[nigel_bree]

I currently live in Kaiwaka not far from Mangawhai and have since Symantec bought out Ghost in '98, as that helped me afford a first house. It's a wonderful place to live. I did a lot remotely back then and once Symantec closed in NZ a decade ago I've been 100% remote from home ever since.

While I don't have an ocean view, and only about 2ha of land, it's a wonderful place to be. However, there are pretty significant drawbacks in getting gigs as there just aren't many local firms doing anything at all intellectually challenging and US firms still just apparently aren't interested in talent in this country who don't want to suffer being forced to relocate to awful places to live.

I don't see that changing, either; the fact is that people who really place proper value on a quality lifestyle tend to be older, and few firms really place much value on older talent either. Younger people are cheaper and more willing to suffer abuses such as moving to unpleasant, expensive metro areas in countries with alien values.

[keithnz]

nice, I'd quite like to work remote in a similar location . Currently on the edge of Auckland (Henderson Valley area). I'm hoping with this lockdown more firms are going to be way more open to remote work. Current workplace didn't consider it an option pre lockdown, but might be more open to it now as working remotely has gone pretty well for us (other than the manufacturing side of things).

[iandanforth]

If I'm in NZ can I come visit? Looks lovely. How's the cheese shop?

[nigel_bree]

Anyone from HN who wants to can drop by on the way to a more traditional tourist spot like Mangawhai or further north (although over summer I'm often away at the weekends racing stockcars). The phone number for the library redirects to our house if it's not open.

The cheese shop is fine! I know Keith and Marita who have owned it for many years, they are good people - Ad Clarijs who founded it still occasionally runs cheesemaking classes, his place is not far from mine. Also worth a visit is the amazing Cafe Eutopia next door - https://g.page/eutopiacafe?share - which is a marvel.

It just boggles my mind how US firms don't realise how poor a value proposition - especially to people of an age to have a family or strong community ties, like the roots I have here - they offer to developers in AU/NZ when demanding that people relocate to work for them, and I'm not really optimistic that COVID-19 will really bring any significant change to their corporate cultures. I am hopeful that perhaps more firms in AU may cotton on to the fact that there's a substantial pool of exceptional veteran talent in NZ who are really underutilized, which really represents an opportunity for them if they were to make a serious attempt to hire here and let people work remotely.

[zinckiwi]

I'm in Tauranga -- I have gigabit fibre, reasonable taxes, an amazing Prime Minister and a 3-5 hour time difference with Silicon Valley depending on the season. I am fortunate enough to have a remote job for a distributed company but I hope one of the few plusses to come out of the current state of the world is the tech industry taking its blinders off, finally, to remote/distributed work.

[gautamcgoel]

Dumb question, but how does the time difference to Silicon Valley vary with the seasons? They are a fixed distance apart.

[zinckiwi]

They are, but daylight saving time means that from April to October the time difference is 5 hours (NZT: +12, PDT: -7) and otherwise it's 3 hours (NZDT +13, PST -8). With a few weeks of a 4 hour difference at the edges since the daylight saving boundaries don't precisely align.

[dzhiurgis]

Aaah that cheese shop. I've stop there briefly this summer, on way to Waipu. Finally got to taste cultured butter for the first time (unimpressed).

Utopia cafe looked dystopian as it was closed :D

[stubish]

We employ remote workers globally and are over represented by New Zealand and to a lesser extent Australia, I think for this very reason.