Why don't you move abroad?

it’s amazing how much of the story mirrors my own.

Autodidacticism and tech were also my combination of escaping generational poverty, and I had to be the first person in 2 generations to leave the country at all in order to do it. It hopefully strikes at a hint of irony that I am british.

However, unlike the author, I did not have a strong familial connection.

I miss my homeland but I have no wish to return, the living conditions for the lower classes or even the middle classes is so low that I see no way of living a comfortable life. I do still get bouts of homesickness- even after 10 years of living abroad.

It takes a lot of strength to really identify what is important to you, I’m quite sure that the author is content to understand that he is a success to all those around him and in the wider world- and that confidence will be something that he carries for the rest of his life. Fair play to him.

I'm in the same boat. Where did you move to?

First, Finland to work at Nokia.. until the Eloppening[0].

Now I live in the south of Sweden, across the bridge from Copenhagen.

[0]: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2011/feb/09/noki...

> bouts of homesickness- even after 10 years of living abroad.

After nearly forty years in Norway I have no wish at all to return to the UK to live. Every time I listen to BBC R4 I hear some horror story about poverty or poor health. 6 million people (almost 10% of the population) on hospital waiting lists, pre-school children having such bad teeth that they have to have them all removed; that's just a sample from the last two days.

I do enjoy long holidays there as a tourist though because there is so much visible history. And it's warmer than Norway in the summer!

I also have a lot of things in common with the person in the article, as a Brazilian living and working in Sweden I can relate a lot to the things he is saying.

However I feel the main thing that made me move away from Brazil was not status, income or "success". It was the realization that no matter how "successful" I was my life was still going to suck.

Working in IT in Brazil means living in São Paulo and that is like living in SF, except all the bad parts are 10 times worse and a bunch of extra bad things on top (mainly crazy high air pollution levels and traffic). On top of that work culture in Brazil is terrible.

Even if I am "well off" (but not well off enough to stop working) I would still need to live in a cage in a São Paulo high rise enduring 2 hours of traffic every day and going every where by car. No amount of maid service, take-home delivery or stay-at-home wife (things you can get if you have a good job in Brazil) is going to make up for that.

I moved to Sweden in 2016, so things have changed a lot (remote work now being more common, work culture in the new wave of Brazilian startups is a lot better from what I hear). But now I have grown roots in Sweden and have no plans to leave. I don't have a car, 80% of my trips are done by bicycle.

I recently got an offer to work in Sao Paulo, 3 days from home, 2 in office. FAANG-like company. Can't seem to make myself accept, the city is almost Gotham nowadays.

I live in the UK now. Incredibly safe city in the countryside. Just can't imagine myself looking over my shoulder all the time, or wanting that. Even though I'd be "well off", by our standards, which frankly are not that high.

Brazil, without being actually rich, is a major decrease in quality of life.

> Working in IT in Brazil means living in São Paulo

It absolutely does not. Porto Alegre and Recife are 2 large IT centres where there's plenty of good jobs from large corporations to small startups. Florianópolis also had small but workable one though I don't know how it's evolved in more recent years.

Salaries are certainly better in São Paulo but so is the cost of living, and for many the quality of life can be a lot lower.

Well I am from São Paulo state, I worked a few years in Campinas but I refused to move to São Paulo city. But even in Campinas (which is a somewhat decent tech center) it still was hard to find good jobs.

From my point of view moving from São Paulo state to one of those other Brazilian tech centers is not that big of a leap to just move to another country.

I can see myself moving back to Brazil at some point, but I will never live in São Paulo or one of its suburb cities.

I could see myself living there, if criminality lowers significantly and I don't have to commute somewhere. Anything else is a no-no.

That's fair but it's also moving the goalpost. :)

If you can work remotely you might as well live outside but close to São Paulo. Campinas, Jundiai, Santos and Guarujá are all close enough for day trips.

True, but like I mentioned, I lived in Campinas which is not that bad IT place, but still I was very unimpressed about the jobs around the region, either boring enterprise jobs or small scrappy startups.

If I have to move somewhere where I know no one and it takes a plane flight to see family I might as well move to a place with a hot job market where I can make good money and have good work life balance.

I moved abroad from Porto Alegre for similar reasons (and many others) so I get it.

That said, I did have a few interesting jobs there. And the quality of life was in many ways better, though I can’t complain much.

There are a few good opportunities in both Porto Alegre and Recife, for sure, but most jobs are mediocre at best.

If you have any sort of ambition (technological or financial), you should get a government job, start your own business, or move.

From what I can tell, most jobs are mediocre at best anywhere.