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Comment by electriclove | Hacker News Reader

Only if your friend is willing to get paid a local salary ;)

Oh he's not going to like that.

Entry-level total comp at Google Mexico is about 80k USD, which is comparable to 180k in local purchasing power.

[Edit] on second glance, my original datapoint for Google was questionable, but it looks like Lyft/Amazon definitely gives offers in the 50k-70k USD range.

But that's Google, they'd be hiring the top engineers there. What's the average for an average engineer, half that?

They offered me a job in the past so they definitely hire middling engineers.

Netflix would also pay well, surely.

If that number is even real, so few people are making it that it's not even worth mentioning.

Search "sueldo ingeniero Google Mexico" and you see wages like $30k USD which is already +$10k over the Mexico average for software, so way more realistic.

wtf that's barely less than Canada? and significantly more on a purchasing power basis.

How do I move to Mexico?

This is the absolute top of the top, domestic tech in Mexico pays pretty poorly. Google (as of last year) also let people transfer from high COL to lower COL, reduce their base, but keep the original RSU contract, which will probably skew reported compensation.

Domestic tech in Canada also pays significantly less. Entry-level for some banks is like US$50-60k

Same here in Spain. You need to be with a multinational. Local companies pay shit.

It's the same in all of Europe. You need to work for international big-tech to make decent money, which is also very competitive in terms of job applications. Domestic SW shops pay shit.

That salary is actually below the minimum income for permanent residency (but above the 4 yr temporary residency threshold). If you want to stay beyond 4 years, you'll need to either pony up for a sufficiently expensive house or show $300k usd in a bank account over the past year.

Can you give an idea of how much I'd have to spend on a house? And also what I'd get for that money?

Twice the amount of the bank account, ~$600k USD. Here's a reasonable selection of houses for that price marketed to foreigners: https://www.sothebysrealty.com/eng/sales/mex/price-low-sort/...

Mexico's immigration policies are deliberately designed to exclude most people who aren't wealthy retirees and don't have familial ties.

Those properties are beautiful! I can get a beachfront villa for practically nothing. In Canada something that close to the water would be several million dollars despite not even having a tropical climate.

What is Mexico's visa policy w.r.t. NAFTA/CUSMA professionals? Can I just get in temporarily as a software engineer akin to TN-1 in the USA?

Mexico City is more expensive than you think. Doubly so if you want to maintain the standard of living that you are used to in USA/Canada.

Polanco, a neighborhood in Mexico City, has homes that sell for prices that you'd expect from Malibu, CA or Atherton.

That’s really interesting to think about. I had seen a list of the most expensive streets and Polanco is home to one of those (the commercial Avenida Presidente Masaryk) and Atherton is on the list too (the residential Walsh Road).

It’s also the biggest city on the continent so it stands to region the range in CoL might be huge.

But that's also because the richest people aren't so affected by low cost of living. Prices temd to be based on what people can afford. And those neighbourhoods tend to be for the top 0.1%

Though that's not a good example since you're just pointing out where the richest people live in Mexico City.

It reveals nothing about the CoL of the city.

What is the salary? I bet it's in my range but I'm in the USA.

Average software dev salaries in major Mexican metros are around 30,000 to 45,000 MXN per month. So around $2,000 USD a month.

Which is a lot, at least in terms or how much you can buy. Mexico is really cheap, compared to USA.

The thing with purchasing power is that it doesn't apply to everything. In particular foreign goods.

So while low cost of living countries offset their low wages with cheaper housing, food and local services, imported stuff still costs the same and is relatively expensive as a result. Basically in those countries it really sucks to buy a computer, camera, even cars.

I spent two weeks in Juarez a few years ago for my wife's visa stuff. The hotel was pretty cheap, the food was pretty cheap (and delicious!), but I was surprised to see that an Xbox was actually more expensive than it was in NYC.

It makes enough sense, Microsoft isn't a charity, they're selling the console at a fairly competitive price already in the US, it's not going going to magically get cheaper just because it crossed a border, but it was still surprising to see that.

Microsoft also knows that if they sell xbox's for less overseas people will start buying those cheap ones and importing them to the US for resale.

That makes sense, and not really theoretical; it's pretty easy to buy Blu-rays and DVDs from foreign markets, and they're often considerably cheaper than their American versions.

They of course are region encoded, but I suspect nearly anyone who frequents Hacker News knows how to get around that.

It is a hit on your retirement savings if you intend to return to a more expensive country.

The only thing that makes it "a lot" is how pathetic the wages are in Mexico compared to it. But you aren't living large in Guadalajara on $20k/year.

Only some things are particularly cheap in Mexico like labor and anything where labor is the main input, like services.

And some things that you'd think would be in reach of a Mexican software developer, like sending your kids to a decent private school, are not.

What's the cost of living and healthcare like?

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