Tuesday 18th December 2018: 12.13am. Location: 53.452598571777344,-6.262866973876953.
Despite being nearly Christmas and the night before flying Dublin to San Francisco for two weeks of family vacation, the last few hours have been unusually busy with finding new work. I had an interview at 9pm which I had to do entirely by phone due to vacation ban on bringing computers, then stackoverflow jobs randomly showed two 100% remote roles in my skill area, so I had to awkwardly submit my interest using my phone which is much inferior to a proper keyboard. The (remote) market is surprisingly frothy right now, I've been applying for roles paying between $250k and $80k per annum and I wouldn't have said there is much difference in the technical calibre nor depth of expertise required. The (remote C++) market seems all over the place, no consistency. I'm very much minded to find a nice long term role safe from the upcoming tech bubble burst, but equally I don't want to do myself out of income either. A threefold difference in pay on offer is significant. But also pay offered differentials are meaningless, it's the pay you land a signed contract in which actually matters, and if that's never more than 150k, then the 250k supposedly on the table was never there. Equally, an 80k role is a big drop from 150k. Do you take the contract anyway, bank guaranteed money instead of waiting for better and potentially seeing a bubble burst which the renders you unemployable? Tough tough call, yet I suspect I'll not return home from this vacation without having to decide.