During the past 6-7 years I lived in: Spain (10 months), China (4 months), Italy (1 year), Denmark (1.5 years), Germany (2 years) and now I am in Belgium.
Lately I was considering settling down a bit. However, I am pretty sure if somebody comes offering me a job in Patagonia, Chile or similar I would live tomorrow. As the OP says, it weights more on others than you, you get used to it at some point. The only real problem is rebooting your social life every time, especially if you end up in a small city: if you are introvert, you need to get a hell out of your comfort zone to make this work.
Anyway, my question to the OP: how did you do this financially? I mean, were you always able to get into a good position and keep building up savings? If so, was this due to your technical skills, networking or other? I am asking because in my line of work (finance-controlling) having manual work in the CV would be quite detrimental.
The consultancy / software licenses / services / whatever I'm doing thingy has so far brought more than enough to finance all this and several 10's of manyears of employee salaries to boot. I could have saved a lot by staying in one place and doing just one thing though, that is definitely something to consider. Being born at the right time (just in time to pick up the PC revolution) didn't hurt either, nor does having marketable skills and a pretty disciplined attitude towards hard work and getting your hands dirty.
I often joke that I'm on a decade long vacation and it really feels like that some days but there is plenty of hard work in between.
Similar experience: since leaving my country (Germany) I have been 1.5 yrs US, 3 yrs UK, 1 yr Mexico, now for 3 yrs in Spain. Even though I do feel lonely sometimes due to culture difference and language barrier I love it and cant imagine going back, I'd rather go somewhere else. However, my wife wants a baby and is pretty much nailed to her job so I prepare myself to settle at least for a while. Btw I'm 43
My work experience : Italy(6 months, I'm Italian), USA (5 months), UK (1.5 years), Spain (4 years running).
I agree that the main problem is rebooting your social life... finding a job (at least whithin Europe, for a European, employed in tech) in my experience is not.
Apart from the first two jobs, derived from projects I started at the end of college, I have always applied to job offers online, went to interviews etc...
Thanks for sharing your experiences guys. Finding work for you all is probably easier than for me. Going back, I would have taken a different path, but as of now, even if I do know some web development and python/R for statics/data analysis, it is pretty hard for me to move away from finance (which I also like, by the way), thus I find it pretty hard to have that kind of life and CV.
Basically, since I joined the workforce, my company pretty much decides where I will be. If I live this company, it's going to be another one deciding for me. This kind of work ties you to companies much more than yours it seems. Which is one of the big cons of this job, the pros are there too of course, but I am in a period of life where I actually envy people that can move like you do.
Lately I was considering settling down a bit. However, I am pretty sure if somebody comes offering me a job in Patagonia, Chile or similar I would live tomorrow. As the OP says, it weights more on others than you, you get used to it at some point. The only real problem is rebooting your social life every time, especially if you end up in a small city: if you are introvert, you need to get a hell out of your comfort zone to make this work.
Anyway, my question to the OP: how did you do this financially? I mean, were you always able to get into a good position and keep building up savings? If so, was this due to your technical skills, networking or other? I am asking because in my line of work (finance-controlling) having manual work in the CV would be quite detrimental.