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> - people don't work hard here. They come to work slowly, relax, read news, drink coffee, work a little bit, then have lunch, then work a little bit again. When it's 5pm - they just go home.

I disagree. I'm kiwi, and have lived in a few countries overseas (I still do) and think that New Zealanders are the hardest working people I've ever met. Compared to many Europeans, and even Americans, kiwi employees seem to actually deliver more in the allocated time, and go home. That work-life balance is awesome, and I don't think it's a negative. Our company constantly hires kiwis because, well, they seem to work better than anyone else.

Are the all the Pros and Cons here coming from the perspective of living and working in Russia? I thought eg salaries there were very low.

- IT: it is just my opinion, but I would say that average IT specialist in NZ doesn't know much. I see a lot of IT people here who, for example, don't know how to use Git. Who never heard about Rust. Who never heard about LISP. Who have 8 years of Java experience, but don't know basic Java stuff. And so on. Honestly, this is quite disappointing

As a New Zealander, I found this quite jarring when I got out into industry as well. I just assumed it was because I was an outlier though. I thought it's probably fairly unusual for programmers in general to spend a lot of time on hacker news or technical IRC channels or trying out different programming languages. Again, where is this different? I'd love to go.

> I thought eg salaries there were very low.

It depends. I'm talking more about salary/rent ratio. In Russia I was spending about 30% of my salary for rent (and apartment was big and new and nice). Here I spend about 40%. And apartment is tiny and bad (in comparison). Then, here I pay much more for broadband ($95, and it is much slower), more for a phone. And fuel is muuuch more expensive here.

> Again, where is this different? I'd love to go.

Back in Russia, in all companies I've worked at (not top-tier companies) the team was great: they knew a lot of stuff, we were discussing JVM internals during lunch breaks, talked about new things in IT etc. I miss that.

It depends. I'm talking more about salary/rent ratio. In Russia I was spending about 30% of my salary for rent (and apartment was big and new and nice). Here I spend about 40%. And apartment is tiny and bad (in comparison). Then, here I pay much more for broadband ($95, and it is much slower), more for a phone. And fuel is muuuch more expensive here.

I'm assuming that what you save in NZ is higher than what you save in Russia though - after feeding, clothing, housing and entertaining yourself.

Back in Russia, in all companies I've worked at (not top-tier companies) the team was great: they knew a lot of stuff, we were discussing JVM internals during lunch breaks, talked about new things in IT etc. I miss that.

That's really interesting. The only thing I really know that came out of Russia is Nginx, I didn't know that in general Russia had such a tech scene. Wonder if that's because English language proficiency isn't high.

The only thing I really know that came out of Russia is Nginx

Russian techies are among the best in the world, and the stuff they work on would surprise you. Companies like Luxoft write in-flight software for Boeing. Outsourcing to Russia and Eastern Europe is massive. If you have a seriously tough problem, get a Russian to fix it. Source: My late wife was Russian, and a software developer. Have worked almost exclusively with Russian developers for the past years. They do amazing stuff, with a fantastic attitude.

> IT: it is just my opinion, but I would say that average IT specialist in NZ doesn't know much. I see a lot of IT people here who, for example, don't know how to use Git. Who never heard about Rust. Who never heard about LISP. Who have 8 years of Java experience, but don't know basic Java stuff. And so on. Honestly, this is quite disappointing

I think that depends on where you're working. It's definitely true in the general corporate/govt 'IT' scene, but working for startups / product companies (in Wellington at least) it is definitely not the case.

Thanks for a detailed reply !

I'm a bit surprised about the salary. I've seen than in IT it's pretty limited, but also that some other profession can make a very good living - my wife is a doctor and it looks like it's quite a good place to be for medical professionals.

Living costs, yes - that's something I expect. But coming from Paris, I don't think I will be shocked neither... Also, we already have 2 kids and will rather be looking at houses in the suburbs / outside of the main cities, so this should bring the costs down.

Again, thanks for great answer !

"will rather be looking at houses in the suburbs / outside of the main cities, so this should bring the costs down."

No, it doesn't work like that. Have a look at some RE websites and Google Maps. Prices are insane, even in places where you can't reasonably commute to places where there are jobs for educated people. Only places where prices aren't insane is in places people only go to get away from other people. Look, I loved living in NZ in some aspects, but it's not a place for someone with ambition. Even kiwis with ambition leave, even if they don't want really want to.

This is something that bothers me indeed. My best case scenario is to create a company in the machine learning field there. The idea is not yet mature enough, so I'm giving myself time for now (we're planning to move in a year or two).

As for houses, I've checked and it sure looks expensive, but again - I'm living in Paris area where the prices are insane in my opinion. In the suburbs where I live, it's ~5000e/m2 - with almost 1h commute to work.

Well, you can come here, get residency, wait 2 years for a permanent residency or 5 years for a citizenship and then move to Australia. That is what most people with ambitions do here

First, let me make clear that I don't want to dissuade you from going to New Zealand. It's a lovely place, but many people in Europe have a (somewhat) wrong image of it. So I just want to make sure you know what you're getting in to.

Yes, compared with central Paris, prices aren't that insane. But if you want to bootstrap a company, you are looking for (one or more of):

- cheap COL - access to customers - access to staff

In NZ, you have none of those. You'll be much cheaper off living in northern France or somewhere else 'remote' and rural in France, or even the rest of Europe. You'll spend thousands a month renting somewhere that isn't even particularly nice (houses are of crap quality in general), money that you won't have when you're getting a business started.

There aren't many companies that need or are willing to pay for cutting edge software. Sure, you can sell to anywhere in the world through the internet nowadays, but then why would you live hours flying away from your customers, on (relatively) crappy internet lines, many timezones away?

Most Kiwis worth hiring have moved to Oz. That is not to say that all Kiwis left are idiots, of course, but in general they won't be the sort of high-flying, go-getter people you'll want in the initial stages of your company. And those that are left will be hard to find or to convince joining you. It will be easier to convince young people looking for adventure coming from abroad to join you, but they'll be gone just as easily, too (I've seen it happen several times).

NZ is a great place to live if you want to have an outdoorsy-oriented, good work/life balanced lifestyle, while still being in an English-speaking, originally Europe (British) oriented country. Your friends and family will love saying how they will come visit you and then won't once they realize how far away it actually is (exaggerating only slightly here). Until the 1970's, NZ was a very insular, inward-facing, closed economy, of which the effects are still felt today. People like to live very spread out, which makes 4mm people responsible for maintaining infrastructure in an area bigger than the UK. It's true that the majority lives in a few cities, but that also makes those cities expensive.

May I suggest you go live there for a few months first before you move - and treat it as 'living' there, not 'holiday'. So living in the same place, daily rhythm of Mon-Fri 9-5 and doing laundry on the weekends, not being able to go anywhere without a car (this is the number one thing my daughter complained about, although she was only 4 at the time).

Good luck. If you take the plunge, I'm sure you'll have a great time and it'll be a great adventure, but your chances of being the traditional definition of 'successful' will not improve with going there (nothing wrong with that, of course - everybody has to define for themselves what constitutes 'successful').

Thing is, we decided that we will choose the next country according to my wife job (doctor) and lifestyle - nature etc. So based on this, New Zealand seems like the perfect place. I'm well aware that it's not the best career choice I can make to say the least, but I don't consider the points you've made like blocking issues. Things will be harder for sure, but far from impossible.

I may be wrong, but money shouldn't be that much of issue based on what I've heard / read - it seems like doctors are making plenty of money there (as opposed to France, where they are very underpaid, compared to cost of living). Does this sound plausible to live on one income only (family with two kids) ?

We are actually going there next week for 15 days, to see how life is. We're only doing the northern island since it's most probably were we would like to live (and we will have plenty of time to visit the southern one once there). 15 days is short, but I hope we will get a fair idea about the country.

Thank you all guys for the opinions !

Yes, doctors get very good money here. But google it, most probably your wife will have to pass exams or something to prove her qualification and work here as a doctor.

And NZ is a wonderful country for kids!

Also, french community is quite large here!

Actually it's rather easy for doctors with french diploma - just an exam to pass indeed. Rather easy process compared to other countries we considered (Canada, Australia)

Much of this is dead on, but some of it is completely wrong.

What's right: There's not much money to be made as an employee, and the further south you head, the worse it is. About 15 minutes south of Christchurch onwards, employers have this idea that they've hired you so you owe them. If you work in Dunedin, expect very low wages and a requirement for unpaid overtime from 25% of your ordinary hours upwards; my last fulltime job there was working 70 hours a week and then taking another 5-15 hours home, meaning I was paid illegally - $4/hour less than minimum wage.

Worker protections are collapsing, and discrimination against age and disabilities is rife. A friend of mine couldn't get a job because he was 46, and one particular company I applied to loved me until they learned I had a disability.

Employers were surveyed a couple of years ago (I can't find the article that reported it, I think it was on the New Zealand Herald website) and a good portion of them said that discrimination against the disabled was disgusting and should be punished, but they were willing to do it for their own businesses.

Anti-intellectualism is also quite strong here, and many emigrants from the country are exporting the attitude. One particular individual gave me hell for years, for bothering to get a CS degree. "Why bother? You can get corporate experience in your home!" He refused to get his head around the whole CS != IT thing. (I've recently discovered that he's gone to university to get himself a degree in design, quite the hypocrite.)

Housing is terrible, again the further south you go the worse it is, with the worst (oldest) in Dunedin. I rented a house down there that had no underfloor insulation, shredded paper as insulation in the roof space, with gaps around doors and windows I could fit fingers through. It was just two bedrooms, and you have to perform section maintenance (i.e. mow the lawns, trim the hedges) too. That's par for the course, and cost about 40% of our wages. If you want a warm and nicely insulated three bedroom house, you'd be looking at nearer to 60% of your income.

I heard of one research project into energy efficiency in Dunedin housing, where it was revealed that 70% of energy (might have been more) is leaked out of a house before a person is warmed.

Food is quite expensive, too.

Public transport is godawful.

There is very little to do - shops and cafes do close early, although restaurants, bars, and fast food joints are open late. If you're into the big four sports, you're fine (rugby and it's derivatives, cricket, netball, and hockey) otherwise you're basically out of luck. There are some paintball courses and that kind of thing, but basically if you're not into sports or hunting, be prepared to be taunted. There's a very vocal but relatively small section (~37%) of the population who believe that sports are manly and anybody who doesn't like sports is of dubious sexuality. Oh, and if the local rugby team (the All Blacks) lose a match, domestic violence rates as well as general assaults go up as people look to avenge that defeat, but if the team wins, general assaults go up as people go out looking to boost how great the country is.

If you get a "decent" job working in IT, you will likely be expected to go far beyond what would be expected for your role. Watch out for "...and anything else we say is your job," clauses in your contracts. Also make sure you get copies of your contracts (my last five jobs illegally refused to provide me with one and made it very clear that if I made a fuss about it, I would never work again).

Let's see, what wasn't mentioned. You have to love it here, if you don't you'll be told to "go back where you came from."

If you cross a particular politician (Paula Bennett), she can and will release all your private information if she likes, and not get in any trouble for it. Google it, if you doubt me.

If you want to hear the absolute worst of the country, browse this: https://e2nz.org/migrant-stories/

It's not all that bad, and I always made a point of accepting people for who they are and how they behave towards me. As someone who lived there for years, there is quite honestly no future in the place unless you have a significant income stream.

What's wrong: people don't work hard here.

Not completely wrong, but I will explain. In my last job, I wasn't the only one working double my hours - my immediate boss was working the same hours I was, plus another 20% at one point. I'm sure you can imagine why many people don't bother putting in a good effort. That particular workplace, very few worked to the best of their ability because there was no recognition for it (the guy running the place took the credit, and the cash bonus) and it meant that was your new standard.

His boss was working 8 hours a day, getting paid almost $100k/year. He made (and probably makes) the worst decisions imaginable, such as rolling staff cuts but increasing workload for staff who are already working some hours for free each day. He'll pay attractive female staff members much more (as much as 2 1/3 times), but if you're a plain or unattractive female you get only slightly more (measured in cents) than the males, who get minimum. Try and do something about it, you'll wind up meeting a half dozen of the owner's friends. Also see this: https://e2nz.org/2015/01/27/migrant-tales-engineer-says-new-...

tl;dr: if you're in a low paid job, you have to do more work. If you're in a high paid job, you do little and blame others for what goes wrong.

Think carefully before committing to New Zealand. It can be a filthy little hole.