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Comment by mothsonasloth | Hacker News Reader

I worked at a startup as the first Dev, it was a shock for me having to now consider things like:

* What company laptops to buy?

* Assess the merits of AWS and GCP and make a decision.

* Divine an architecture that will get the product to the customers ASAP but will last at least a year with growth before needing a major rethink.

* Present to customers, board members and potential investors about the tech.

Eventually I was coding around 60% and doing these other things around 40% of my time.

I guess this would be what a CTO does, so it was a great taster for me however I did get burned out with it after a year (plus working in London was taking its toll as well).

For any developer who is quite senior, I would recommend trying it. I learned a lot about myself.

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That's exactly the kind of thing I'd expect to do in a technical position in a small company.

I'm a CTO at a 30-ish person company and yep this is my job. Lots of development, but also handling all the infrastructure and ops for a long time (I'm able to offload more to other devs these days).

I still primarily code but also do lots of long term tech strategy like cloud? and which, as well as business planning with the rest of our leadership level, hiring, training new devs, keeping all the devs up to date with new stuff, breaking down and delegating work, reviewing code, monitoring & alerting and understanding a system that's practically a living organism and being able to anticipate trouble spots rising, planning and executing what are sometimes multi-year efforts (e.g., significantly refactoring major parts of a 10+ year old code base).

Personally, I like it, though it has its difficulties. It also makes me an exceptionally valuable person for this size of company - big enough to really need breadth and depth of experience, but not in a position to have several tech people with a decade or two of experience. Find the right company (I was lucky to) and it's a golden ticket.

What about London took its toll? I've been contemplating a switch from NYC to London. I know it will be a 30-50% pay cut, but I've been told by other's who have lived and worked in both that it is worth it for the better work/life balance.

Haven't worked in NYC but I've worked in London for 3.5 years and am in the process of leaving/going remote because I don't rate the quality of life here at all and I'm exhausted from it. Things that take its toll for me:

1. Too. Many. People. You can barely book a restaurant or get a seat anywhere. 2. Nothing works. Trains, airports and mobile network reception. 3. Commuting. Rush hour is crowded, the tubes are disgusting, getting anywhere across town takes at least an hour so you rarely want to risk trekking somewhere unless you know it will be worthwhile/you can get in. 4. Renting / moving house is super stressful. Estate agents are constantly exploiting you.

A whole bunch of my friends raved about London a few years ago which is why I came out but I don't think it is what it used to be. That being said, there is a lot of opportunity here and you can earn well if you hustle. I'd suggest you look at starting out as a contractor.

I think there are better places to live and work in tech, in other European cities like Berlin, Stockholm and Amsterdam.

Never had a problem getting a set in a restaurant in London - and Compared to NYC the Tube is heaven.

Typical Londoner complains that they have to wait up to 10 minutes for a bus - compared to the rest of the UK where you might get two busses an hour and they stop running after 6:30.

shh berlin sucks don't go there

Londoner here. I've never worked in NYC but having been there for pleasure I can tell you things like commuting will be a lot easier (possibly even cheaper? Weekly tickets will set you back 35 quid if you commute from zone 1 and 2).

My wife is American and recently quit her job with Delta (she's done both office jobs there and she's also flown as an FA). And based on her experience I can tell you you'll have a much better work life balance. This is especially if you're planning to work as a limited company contractor* as your responsibilities don't go beyond your contracted obligations.

Having said all of that, Brexit is coming up so no one is really sure what is going on.

* be careful if you do contract, if you do, read up on IR35 as that's about to shake up the contracting industry for private companies.

More typically you will be commuting from further out Zones 1 and 2 properties are SV levels of expensive - your looking at £4k to 5k year for a season ticket from an affordable area.

Disagree, you can find plenty of places in zone 2 that are fairly affordable, especially for software engineers. If you're willing to share with strangers (as is so often the case these days), it's even cheaper. Bear in mind that when you go further out, what you're saving in housing, likely just moves to a season ticket so the savings are much less, but you add additional time to your commute.

There's plenty of affordable areas in zone 2 and 3 which have average rents considerably less than SV (a 1 bed flat might be £1100-£1400/month). Annual travel within zone 3 is £1648. It's really not comparable, especially since the pound dropped 20% after the Brexit referendum.

I would imagine the original commenter moving from NYC to London isn't going to be interested in renting some tiny one bed studio flat and living on ramen.

I was talking about buying - why throw rent money away.

> I was talking about buying - why throw rent money away.

London has some of the lowest rental yields in the UK, especially as you move towards the higher end of the market. Renting is merely "very expensive", compared to buying which is "very, very expensive".

Bad use of money, certainly in the UK mortgages are cheaper per month than renting and that's not counting the value of the asset..

> UK mortgages are cheaper per month than renting

That's definitely the case outside of London where rental yields are higher but London rental yields are averaging 3-4% [1] (lower as you go up the ladder). Mortgage rates are currently a bit cheaper (1.5-3%) but owning a home also incurs additional costs such as stamp duty, repairs and (sometimes) ground-rents.

1. https://www.knightfrank.co.uk/research/uk-residential-invest...

Public transport, the London "bubble" which people get trapped in, drinking culture which I don't like, high income / high expenditure lifestyle.

I worked in London for 7 years, now in NYC for 3 years. London's definitely better for work life balance. I've managed to find a great balance here in NYC after trying hard to do that but struggle to find friends/colleagues that get it. In London you'll find plenty of talented and smart people that don't feel like working beyond 6pm is acceptable.

I'm German, but was working in the US, but gave up the higher pay to the better health care, and quality of life in Germany.

I'd be interested in a write up or blog post of what things specifically were you weighing, pros and cons and numbers. Too often I hear of European healthcare being cheaper but I never see case by case details.

My experience as a healthy person in US is mixed. I rarely need things, but it is hard to navigate the complex insurance business when I do try to get things. I see many people, meanwhile, one accident or illness and it sets them back a long way financially.

Cries in NYC with mediocre employer-provided health insurance

London is probably easier than NYC having lived in London and visited NYC.

Both are pretty... 'fast paced', for lack of a better term.

I've just moved out of London after being there for 5 years - the income required to have a decent standard of living is just getting daft, especially if you care about others around you and not just yourself.

Y this is exactly what a startup CTO does... and more!

I have a side project running on Dark, highly recommend

How do you keep motivated?

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