I have a similar life story. This field is toxic and hates developers that build useful software. Look at Max Howell and so many others like him.
Reading through the thread it's all about vibe and liking people. Most of the success stories are products that went nowhere and nobody used. But they got paid and had fun.
> US cities are also full of homeless people and thugs with guns.
So are big European cities like Amsterdam, London, Paris etc. The only difference is that it's not guns but knifes, machetes, brass knuckles and what not.
Those are just problems of big cities, not some problem unique to the US.
Top 50 cities (not in a war) with the highest homicide rates (best proxy for crime, (a) because it's most easily available, (b) it's fairly easy to compare across places because different places have different reporting and data collection standards) lists 8 cities in the US and 0 in Europe.
What is amazing and took me by surprise that even Eastern European cities just coming out of the Cold War have lower homicide rates than at least 8 US cities.
Also, if you think the homeless problem in the US is like anywhere else in the developed world you need to get out more.
Of course, the worst part about the EU homeless is they all speak in an 1950's gangster accent when they try and steal your wallet with a greaser style switchblade.
Not true, even FAANGs with equal hiring bar pay US engineers a lot more.
The thing is not only FAANGs pay great salaries in the US, there are tons of other companies that do it. In Europe it's the FAANGs + some trading firms and that's it.
This reduces the desire to perfect one's craft and people become chill & lazy.
The hiring bar is the same and the number of companies in europe that ask much harder questions for 4x lower salary is huge.
European state universities are pretty difficult and the requirements are much harder than US ones. No one hears sob stories - 59/60 is still a fail for 1 point, better luck next time. There are no privileges in Europe for sitting in first row.
It's difficult getting the first client. You mean like Upwork?
The other concern is it would likely look very bad on a resume, did this for one client another thing for another. I'm early stage in career and not an expert on anything yet.
Not that these are prevalent in here, but here are a few reasons:
1. A company already has a candidate in mind for the role, and they want "plausible deniability" that they didn't try to fill the role through a competitive process. This is especially true with H1B-focused roles, where they have to justify hiring non-U.S. workers. Your resume serves that purpose.
2. They have an image to present. Shareholders have more valuable stock when the company appears to be doing well (dozens of unfilled positions) vs. not hiring at a given point in time. HN would be way less effective for this purpose than a company's own corporate website, but it's still part of the company image.
3. Workers are flaky as hell, and your rock star dev you snagged at 2x market rate just got an offer for 4x at a FAANG, and now you're left flat-footed.. OR.. you list their position as open, collect resumes, and as soon as they send you their two weeks you have a deep bench of eager recruits to interview. An unfortunate side effect is that you the applicant are highly unlikely to luck into the heir apparent role.
Although it's a big world, at the very same time it's a very small world. When I see that a company has an unfilled position which interests me, and I have applied, and I am qualified, and I haven't heard of them, then I will go to my LinkedIn account, ask around and speak my mind to people. A company that does it a lot won't get far. There are also some websites (I use GlassDoor) where you can comment on companies' 'attitudes'.
Reading through the thread it's all about vibe and liking people. Most of the success stories are products that went nowhere and nobody used. But they got paid and had fun.
Bullshit jobs for friendly people.