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Comment by icebraining | Hacker News Reader

I guess some of us suck at finding jobs; I'm asking for less than 3x our minimum wage (which is quite low, compared to our cost of living) as a Python dev with 6 years of experience, and companies are treating it as an extraordinary amount. I only managed to make some real savings working abroad.

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Are you talking about yourself? I can hardly see someone with 40k karma in hn charging less than $100/hour.

Stop selling yourself short.

Yes, I'm talking about myself :) I know I'm worth more, but that doesn't help if the buyers with money to afford it aren't here. I'm exploring remote, we'll see what happens.

I’m not sure why I’m getting downvoted. With your writing skills, you can sell articles. I did that when I started and didn’t have enough connection to get real programming gigs.

Articles pay range from $150 to $500. It’s not difficult to get an article per day done if you have enough commitment.

The second way is least profitable short-term but more rewarding long-term. Start a blog. You’d be surprised how many random people contact you through your blog looking for devs. And some of them are very good clients.

I can't even imagine where I would get enough content to write an article a day. I gave up on my blog after I failed to manage a rate of one article a month, simply due to being bereft of inspiration.

By the way, who buys such as articles at those rates?

Where are you based?

Portugal.

Can you relocate for six months to a year to Ireland? The market there is absolutely nuts. I've been hired (a couple of years ago) as a Python contractor for 450 euros a day (~300 after taxes), after expressly telling them I don't know Python. ("Are you willing to learn?" "Sure." "Great, you have plenty of experience, you'll figure it out in no time. Sign here.") Sure, for someone from the US that's low, but I'm from Eastern Europe.

I just came from a year in the Benelux, that's how I managed to save a bit, but now that I have a buffer I'd rather stay put for a while.

Still, even your €450/h is less than csomar's $100/h, which they are apparently earning in a third-world country.

Yeah, that's beyond my capabilities at the moment. Besides Upwork, I have also used Toptal - when I find contracts (not very often) it pays quite well, and remote beats relocation (especially since I have children in school).

Just want to point out that even for someone in the US 450EU/day is not really that low. Granted there's $100+/hour some are charging bu it's not really a regular for > 6 months contracts. Salutare!

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