1156 Advice for Developers Working in Low-Earning Countries - Simple Programmer Podcast
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Hey, John Sonmez from simpleprogrammer.com. In this video, I'm going to try to answer something I know nothing about. Well, I don't know much about, but I'm going to give you my best advice, which is basically if you're a programmer in a low-earning country, a low-income country, how can you or what should you do and how can you make more money? I got this question from Alex.

He said, "Can you please give me some advice for the developers that are working in lower earning countries, for example, I live in Romania, and how much would it be worth to immigrate and work for better companies and for better salaries?" Alex, I'm assuming you're talking about moving to another country, trying to get a job out of country to another country that pays better, that has a higher salary, higher wage.

This makes a lot of sense. If you can pull this off, if you can live in a place that's extremely cheap to live in where your salaries are extremely low, but you're working in a place or your employer is in a place where salaries are very high and you can

make a very high salary, a normal salary, then that's huge. I know some people, I know some friends of mine that live in India, in very inexpensive areas of India and they make US salaries and they do pretty well. They're pretty happy. They're hot shots. That's pretty good.

If you can pull that off. Now, it's easier to pull that off if you're running your own business. I see a lot of people on Odesk doing this, but when you say your country of origin on Odesk, it puts your pricing—people expect certain pricing based on that. I've seen developers in the Philippines charging $50 an hour, $100 an hour getting it. They're really good. The key thing, in my opinion, like I said, I was born and raised in the United States.

This is just my guess, my opinion on this. The key here is communication skills. I'll probably do a video on this, but sometimes in certain countries—

It's not the way that we do things in the US, not the way that probably things are done mostly in Europe, UK, Australia, the way that sometimes messages are conveyed. Sometimes I get an email from someone who says, ìKind sir, please help me become a better programmer.î

I'm not making fun of your English. I'm making fun of the way that you're saying it to me, that you're just expecting this, that I'm messaging me on Facebook and saying, expecting me to just help you without offering me anything, without greeting me in the right way, without making the proper introduction. What I'm saying here, again, I'm not trying to insult the whole world.

What I'm saying is that in order to pull this off, to be able to get a job in another country, especially like in the US, let's say that you wanted to stay in Romania, but you want to get hired by a US company. Well, you could work remotely in Romania, some kind of arrangement like that, or you're going to do freelancing for clients in the US. That's more likely, right?

If you can—if it can seem like you are from the U.S. and living in Romania, right, if it can seem like that, then you're going to have a much better shot, right? And again, not trying to—I have no idea about Romania, but what I'm saying is that

If you can communicate and be clear and have the social norms of someone in the US or the UK or Australia or Canada, one of those countries where the pay is significantly higher

then that's going to go a long way. I would suggest working on that. How can you do this? I've been thinking about this a lot because this is one of those things I'd like to advise and do some videos on because this is a really important skill for someone who lives in India, Pakistan, Philippines, Romania and doesn't know how to really

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How do you do that? Look and see communications and see how people

people from the U.S. are talking to you or just ask someone to review what you're going to send out to coach you on it. Let's say that you're going to send an email to someone as a prospective customer. Send it to someone you know in the U.S. and have them rewrite the email. In fact, I'm not going to offer this service because I can't do this for everyone, but

Alex, if you want to, since I'm answering your video, send me an email like that and then I will help you revise it. I'm sure if you have a friend, then you can get that help. Again, I don't know a whole lot about this topic. I'm just...

just going from what I'm picking up just from doing what I've been doing. It just seems to me that your best shot for doing this is to basically adapt the social norms of the US as much as possible. That's going to make you fit in more to be able to get that higher level of business. I know when I hire someone out of the country, what I'm looking for is excellent communication skills

I want them to not just try to please me, but to be able to communicate with me. It doesn't have to be perfect English. That's not what I'm looking for. It's the kind of mindset. It's the way of talking, of interacting, of dealing with someone that we expect, that we think at a professional level and not the kind of way where...

I don't know. It's hard to describe, but I can tell. I can't put my finger on the exact thing, but you can kind of tell. You can kind of tell if someone's really trying or if they're just like they're expecting things to be handed to them kind of grasping

So you want to come off as really trying to do a good job and to look like a professional type of person. That's going to help you the most. So yeah, I think it makes sense. Like I said, it's going to be difficult. Your best route is going to be freelance.

to be able to do that. If you build a reputation for yourself, I always harp on this, but that's going to help you more than anything else because people are going to come to you and want to be your client or want to hire you. Here's the thing to think about. I haven't lived in another country

But I've lived in lower income areas of the United States versus higher ones. And it makes sense. Let's say that you live in Romania now. If you came to somewhere that had higher salaries and you lived there for like and worked there for 10 years and then went back to Romania with a bunch of money you saved, you could pretty much live like a king, right? I mean, I'm assuming. So that's kind of a neat thing.

You can do the same thing in the United States. I live in a cheap state. I go and I work in California or New York and make a whole bunch of money, take that money back and then I can live cheaply somewhere else. I think it's a good idea. It makes a lot of sense. I think it's a very difficult thing to do.

and you can get stuck in that situation. I definitely feel for you if you're stuck in a low salary. A lot of times, I think some environments are kind of abusive. I know a lot of viewers, listeners from India, sometimes when you guys email me and you email me your stories, I'm like, man, they really just are abusive to the employees there. That's just the way it is. You get treated like crap

I feel bad, but it wouldn't hurt to try to get out of those situations if you can do it. It's going to be hard to do, but if you can, I definitely encourage you to try.

All right, so that's what I know nothing about, but I'm talking about because you asked. So hopefully that's helpful to you, Alex. Let me know if it isn't. And like I said, my offer stands to help you with some communication, social norm type of thing. I mean, the email you sent me was fine, so I don't think you're going to have an issue. But yeah, hopefully that helps. If you like this video, subscribe. Take care.