| Here's my 2c (I'm 30 for the record): I was born in a flyover state. There's ~no coding jobs here, and the ones that are here, pay pittances compared to anywhere not adjacent to a (feed)corn field. I moved 250 miles away (to the other side of my state... dang is the US huge) to take a tech job that payed closer to what coastal companies will pay. The next step was probably to move to Seattle or SF and take a "real" tech job there. But two things happened at the same time: 1. remote work really grew up. now I can work from anywhere and (mostly. geo-adjusting etc. luckily that seems to be on the decline.) get paid well. 2. We had our first child. Now suddenly close access to our support network (parents etc) is both logistically important ("hey mom can you watch the kids for a weekend so we can sleep") and emotionally important (grandparents getting to see the kids every weekend or two instead of significantly less often). So now instead of looking to move an additional 2k miles away, I moved back to be ~2 miles from one set of parents and ~20 miles from the other set. I'm not really thrilled about the local jobs or local politics etc. But family is incredibly important to have physically close, and so here I am. Thank heavens for remote coding jobs. |
I feel like I would lose a little bit of my soul moving back to my hometown, but like you said the support network is extremely important.
Not sure what we're going to do.