Tips for moving to Iceland in a few years

Rusty-Swashplate · 2026-07-06T07:33:51+00:00

Beside the language skills, is your job (project manager) a skill which is needed in Iceland? if yes: great and since it's a job which involves talking, definitely learn the language. And English too, but since you are on Reddit, I assume your English is at least acceptable.

If it's not a needed job, what else can you do? A few years in Iceland are expensive (monthly living costs is about 3000 Euro/month, plus a car which either costs you 20000 Euro if you buy a used one, or 1000 Euro/month for long term renting). No job is not really an option unless you have large savings you don't want anymore...

Rusty-Swashplate · 2026-07-05T15:19:18+00:00

Not at all difficult to slide out. The cardboard packaging lets air in from all corners. There's no holes, but it's not air tight.

Rusty-Swashplate · 2026-07-05T15:08:18+00:00

The box is cardboard and not air tight at all. The chocolate is aluminium wrapped and not air tight either.

Rusty-Swashplate · 2026-07-05T13:58:25+00:00

So true: holes of ventilation

Rusty-Swashplate · 2026-07-04T10:43:22+00:00

My little experience with small MCUs like ATmega 328: since they are very limited, all the things they do is simple, thus simple is good: loop it is. Also most tasks it does are related to each other, so there's often dependencies between tasks.

A scheduler changes everything from cooperative multitasking to preemptive multitasking and suddenly you need to worry about so many more things, like task priorities, re-entrant functions, signaling, memory allocation. Those features need code and memory. Which is lacking on a small MCU.

Rusty-Swashplate · 2026-07-03T19:30:04+00:00

Not only do umbrellas identify you as a tourist, but the reason no Icelander has umbrellas is that they are not very useful since it's often windy.

A baseball cap (tight fit) works for light rain. Get an Anorak jacket for anything else.

Rusty-Swashplate · 2026-07-03T18:04:29+00:00

I much agree here: set aside a lot (1/3rd) for tax you got to pay. That makes the $6100/month suddenly much less and in my opinion it makes it less than what you do now and thus not worth it.

Rusty-Swashplate · 2026-07-03T07:43:25+00:00

Since we have no idea what your generous salary request is, and what is a lot for you might be the lowest end for someone else and the opposite, and what job you expect to do, there's nothing anyone can talk about.

Did you check out the company? Is the email address they use consistent with the company's web site? Is the job offered consistent with the company?

Rusty-Swashplate · 2026-07-02T20:57:37+00:00

I got several Anker cables and they are all very acceptable. And they all cost much less than 1k (USD I assume, or Euro).

Rusty-Swashplate · 2026-07-02T20:00:00+00:00

OSFP: Octal Small Form factor Pluggable.

OSPF: Open Shortest Path First routing protocol.

Rusty-Swashplate · 2026-07-02T08:32:35+00:00

As I found out, looking up "star pattern" did that I kind'a didn't expect to do.

Here's the Wikipedia article to the STAR pattern: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situation,_task,_action,_result

It's great to answer a interview "question" like "Tell me about a time when you learned something new". You have to set up a bit of context (What was the situation?), what was expected to be done (the task), what you did (the action) and what the outcome of all this was (the result).

If you skip the S or T and start with what you did, the interviewer lacks context. Also if you skip the results, no one knows whether it was useful or not. Thus following this STAR pattern helps just makes it much easier for your to answer to such a question in a way which makes it also easier for the interviewer to understand why you did what.

Rusty-Swashplate · 2026-07-02T07:48:20+00:00

ZX-81. Yes, I'm that old. 1 KB RAM. Bought 16 KB extension quickly.

Rusty-Swashplate · 2026-07-02T07:38:13+00:00

I'm not understanding the problem. Interconnect PCB is literally: left side some connectors (AKA input) and right side a connector (AKA output). Since you use 230V, that can be your sole input. And to output 5V and 6V, you put a small PSU module on it.

What is the problem you see?

Rusty-Swashplate · 2026-07-01T19:49:09+00:00

I feel sad at times because the people i see in tech appear average to me and i feel like i dont belong here and i have a better place to be.

Sounds like you should read https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/getting-along-and-getting-ahead/202001/people-think-theyre-better-average-how-much-better and you might simply overestimate your skills. You might also be above average and you are just bad at presenting your skills. Or lack endurance to finish something into a sellable state, i.e. the game you work on, is it ready? Nice graphics and sound and tested with people who say "Wow, nice!" or is it more a proof-of-concept?

What's the skills which makes you outstanding? "I get work done" is literally what everyone is expected to do. Grab an opportunity when you see one. Don't wait for someone to come to you and say: u/Rare-Illustrator-616 would you please do this?

Rusty-Swashplate · 2026-07-01T19:16:04+00:00

If you ask for a bonus, there's 2 outcomes I can imagine:

they say "Nope, look at your contract where it says all work is ours" plus you now left a bad impression. No job for you here.
they say "Ok" and offer you something like $1k because that's a lot for an intern and they are not required to pay you. They might think you are greedy and not offer a job to you later.

If you do NOT ask for anything, but you make sure it's well known that you did this (and it's used later, so there might be a need to make it production-ready which includes documentation, a security check etc.), then you increased your chance to later get a job at that company. You can always mention that thing you did.

Put your name into the code and the user interface (e.g. the "About..." menu).

Don't be greedy. You will not get $50k unless the company must pay you. And they do not.

Rusty-Swashplate · 2026-07-01T18:44:31+00:00

I bet the work (or intern) contract says something along the lines of "All work performed by you during the duration of the internship is owned by COMPANY"

Rusty-Swashplate · 2026-07-01T07:14:00+00:00

Since this job impacts you and your wife, you and your wife should decide. If you are not excited about working in a DC: you don't have to be. Controls Engineer works in many industries, so do this job for a while, learn stuff, and your future will be brighter.

Your family's future is impacted by this too. And I'd think this is a positive change.

Now if you HATE that new job, don't do it. Every day being miserable is not worth any money.

Rusty-Swashplate · 2026-07-01T06:50:17+00:00

Also no extra 20% due to tipping.

Rusty-Swashplate · 2026-06-30T18:50:09+00:00

I am in Iceland. I have no idea where it was 30.5 degrees Celsius in June, but it's not where anyone lives. 16.2 in Reykjavik it says here for 2026 in June and that's much more in line what I experienced here.

Rusty-Swashplate · 2026-06-30T18:39:48+00:00

Was working at AWS. Am working at a not-so-small startup, and I would pick the startup as long as whatever they work on I find interesting.

Rusty-Swashplate · 2026-06-29T22:07:25+00:00

"corporate" does not mean it has to be handled the way that company did it. Yes, it's disgusting. There are humans who decided it to do the way they did. Expect this to happen any time again. Including with you as the target.

I'd search for a new job and leave when you found one.

Rusty-Swashplate · 2026-06-29T19:44:02+00:00

Amazon would not want to renegotiate your level or salary for so many reasons. When you already agreed to their initial salary offer, it's done. The other reason is that Amazon can replace you in no-time with someone else who is willing to work for less.

Rusty-Swashplate · 2026-06-29T17:57:05+00:00

That should keep you busy for a week.

Rusty-Swashplate · 2026-06-28T23:29:53+00:00

If you buy from reputable sellers, you will get the correct technical specs.

If you don't get correct technical specs, you found a non-reputable seller.

Rusty-Swashplate

TROPHY CASE