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Comment by robga | Hacker News Reader

> countries that have good exchange rates

What does this mean? I equate “good exchange rate” with “low exchange commission/fee” and “low volatility”.

I mean weak dollar. For instance $1USD will get you around $1.5NZD. With the average developer earning a little over $100,000NZD you are looking at around $66,000USD. Much cheaper than many other options. However they're still native English speakers with a very western culture.

You're right about volatility too, the NZD doesn't swing too wildly.

Why would you accept a job that pays only US$66k if the value of your work is US$100k? Here (central Europe) it's common practice to count your money in EUR or USD even though we're paid in the local currency - especially if the local currency is not pegged to EUR.

> Why would you accept a job that pays only US$66k if the value of your work is US$100k?

Because in some countries, you can live like a king on $66k and you'll always have contracts. And anyway, no one gets paid based on the "value of their work". That's how services businesses are profitable at all -- the employees generate more value than they're paid.

Yeah but then I want to move to the US or Switzerland or Germany and the US$66k is suddenly a lot less? I have no idea why a skilled senior SWE contractor would go into that kind of deal, the market is much hotter than that, $66k is entry level rate for a contractor even if you work at local companies here.

Our country will only do better if some high skilled workers remain. With the cost of software development NZ can export development and this will improve our economy. That should help everyone here live better lives.

My standard of living is pretty good too.

Your country's solution to keeping people at home is to pay them so bad they can't afford to leave? Sorry but that really doesn't sound good.

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