What should third world dev do in this economy?

48 points by wvsr5 1 year ago | 23 comments

I'm from Bangladesh. If you know, the political situation here is pretty unstable. And everything feels even worse with the trade war, AI taking over, and all that.

I call this country the graveyard of dreams. People who are a little privileged eventually move to the EU or USA. But lower middle-class folks like us don’t really have a way to leave the country for undergrad.

There was a time when remote jobs were a wave. Skilled people used to earn a decent amount of money. But that trend seems to be fading. Nobody’s hiring. And for someone with little experience, getting a job feels like a dream.

The freelance market is also down. There’s barely any work on platforms like Fiverr and Upwork. I used to earn a bit by doing small tasks on Fiverr, but my account’s been in abeyance for months.

In an economy where experienced devs in the USA are struggling to find work, what are we even supposed to do just to survive? I’m 19, and I’ve never seen chaos like this. I honestly don’t know what I should do from here.

gagabity 1 year ago |

You are mostly asking the wrong people, the reality for most in here has absolutely nothing to do with your situation, they can hardly comprehend it.

Look at what other people in your community did or ask them. As someone who left a developing country I would say get a degree any degree really and then get a job and some savings, you can then apply to a masters program abroad, a lot of countries this will be free with or without scholarships you might even get a stipend. EU especially.

antisthenes 1 year ago | |

This is good advice. I will echo this by saying - ask within your community, start with your parents and see if they have any advice or anyone who needs work.

Maybe some trades can be done on the side? Plumbing/Electric/HVAC? These are not fancy or glorious and won't get you rich, but quality tradesman work will always be in demand.

wenc 1 year ago | | |

> Maybe some trades can be done on the side? Plumbing/Electric/HVAC? These are not fancy or glorious and won't get you rich, but quality tradesman work will always be in demand.

In developing countries (I grew up in one), the trades (especially the ones you listed) don't pay well and are considered undesirable jobs.

The situation is interestingly reversed in first world Western countries, where trades people make 6 figures. This is rarely true anywhere else in the world.

The path to making money in a developing country -- without a degree -- is to run your own business. That, or to get into a very specialized, high-hazard or and very high skill trades, like underwater welding (for ships), piloting a plane (you start off as a cadet -- the airline will train you -- and slog for years to become a captain), etc.

triknomeister 1 year ago | | |

I know the other commenter already said it but just to emphasize, if a poorly paid software engineer earns 3000 Euros/yr, then a trade person will earn around 600 Euros/year if he is lucky.

nchmy 1 year ago |

Undergrad is wholly unnecessary for most people. I don't have a particular solution for you, but where there's tremendous issues, there's tremendous opportunity. So, I'd encourage you to focus on trying to address the needs of your community and broader country, in one way or another - perhaps digitally, perhaps not. Look at what Grameen did for some inspiration.

wenc 1 year ago | |

In many developing countries, I would say it's the reverse. Undergrad is actually "necessary" for most average people -- it's the minimum bar for white collar employment; the only exceptions are people who are have rare, valuable skills.

In Western countries, it's way easier (it's more difficult now, but still fairly easy) to get to a middle-class life without a college degree. I've lived in developing countries and when I moved to the west, I realized America, and many western countries, are actually outliers. In a developing country, especially populous ones, this is decidedly not the case.

In many third world countries, the path to a good income for people without college degrees is typically to run your own business (not everyone makes it, but at least it's a reasonable path). It requires working long hours, business acumen (understanding velocity of money, not just profit margin [1]), and pivoting a lot. Many of my family members without college degrees made it this way.

An uncle apprenticed with a carpenter to learn the furniture business, and slogged for years. But he saved aggressively and managed to open his own business, and understood the business cycle -- optimizing for cashflow rather than profit. He's doing well today.

[1] https://commoncog.com/what-the-ceo-wants-you-to-know/

newprint 1 year ago |

Hello, software dev. from the US, but I'm originally from E. Europe and went through Soviet Union collapse, societal disintegration,rampant crime, poverty and seen lot of very high caliber people (PhD scientists/engineers) who unfortunately were thrown into fringe of the society or life completely side-stepped them. What you can do ? You are 19. Get physically strong (exercise), have a skill(s) to do manual job (like welding) so in case things go bad, you can fall back on it. In the meantime, work on your programming, math skills & imagination. Good luck !

augusto-moura 1 year ago | |

I believe getting a job "just" to get by should be easy, there are plenty of entry and manual jobs to start from, specially if you are young. Construction, farming, auto-mechanic, or even flipping burgers. The true challenge is getting a good pay, or getting social momentum to get out of the situation, there is only a few careers that allow smart people to get out of the "shithole" (pardon my french). IT, for the longest time, was one of such careers.

Surely IT is still a solid career choice for the next 10 years, probably. But if in the past I couldn't find a way on how IT could get outdated or out of fashion, with all the current instabilities, and the sheer number of people getting in the field every year, I kinda see the end of the tunnel. It might be that in the next few decades IT work will be as basic as blue collars, which is not bad per se, but very different from what most people expect.

whereistejas 1 year ago |

I strongly empathise with your situation. The definition of security and success in south asian countries is wildly different from that in the West. I’m 28 and I moved to the UK, 3 years ago. I did a bunch of open-source work and found an employer who hired me based on my contributions and was willing to sponsor my visa. Other than going to university, open-source contributions are the only option people like us to move to the West.

I understand why you feel like everything is chaotic. But, remember that most people don’t have the kind of time you have (you are only 19 and can afford to take a lot of risks). There maybe many things that are not in your favour, but you also have things that give you an advantage over others. I didn’t even know HN existed until I was 24. Ignore the chaos, focus on yourself. Apna time ayega.

jbothma 1 year ago |

I don't have a lot of answers, but to echo what you're seeing, it seems a lot harder to get a foot in the door than 15 years ago when I was getting my first freelance jobs. This is compared to people I know searching now. It feels like for those basic starter jobs, there's a sea of agencies and individuals bidding less. I know it's a worrying time.

I'd suggest you at least get very familiar with AI tools like copilot and cursor. Get good at using them and leveraging them for efficiency. Also get a feel for their limitations. Within those, there may be opportunities. Beyond that I think as always, participate in professional networks - meet people in tech, contribute to open source - connections help you stand out when there's a whole globe of competition.

ramesh31 1 year ago |

There’s a flip side to being a dev from low income countries, where the cost of living can be freeing. The entire cost of building software is paying for programmers time. If you are skilled and talented, the arbitrage of your time being so cheap from low cost of living can pay massive dividends if you are working on something worthwhile. There’s a reason all of the best games in the last 5-10 years have been almost exclusively European and Asian devs. The US has priced itself out of being able to do anything but the most expensive high level software work that scales to billions of users. The result is that there’s a ton of room in the middle now for small software teams that are able to bootstrap.

gopher_space 1 year ago |

You have everything you need to clone a SaaS offering for your local environment. Find a product that would be useful if it was local and copy it.

alchemist1e9 1 year ago |

I’m curious what skills the pools of under employed “third word” devs mostly have? Which programming languages, which frameworks, how much Linux knowledge etc. For the various VC types on here it might help with brainstorming ideas on how to best utilize such a talent pool.

tasuki 1 year ago |

I'm afraid I can't help.

Also, I'm not sure HN is the right place to ask: it's full of people from the US with a strange view of what poverty means ("only having one car in the family").

The US poor are fat. The third-world poor are starving. It's a different universe.

greyjoyduck 1 year ago |

Use your own original code for freelance work, Originality is what will set you apart especially in the Ai age

threeseed 1 year ago |

The easiest way for me would be to find a product with an App Store e.g. Shopify, Confluence and build apps for it. Potentially find niches that would be useful just to Bangladesh and work from there. Or look for features that are popular in competitor products and add them.

This at least won't cost you anything except your time.

fallinditch 1 year ago | |

I think this is good advice. I would also add: get in to the freelance mindset whereby, in times of slow business, you put on your sales and marketing hat and devote a significant proportion of your time to selling: contacting, networking, hustling.

itake 1 year ago |

You could try entrepreneurship. Try publishing apps in the App Store. A friend makes $500usd/mo passively because he copied and existing app but focused the content on Southeast Asia.

There aren’t any easy answers any more, but I would spend as much time as I could building stuff and see what works.

mathattack 1 year ago |

2 options, neither of which is easy.

1 - Self-teach your way to excellence.

2 - Go abroad for grad school.

dustingetz 1 year ago |

what is your cost of living in local currency

Gualdrapo 1 year ago |

So-called "third world" "dev" here. Double-quoted "dev" because I'm actually a graphic designer who happens to do a tiny bit of coding.

I kind of understand what you feel because I went through the same on multiple ocassions. The situation here doesn't seem too nice either - people are fleeing not because they want to improve the situation in here or are being directly affected by it but because they want it to not reach them, which I think it's a really pathetic mindset. I have absolutely no desire to leave this place despite all of its problems - it seems to me in other places nowadays you're going to be hated/discriminated/ostracized just because you are you.

I struggled to get a job many times. I'm really fortunate to have a job now, and though it's not a super great income (it seems I lowballed myself a bit) the salary is enough to keep my family going and overall it has been great to learn and improve and I can actually spend the time working and not on inocuous and useless things like meetings and stress and stuff - but I suffer from impostor syndrome on a daily basis and I fear the project is going to end soon so I might find myself looking for a new job in the following weeks or (luckily) months so I'm going to get to first base.

You have the advantage to be young so you still can learn a lot of stuff you'll remember, so invest your time learning, but like actually diving deep into the stuff you really like. That alone will give you an advantage - everybody seems to be a jack of all trades nowadays but few seem to have a bit knowledge of things - if you market yourself as a person with a deep knowledge in something can be much better than trying to seem a know-it-all. Plus knowing english is a big plus you seem to have.

Also build yourself your online portfolio, the best you can do, showcasing the stuff you've done (or, if you haven't done stuff, just get time to create projects for fun, get involved with FOSS/Open Source projects where you can contribute and probably be seen, etc). Your portfolio is like your digital face so you'd want to write the best, cleanest, most readable code possible for your portfolio. The great thing about this part is that you don't actually need the newest, shiniest framework to do it - bare HTML and CSS and some JS will suffice. Believe me or not I suspect what has given me the little gigs I've got was not my portfolio itself but its code.

Oh and upwork and fiverr now are awful places to get freelance jobs. I got luck here in the "Seeking for a job?" posts, and if you search in this site, some people have left great recommendations for alternative places to look for freelance jobs that aren't as absurdly competitive or rigged.

Most importantly, don't lose hope and keep being persistent. You might get some luck between your dedication and perseverance.

tekla 1 year ago |

Go get a degree in something useful.

heraldgeezer 1 year ago |

>I’m 19, and I’ve never seen chaos like this.

Okay, so now I know where all the doom posting is coming from.

Of course, you are 19. A kid.

Sorry, just your lot right now. Unlucky I guess.

I graduated in 2008 in the middle of the financial meltdown, :) It's not a competition, but I am winning.

Also, I am European, so I am winning in that even if our salary is massively lower than a USA one.