
Ask HN: Career advice for a new grad - dostoevsky
Hi HN,<p>I&#x27;ve been agonizing over a decision between two offers.<p>The first one is from a company in Ottawa (Canada), doing systems programming (C&#x2F;C++) with an above-average salary (for a new grad). The second one is from a company in London (UK), with ~ £40k salary. I&#x27;d be working with a more &quot;modern&quot; stack (think Python&#x2F;JS&#x2F;Ruby&#x2F;Go&#x2F;etc).<p>Following is a somewhat unstructured collection of thoughts.<p>Location:
London &gt;&gt; Ottawa. I&#x27;d be looking at a ~40-60min commute (by bus) in Ottawa. For London, public transit and cycling infrastructure seem good. I&#x27;m more familiar with Ottawa as I&#x27;ve done an internship there, while my impression of London is based solely on a short visit. Generally though, London seems to be a more exciting (but expensive) place to live.<p>Type of work:
The first offer seems more interesting as I would love to work on performance-type problems.<p>People&#x2F;team:
When interviewing with the first company, I met with two people from my would-be team (including the manager), and with multiple senior engineers from other teams. The company has a high proportion of senior engineers. For the second company, I got to meet a larger portion of the team. There were a couple instances during the interview and several post-interview phone calls where I thought &quot;man, I&#x27;d really love to work with this person&quot;.<p>Immigration:
For the sake of future stability, it is important for me to get permanent residency regardless of where I end up. Based on my research, getting a PR in Canada is much faster compared to getting an ILR in the UK.<p>Some of the questions on my mind are:<p>- Would it be irresponsible to give up the PR in Canada and move away?<p>- Would I later regret not moving to London in my early twenties?<p>- What&#x27;s more important: work or people?<p>- How important is compensation for the first job out of college?<p>Would really appreciate any help&#x2F;input&#x2F;advice, especially from people later in their careers who have had to make similar choices.
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taway_1212
The moment you take your first job, it starts defining your career. If you
tend to lean towards C++, I'd go there. Otherwise, in 5 years time you may end
up being a well paid senior "modern" stack developer who really wish he could
work on low level stuff instead. At this point it'll be too late though - it's
hard start over and take a pay cut from say 100k back to 40k.

Having said that, the "modern" stack is definitely safer. The C++ market is
great for really awesome, technical people, but there's not that many offers
for people who are average. With modern tech it's the other way around - it is
generally easier to use so there's less need for awesome people (which can
make it boring if you are very talented), but it's very safe (in terms of job
security) for average people. Also, in the C/C++ world you'll be competing
against guys who've been building up their domain knowledge for 20-30 years...

My story is that I went with the safe side and my salary and working
conditions are excellent now. The jobs themselves are completely uninspiring
though. On the other hand, I'm not sure if I had the mental firepower to be a
really great c++ programmer (say, senior engine programmer at a game company),
as I get tired rather easily. So, even now (10+ years into my career), I'm not
sure if I made the right call.

Re: London, it's huge, feels old/dirty (when I touch a building's wall, I
wonder how many hundreds of people and dogs have pissed on that spot in the
past), crowded and absurdly expensive. On the other hand, it is great for job
hopping, so it might be wise to stay there in the formative years of your
career.

~~~
dostoevsky
Over the years, how has your perspective on the stack + the type of work
you're doing changed? I feel like due to my age I don't have the context to
make a decision based on factors that will actually matter in the long term.

~~~
taway_1212
It definitely changed, I started with what's easy to learn, available and
well-paying, and that meant Java jobs - I thought that programming is just fun
enough to make these jobs cool. Now I seriously doubt that.

------
kejaed
Hi from Ottawa. If you are moving back here for a job, why wouldn't you move
closer to work? Also note the new light rail system is under construction, so
that could also factor into where you might live wrt where you work. Long
commutes may be standard in other places, but unless you want to live in the
burbs for family reasons and then have a commute to work, I'd advise against
that in Ottawa (or anywhere!).

I've not lived in London, but grew up in Montreal and lived in Toronto. I've
been fortunate enough to visit many US and European metropolitan areas. In
saying all that, I really find Ottawa to be a nice-sized small city. It's a
government town for sure, but there is also a lot of Aero & Defence (where I
ended up) as well as high tech (Shopify, Apple, Amazon, QNX/Ford's new self
driving car centre). It's big enough to have pro sports teams, but small
enough that you can be in the country in 20 minutes if you want to. No 16
lanes of highway anywhere in sight, either.

At the end of the day though, try not to worry about it too much. As others
have said in this thread, the first job will define _a_ path in life, but so
will the second job, or that next person you talk to on the bus, it's all a
big random walk. You are fortunate to have two interesting opportunities in
front of you, so have fun and good luck.

~~~
dostoevsky
I'd be working in Kanata and would prefer to live somewhere closer to
downtown, hence the estimated commute times (by public transit).

Thank you for adding some perspective. It seems whatever choice I end up
making, my brain will find a way to rationalize it post-factum.

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mvpu
I'd go with the London offer solely based on _" man, I'd really love to work
with that person"_. In the early stages of your career, it's best to optimize
for people. The best investment you can make is work with people you admire
and want to learn from. In the long run, relationships matter more than
anything else. All other things - stack, languages, cost of living - are
temporal. Quality of people and relationships are valuable long term. Good
luck!

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ramtatatam
You will do OK in London with 40k as your starting salary (if you are single).
Senior Python devs would do north of 55k here. Though be prepared you will
move flats several times before you land at your perfect spot.

London is huge, so is the market. So is the competition :-)

I have never been to Ottawa. I have moved to London 7 years ago, feel free to
ask more questions if you have some.

~~~
dostoevsky
Where did you move from? Curious to hear about things you like and dislike
about living and working in London.

~~~
ramtatatam
It all depends on your circumstances. If you are single then London will work
well for you, and if you like travel you have all other countries at hand -
Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Switzerland.. Very diverse and very colourful.
And it feels like London is a startups heart of Europe (at least this is what
I feel compared to Geneva, Munich or Berlin). Some people will argue in light
of Brexit but I personally think this will work for better to both Europe and
Great Britain. A step back towards what EU used to be (in a good way).

To rent a whole flat for yourself will cost you 1k+ PCM (that's flat, you need
to remember about council tax and TV tax and utilities, so probably closer to
1150+ PCM), you will be better to go for a room (did I mention it all depends
if you are single? and you meet new people too)

Taxes here depend on your formal situation with the company. If you go PAYE
then you'll probably see about ~30k of what you earn. Go and look at pay
calculators. But once you get your permanent stay your option might look
better. Also you mentioned 40k is a starting point, so you'll end up on better
wage once your probation/review is done. Maybe your employer would go for
paying your flat and travel expenses which would work better than doing this
for yourself.

I would try to evaluate which option (Canada or UK) look better from your
pocket perspective and then would look into tech and future perspective.
Python seems to be quite on top at the moment, though C++ is not too bad
neither :-) so not simple choices here!

\---

Just spotted you edited your question.

Q- Would it be irresponsible to give up the PR in Canada and move away?

A- I don't know :-) What's the PR in Canada?

Q- Would I later regret not moving to London in my early twenties?

A- older you get more difficult it becomes.

Q- What's more important: work or people?

A- growth. And that might mean either work, or people, or both, or neither -
depending what's your end goal.

Q- How important is compensation for the first job out of college?

A- you would not (probably) consider moving if you was not offered a job,
would you? Compensation is important but at some point you get to the glass
ceiling and you need to think about other options. You need to value yourself,
does not matter what point in your life you are at.

Think what you want to be doing in 1/3/5 years from now. That might give you
the right perspective.

\---

Oh and commute - it is not unusual to see people commuting 60+ minutes (one
way). You need to target the area near your office or near the fast tube (some
are faster than the other). I live in suburbs and it takes me only 30 minutes
to commute :-) it used to take 70 minutes when I was in zone 3 (but I was on
slow line).

Also as far as I'm aware it's about 5 years before you get permanent residency
in UK. So this would be long term plans and you might decide to go back once
you are fed up of being here :-)

