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Comment by nicomfe | Hacker News Reader

Developers in Australia and New Zealand are really well paid.

Not only that, (in Australia) we have free public healthcare, required superannuation (401k isn't a "perk"), a minimum of 4 weeks annual leave a year and around 12 public holidays. More generally, we have a pretty great country that has a decent minimum wage and pretty low living costs (Sydney is starting to get... high, though).

Still not paid nearly as much as US devs.

Unless maybe I should start looking for my next job :|

Do you know that for a fact, or are you assuming that is the case? Developer salaries, especially in the non-cubicle-dweller sphere, are really VERY high. Of course, most of the jobs are in Sydney or Melbourne where the cost of living is also very high, even after taking into account the universal health care.

The majority of dev jobs here in AU probably are in the 'cubicle-dweller' sphere. I've looked around at various roles advertised in syd/melb and there are very few jobs in my are (.NET 5+ years experience) paying more than, say, AUD$120k, unless some specialised knowledge is required eg trading, machine learning, etc. That's the equivalent of US$92k which seems lower (like.. >50% lower) than in comparable cities in the US.

Of course you'd then have to live in the US, which is a downside.

Cost of living is very high in NZ though - 15% sales tax on everything, including food. Not to mention the housing is very low quality - not up to US or Western European standards.

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