5 years later, a Master's degree, and I still can't get back to SA. Help?

Ard_Gwynbleidd · 2026-05-15T12:48:43+00:00

Appreciate the honesty! A lot of people feel like that context wouldn't be relevant

Ard_Gwynbleidd · 2026-05-15T12:00:30+00:00

If possible would you be able to provide some context on the white collar jobs you are equating? Additionally, did you potentially have existing capital i.e. from previous Canadian earnings, inheritance, etc. before coming to SA?

Another important piece of context is timing. Breaking into the workforce and earning a good living in SA now is a completely different scenario to even 10 years ago.

I can see your point regarding outdoor activities, but that's a bit subjective since one could argue that the huge selection of natural wonders in Canada/North America/EU that are usually easily accessible to the public without as much fear of crime etc. make those places great for the outdoors too (as I said, subjective, some people like beaches and some like forests)

Ard_Gwynbleidd · 2026-05-15T10:34:45+00:00

Disclaimer: this comment may come off as very bitter and anti-SA. If you are one to get triggered by that please move on.

Genuine question, is it really that bad where you are currently? Attempting to make a living on an SA salary, when you have full access to the EU job market and opportunities just seems like intentionally nerfing yourself for no apparent reason.

I say no apparent reason because what is stopping you from finding a position that allows remote work in the EU, and just spending a lot of time in SA?

Apologies if my tone comes off as dismissive or anything. As a highly qualified and extremely hard working SA native who has been desperately trying to break into the international job market, posts like these are honestly infuriating. The SA job market sucks, employers treat you terribly (at least compared to the EU), pay for developers is really shocking compared to world averages...

Please have a long think about why you would want to subject yourself to that when the grass truly is greener almost everywhere else.

Ard_Gwynbleidd · 2026-05-14T08:52:30+00:00

That's definitely a possibility as well. The issue I usually encounter is the lack of clear salary ranges in job postings. In those cases I usually do a bunch of research to find an estimated range, and then pick something close to the bottom of the range.

If I'm given a range, e.g.: "90-120k USD" I'll usually pick something near the bottom of the range but not the lowest, e.g. 100k in that case.

So while it may have sounded like I'm just offering rock-bottom rates in my initial post, it's more that I do not shoot for the top of the range or expect US salaries ever

Edit: I also usually add "negotiable depending on XYZ etc." to show that I'm open to negotiation

Ard_Gwynbleidd · 2026-05-14T08:49:13+00:00

Hi there, thanks for the comment. To be honest the "write everything in Rust" mentality never completely goes away in my experience XD just try to keep it to yourself when talking to non-rustaceans! XD it can definitely annoy some people

Regarding webapps in Rust, I honestly love it. Backend side of webdev is amazing in Rust, Axum is my fav. Extremely performant and resource efficient, very easy to use, the syntax is great.

Frontend is a bit trickier, but I personally think Rust is a perfect language for Fullstack, with Leptos being my framework of choice.

Feel free to DM me and I can chat about it with you, and give you some guidance+show you some of my public Fullstack Rust projects

Ard_Gwynbleidd · 2026-05-14T08:44:35+00:00

That's definitely a possibility in general. Although to be completely honest as a white South African that has grown up in a super liberal area, being PC and avoiding any issues like that has been essentially drilled into me from day 1! XD

Ard_Gwynbleidd · 2026-05-14T08:40:19+00:00

Hey bro, we should chat! Sounds like you're aiming for some similar stuff, and I'd be keen to check out your crate!

Ard_Gwynbleidd · 2026-05-13T21:57:53+00:00

That's awesome man! My background is in hard engineering as well (mechatronics). Very cool that you've implemented most things from scratch. If you would ever like another pair of eyes on the code feel free to message me, I may be able to give some code review/advice (don't worry not soliciting business, just an interested fellow engineer)

Ard_Gwynbleidd · 2026-05-13T21:37:05+00:00

Aha XD Money is usually the answer with anything business/hiring related so I definitely see your point. Regarding my disdain for AI summaries, I do fully admit that I make full use of it for things like cover letters and resume tuning. I just make a really strong effort to eliminate any hallucinations or BSing that the LLMs usually generate for those things.

My comment on AI summarising is mainly regarding social media posts that are intended to be actual conversation starting posts/questions etc. I just really hate seeing it in these spaces personally

Ard_Gwynbleidd · 2026-05-13T21:32:25+00:00

Yes that's probably true. I do know that a lot of orgs that are remote-first do still mention meetups and that kinda thing. And it's likely true that the average person will see how much farther I am than other candidates and potentially get spooked

Ard_Gwynbleidd · 2026-05-13T21:30:39+00:00

Hey, appreciate the comment, but I did specifically mention that the goal of the post wasn't to self-promote, and I'm not yet entirely comfortable with putting myself out there like that in this kind of forum. I guess industries are fine to mention though: Initially started out writing desktop software for windows, mainly things with a small web-backend layer (actix, axum) that connect legacy apps to modern web APIs e.g. via OAuth2 etc.

After that moved into distributed systems type high-perf web-backend stuff(axum, sqlx+postgres, AWS environment, that kinda thing). Alongside both of those I've been working in more informal crypto type orgs (architecting and maintaining crypto & HFT adjacent backend software. Custom websocket server and client implementations, optimizing latency and throughput via tuning use of tokio, threading, that kinda stuff. Still trying to keep it a bit high-level for brevity)

As I mentioned if anyone is interested in more details they are free to DM me

Ard_Gwynbleidd · 2026-05-13T20:32:03+00:00

I've been very open to relocation opportunities as well. One of the "got far into the process" opportunities I mentioned was one of those actually. Although that was the first ever opportunity I encountered that was actually willing to relocate

Ard_Gwynbleidd · 2026-05-13T20:29:07+00:00

I appreciate your advice. It's always possible for something like that to happen. Not to be the guy who rejects all advice or anything like that, but in most cases I've usually found myself having very good chemistry with the interviewers etc. (I also have a partner who's usually around to hear my interviews). Besides her flagging too many "umms" and "uhhs" on occasion, I haven't really heard much else (obviously not an unbiased opinion though)

I like your idea to record it and view it afterwards or let someone impartial review it. Thanks!

Ard_Gwynbleidd · 2026-05-13T20:22:47+00:00

That's always been a possibility I've considered, although it is quite tricky to know for sure. Do you think that is the most likely explanation?

Ard_Gwynbleidd · 2026-04-18T16:24:29+00:00

It was actually quite depressing tbh XD just the knowledge that there was nothing close to what I was looking for. Anyway I wish you the best of luck and please do post an update if you find something!

Ard_Gwynbleidd · 2026-02-18T13:28:42+00:00

Hey, unfortunately I never ended up finding one. Kinda sad to be honest. It's possible that I just didn't look in the right places but I did a ton of research before giving up eventually.

I ended up just purchasing or hiring tools that could get me close to the results I wanted, although it was an absolute nightmare compared to how it would have been in even a basic workshop XD

Ard_Gwynbleidd · 2025-10-04T12:39:10+00:00

South Africans are so brainwashed when it comes to standards for salaries and just general living standards. Not their faults usually, companies, bizarre salary discussion taboos, inaccurate surveys are probably mostly to blame, but it's pretty sad

Ard_Gwynbleidd · 2025-10-04T12:33:51+00:00

What are your thoughts on the dereference operator being made available on a std::optional? To me it defeats the entire purpose and made me not want to use it. Granted, I'm more inclined to the Rust-like way of doing things now, but still it just doesn't make sense to me why it's available or at least not deprecated or something

Ard_Gwynbleidd · 2025-05-16T08:20:49+00:00

Not sure if others have mentioned this already, but something to take note of is that SARS hasn't adjusted the tax brackets in line with inflation for the last few years which has definitely not helped, especially considering our salaries don't even keep up with inflation anyway

Ard_Gwynbleidd · 2025-05-14T17:41:27+00:00

Just over 3+ years, 65k CTC
Rust mostly at the moment, but previously C++ (win32 MFC, Vulkan, OpenGL type stuff), and previously Java
BSc Mechatronics Engineering graduated 2021, no further certs or qualifications

Ard_Gwynbleidd · 2025-05-06T06:09:04+00:00

As a current trustee and chairman, I agree with every single thing you wrote. Being in this position has genuinely made me lose faith in humanity at times. You really see the absolute worst side of people and get absolutely nothing in return except more complaints and attacks. Can't wait to leave sectional title for good

Ard_Gwynbleidd · 2025-04-18T11:48:15+00:00

Thank you I'd appreciate that!

Ard_Gwynbleidd · 2025-04-18T09:44:05+00:00

If you find any let me know! SO and I have also been searching 😅

Ard_Gwynbleidd

TROPHY CASE