live in a big city.
The way I see it, you can get 80% of the benefits of the big city life (which as far as I'm concerned are all directly or indirectly about more "places", of every sort, within walking or cycling distance) by living in (or better yet, near) a big town or small city, with 20% of the pain, frustration and expense.
And as for programming -- it's fun! I'd be a damned fool to ruin that fun by tying my livelihood to it and giving up control of what I program, especially in light of how very many developer jobs seem to be hellholes of frustration.
So either most people who get developer jobs and live in big cities are pretty dumb, or maybe I'm dumb. Obviously, I prefer to believe the former.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @01:19AM
I agree with everything you say.
However, I moved to a big city. The job opportunities just were not there.
It is also no longer 'fun'. It is however pretty much all I am any good at. I am very very very good at it too. But fun is not what I would describe it as anymore.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @04:05AM
Yeah, I made the mistake of turning a programming hobby into a job. It's been nothing but frustration.
Having lived outside of big cities my whole life, though, I think I want to give city life a try once. I get more liberal the older I get.
The benefits of being away from big cities are pretty tangible, though.