About family & excitement: we have little kids, so cooking at home and not going out much will be normal for us, regardless of where we live, for many years to come :-)
The wage thing is correct. Moving to NZ will cut my income by quite a bit more than 50%. But I'm fascinated with the rugged "wanting it more" vibes of NZ vs my native country. Vibes which I'm either picking correctly or just imagining. Care to comment on that?
I think New Zealanders seem to have a really high level of empathy compared to many other countries. There are lots of non-profit organizations that do amazing work, in addition to the awesome public healthcare system. St John [2] provides free first aid and ambulance rides to everyone, and they're a charity staffed by volunteers and run on donations (they're also in Australia and the UK.)
Also ACC [3] is an amazing safety net that most people take for granted. If you are injured in an accident and can't work any more, they will take care of you for the rest of your life. (As well as universal healthcare, we also have universal no-fault accident insurance.) We have a family friend who suffered severe brain damage in a car accident over 20 years ago. They're unable to work, and ACC is still giving them 80% of their salary (adjusted for inflation), so they are able to stay in a nice home with qualified caregivers.
So it's a pretty awesome country. It's just a bit quiet, very expensive, and the tech salaries are not very competitive.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_8_wire
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accident_Compensation_Corporat...
New Zealand is a great country if you want what it offers. If I did want to settle down and raise a family I'd sail back across the ditch in a heartbeat.
I can't see myself earning 500k p.a. in Australia doing software PM, if so, I'm moving tomorrow :)
> many cafes even close at 3pm
That’s far too close to a black mark against NZ coffee though. The weak, lukewarm, milky liquid that is served up elsewhere is deeply depressing. The stuff I want is best not consumed late in the day.
I was talking about the suburbs in west Auckland, like Henderson, Kumeu, etc. And in smaller towns as well. One time we were thinking about moving to New Plymouth, so we stayed for a week, and that was definitely way too quiet for me.
One of the main reasons I left is that I could never afford a house, or even the down-payment on a mortgage. If I had lots of money then New Zealand would probably be more appealing to me, but it's not a good place to earn it. I don't know if you'll be able to get a very competitive salary, but it might be worth it if you're really excited about the company, and you'll be working on some really interesting things.
One thing to mention is that most shops will close at 5pm, and many cafes even close at 3pm. I think once a week, the shopping malls will stay open until 10pm. The streets are completely quiet at night, and you won't see anyone walking around. After living in bigger cities for a while, I'm always really shocked when I go back for a visit. It's like a ghost town. It's an important factor for me because I work remotely, so I hated being stuck at home and having nowhere to go at 8pm.
Another very important point: You will probably have to cook almost all of your own food at home. Going out to eat at cafes and restaurant is extremely expensive, and it's probably not something that you can afford to do every day (especially not on a NZ salary.) I'm used to living in cities where it's normal to eat out at restaurants most of the time. But you can't do that in New Zealand unless you're very wealthy.
Anyway, it's great if you want to live somewhere quiet and raise a family. You can also spend lots of time at the beach, and go for walks in nature. But you can do that in lots of other countries, too. Personally, I prefer to live somewhere a bit more vibrant, where there's a lot of opportunities and things to do.