from Hacker News

Lisbon’s startup scene rises as Portugal gears up

by brauhaus on 2/24/21, 11:50 AM with 116 comments

• by holoduke on 2/26/21, 7:12 AM

  Portugal or I think any other southern Europe country is perfect for the 100k plus Dev nomad. Living like a king while running their own small business or working on remote projects. I did that for a couple of years. Absolutely enjoyed it. Food, people, weather, party. I do miss it sometimes. But man, some things are really f@€ed up there. Bureaucracy, badly organized government, healthcare and education. Sometimes dominant complain culture. Absolute shit quality of housing and public roads. Much larger difference in poor and rich. You ll get to notice these things after 1, 2 years while getting settled in. Then you realize to move.That's what I did.

• by cfup on 2/24/21, 1:57 PM

  Lisbon is attractive for companies but not so much for talents. The average salary in Lisbon is much lower, comparing to tech salaries in the US, UK, or Singapore.

• by mothsonasloth on 2/26/21, 9:09 AM

  The remote dev / nomad culture needs to DIE now:

  1. For people in the demographic of the, "environmentally aware" middle class. They sure do love to travel around on high polluting jetliners.

  2. The arbitration of salaries might seem tempting, but are they paying tax whilst in the country? Most of these nomads don't pay tax and their economic benefit is minimal (partaking in the local economy to buy their coco puffs and artisanal coffees).

  The hypocrisy I experienced of some dev's complaining about the dilapidated infrastructure in Italy whilst being there as a "tourist".

  3. "I want to go a city with a good level of English" - Amsterdam, Munich, Berlin, Lisbon, Madrid.

  They don't want to go and experience a small town in Greece with no amenities or "English Expat Meetup" group.

  4. Productivity (f(x) = internet connection x time difference x work equipment)

  I will take a remote dev in their homeland, over hiring a jet setter dev.

  5. Relationships, I am not sure what some of these nomads are running away from / towards.

  They are extremely flaky in professional relationships, I wonder if that also is the same for personal relationships too.

  It makes it hard to share knowledge with these types. Pooof! They are gone now, "oh well so much for that Wiki page they promised to update before they left".

  -----

  Conclusion - the nomad worker is the apex persona of the entitled middle class malaise.

  </end rant>

  I did consider becoming a nomad worker at one point, then I realised it's a terrible lifestyle.

  You have to grow roots to grow, doesn't matter if its a "boring" town. You have to grow up and realise someday that you can't keep being a rolling stone.

  Note: I am not against people moving to a better place for life /career / personal reasons. It's when it happens 10-20 times in the space of 10 years, that you need to start asking yourself hard questions

• by Apocryphon on 2/26/21, 4:40 AM

  They really picked a great Golden Gate Bridge lookalike for the header image.

• by Jommi on 2/26/21, 4:11 AM

  Best Weather, Timezone, and QoL for companies looking to hire EU workers fitting the CA timezone.

• by wyxuan on 2/26/21, 3:40 AM

  I wonder if we'll see the same thing with other remote work hotspots like Thailand.