Have you built pc's before or mostly relied on rented VPS'? Sometimes enterprise grade hardware like this can be quite a bit more involved / frustrating than just putting together a normal gaming machine.
You have to pay U.S. customs with a U.S. bank account - specifically to hold funds in escrow.
Developing ways for businesses to conduct transactions in the U.S. and more easily extract remittances without a tax id or bank account that's a part of the U.S. banking system is beyond stupid and borderline criminal.
How is this not hilariously illegal? This is also a great way to walk into dozens of egregious customs violations if you use slash and happen to import physical goods in the united states for sale or distribution.
This is almost as bad as all of the AI powered resume skimming tools / applicant submission tools. It just makes it impossible for anyone to apply for a job.
AI is for people and it's only being used to kick people onto the street and profit.
They want an omnipresent, lobotomized and defeated underclass who only exists to "respond" to the ai to continue to improve it. This is basically what alexander wang from Scale AI explained at a recent talk which was frankly terrifying.
Your UBI will be controlled by the government, you will have even less agency than you currently have and a hyper elite will control the thinking machines. But don't worry, the elite and the government are looking out for your best interest!
The best heuristic is what people are realizing happened with uncheck "skilled" immigration in places like canada (and soon the U.S.). Everyone was sold that we "need these workers" because nobody was willing to work and that they added to GDP. When in reality, there's now significant evidence that all these new arrivals did was put a net drain on welfare, devalue the labor of endemic citizens (regardless of race - in many cases affecting endemic minorities MORE) and in the end, just reduced cost while degrading companies who did this.
We will wake up in 5 yrs to find we replaced people for a dependence on a handful of companies that serve llms and make inference chips. Its beyond dystopian.
I used to be a big proponent of AI tools and llms, even built products around them. But to be honest, with all of the big AI ceos promising that they're going to "replace all white collar jobs" I can't see that they want what's best for the country or the american people. It's legitimately despicable and ghoulish that they just expect everyone to "adapt" to the downstream affects of their knowledge-machine lock-in.
It's hard to explain how diametrically different the playing field is now. In most cases it's not "AI" it's just systemic replacement of Americans because they're "too expensive". Which basically just means more yacht money for executives at the altar of infinite GDP growth.
Both sides are complicit as well. It's not just the left but in current times even more so the right. The right won't shut up about deporting "illegals" but has created even more opportunities for H1B's to flood in and no disincentive for corporates to outsource. Canada already has laws that act as "tariffs" for offshoring labor - we desperately need awareness first and unified action.
What is happening now to knowledge work in the U.S. is what happened to factory jobs in the 90s.
I'm hoping for a remote or hybrid gig. If I could find something in Portland Maine that would be amazing - but I doubt there's much opportunity there for SWE's.
This is generally my take as well. I have a few friends who switched into the trades and realized that in modern times, cheap foreign labor and PE has done a number on the trades. Many of them also lamented that although their bosses were good - many ppl in the trades still treat coworkers like garbage and engage in blue collar hazing. It's not everyone but I just have no patience for that stuff.
I've lived in non target locales before and I like them - but I think I want to meet my wife before fully bugging out. SF dating is atrocious so I'm amicable to the idea of being in NYC for a bit.
I really appreciate your thoughts here - I'll send my cv your way.
I'd say my strong-suit is in vaguely defined zero to one work and scale out for more sharply scoped functionality. That said, if you ask me to write a react app from scratch, I'm likely just going to lean on cursor / claude to do the boilerplate and hop in when I need to make sure things are surgically correct.