1/100 of that is life changing money for most people here in my country. I can't imagine...

It's life changing for most people in the SF bay area too!

YES! Finally they can upgrade from a studio to a one bedroom!

(I am mostly joking but also crying inside because Seattle prices are also insane)

After taxes, that’s a down payment on a house, not a lavish one, in the SF Bay Area.

15k? Where?

That's more than I make a year. I live in Toronto and work remotely for a Ukranian company.

How do you live in Toronto on that kind of money? As I understand it, Toronto is one of the highest cost of living areas in North America.

I rent a room. After rent, I have ~200 CAD net positive, which covers food and gym. I can't really accumulate money at this point, but I have existing savings and a few investments.

The opposite would make more sense.

I cannot work for a Canadian company because nobody is hiring juniors.

I cannot live in Ukraine because they will send me to war if I go there.

15k / year in Toronto? How is that even possible?

You mean 15k / year in Eastern Europe whilst living in Toronto. Probably young and renting with roommates or family.

What I mean is 15k/year is not enough to live in Toronto, unless you live with your parents who then also feed you and you never go out

I go out all the time to read books, it's great. Only downside I sometimes bump into junkies smoking weed in parks.

why would you do that to yourself?

Because this is the only way I can work as a software developer.

Surely there are contract gigs elsewhere in the world that will pay better and not ask complicated legal questions

Maybe there are, but I don't know. It seems pointless to try Fiverr and similar platforms, because it seems they are already flooded with freelancers. But I never did contracting so I am pretty clueless about that. I've read old HN threads and the general consensus seems to be that you have to have connections to get customers.

back in the bad old days id trawl craigslist and find cash poor startups. they were shitty gigs but at least enough to bootstrap a career

The vast majority of countries in SS Africa, including ones with quite good QoL (Zambia, Botswana, Cote d'Ivoire, etc).

Cuba

Same. I'm sitting at a AAA studio where I'm hearing some people aren't even getting a COLA this year and wondering why I'm wasting my time.

I used to do a 5 year stint working at a software company, saving up money, then 5 years working on my games. Rinse, repeat.

I got lucky a couple of times, so this won't work for everyone. But working a "real" job to fund your passion projects is as old as DaVinci taking commissions to fund his research.

Don't know your specifics, but I generally make the argument to people that if they have the aptitude for something very high paying that they do that job and then do something they like as a hobby.

I disagree wholeheartedly.

I spend a very disproportionate amount of my mental energy on my job, and I think earning a lot of money would not properly compensate for that. Energy is finite and life has a way of being just about as expensive as the money you have.

So, maybe it's fine that it will take me 30 years to earn what these people will in 2.

Which would allow you to work for 2 years and then just do your hobby full time for 28.

Also allows you to do your hobby without other pressures placed on it.

No, due to the way taxes work, I'd have to:

A) Find a way to work in OpenAI before I knew there'd be a $1.5M bonus for working there for a couple years

B) Find a way to avoid taxes

C) Do this twice before I'd get my 28 years back

D) Ensure I don't let my expenses grow

The first is mostly luck, as Jim Carey said about his dad: You can fail at what you don't want to do.

https://youtu.be/zjhouhElXAI?t=118