Ask HN: Help. I need to go away from here

You should not feel trapped. Programming, more than most sectors, grants you the liberty to choose your next job very freely, and to ease your mind about quitting your previous job.

Because: if you are good, people will fight to work with you. So be good.

Then, if you dislike your job, just stash some money and quit. Your savings will easily carry you for the few months you might need to find a really interesting job.

* * *

To sum up:

- You "love programming", so you should enjoy doing it for a living, as long as the project is interesting

- There are lots of interesting projects out there

- Regardless of whether the project is interesting, you will be well-paid

So my advice is: be well-paid for a while, and if you are not interested in the project, just quit. There is plenty of other fish in the sea.

Move to a tech hub in Europe, given you speak English then London would be the obvious option (Berlin might be another option if you want to work for startups). There's also other countries in Europe where you can study post-grad CS in English (e.g. the Netherlands, Sweden, etc.).

If you're interested in getting into the job market there's plenty of tech companies in London who are willing to hire people straight out of university. It might be easier to get into big companies (as they're more willing to provide training and pay for flights, hotels, etc. to bring you over for interviews) than smaller startups though.

Alternatives :

- send your resumé to uk/ireland/switzerland to get a good paying job where you can sharpen your skills (it's easy to relocate inside Europe)

- start your own business if you're living at your parents AND if you feel like you can be an entrepreneur... focus on international users (so you can host your company somewhere else easily later). It's only risky to start a business if you have something to lose. If you're living at your parents', there's basically no risk.

- get a job, save AS MUCH money as possible, learn as much as you can. Do it for 1 or 2 years, then leave to a sunny paradise (in asia?) where you may want to become an entrepreneur.

But do yourself a favor: don't expect others to be your only chance. YOU are your only chance.

Have faith in patience. Good things will come. Stick with what inspires you. What I took from university, I took from two excellent professors out of dozens -- they are who matter (and I did not study CS). Don't grasp for "getting out," dive deeper into what interests you and see what happens naturally. Get involved with a community; open source, hacker meetups, etc. You will know where to go soon enough.

There are lots of options - but it's up to you to make them happen.

* Speak to someone. I know you feel like you're alone - but you're not. Find a local tech group and speak to the people there. If you're feeling really down, speak to a mental health professional. It's a great feeling to get something off your chest.

* Find a job in London - or any other UK city. You seem to have good written English and you're a European citizen so shouldn't have any visa issues.

* Start your own consultancy - either work for small local companies or use oDesk and bid for work.

* Take a "day job" and concentrate on your passions in your free time. Grinding away in a Java shop may be dull - but could provide you with enough cash to start an interesting side project.

* Finally, don't worry about starting small. My first job out of university was driving a truck and delivering PCs! A bit shitty, but it provided a springboard to all sorts of interesting work.

Good luck!

I have studied in Italy too and, even if I didn't have a big passion for programming as you did, I see your point.

Apart from English University, think also about coming to study in Denmark, in particular where I'm studying now, at DTU (Technical University of Denmark).

Here the Startup scene is very vibrant and the University itself is very keen on the entreprenurial scene, with a lot of possibilities for student that want to open their own companies.

On the other side, the lectures are very practical, so you could apply your bachelor background in more close-to-real-life projects. You'll also work quite often in groups, as in a real job, and the bureaucracy does not exists. You call the teachers by name, they answer emails (!), you know the date of the exam since the beginning of the semester, and you have a variety of courses you can choose from, creating your own personalized study plan.

Aaand, student jobs are quite easy to get here for Computer Science students, and the wages are quite good, even comparing them with the high cost of living.

Think about it ;)

I'm an italian 36 years old computer engineer...i understand your complaints and agree with you quite on every thing you said but you don't need to go away (even if it wouldn't be a bad idea at all). Three years ago, after working as an employee (my skills regarded most j2ee) i started working as a freelance: i grew my skills (now android, iOS, a lot of web-related technologies and languages) knew a lot of people, solved a lot of different clients needs through my skills. if you want you can freelance and you will be able to improve yourself and live a bettere life even if you live here in italy, even if we have unacceptable tax levels and burocracy.

Presumably you're an EU citizen. Move to Berlin, London, Dublin, Warsaw, and pick up from there. If your English needs work, work on it. Build your own projects.

I moved from California to Dublin and the startup scene is really good here. You have options.

The easiest short-term solution is to work for or intern with a great company in Europe for a while, most likely in London. Your best options are a brand name tech company - Google, Palantir, Microsoft, etc. - well connected start-up - Spotify, GoCardless, Transferwise, etc. - or a technology-driven hedge fund. If you are a really good programmer there will be plenty of people happy to hire you. We have a real shortage of tech talent here. You can always transfer to the US later or get hired at a US company happy to sponsor a visa based on those credentials.

It might be worth talking to some good tech recruiters in London. Depends a bit on your background and how much of your university course you have left.

Italian here as well, graduated few months ago from a MsC., I feel your pain. Was for a full year in USA for an internship, I can say that it has changed my life, and my view on work.

I refused hundreds of Job offers from Italy (even with a decent salary), to chase something abroad. Now I am happily working at one of the top tech companies, in Dublin.

I had a hard time at university. The italian university are broken, seriously, They focus on a lot of theory and zero to no practice.

My personal advice is, to believe in yourself, develop yourself, study new technologies and skills required by the market, find your perfect 'career' path. You won't find hard finding a really good job in Europe or USA if you have the right skills.

P.S. don't accept ANY of the Italian initial offers, look outside, practice with spoken English and send Resumè's abroad (Don't be scared about the big companies, they need you more than everybody else, and they are hiring like crazy.)

Don't start working in Italy in a typical "consultancy" job, or you will be stuck forever with a low-wage low-experience job.

You don't have to go to San Franscisco to get into a startup. There are a lot of them in London and Berlin, and you - as an EU citizen - will have zero issues with the visa there.

Besides, university is not about getting ready for a job: it's about learning how to learn.

You're an EU citizen. You shouldn't have a problem getting work in Berlin or London.

There is a ton of work in the UK at the moment, not just in London but also up in Manchester and Leeds. Plenty of people will be happy to pay you a decent living wage if you can show you can work hard and know your stuff.

Good luck.

Berlin, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, London, ... Lots of cool places in Europe where startups are sprouting fast, and no visa needed for Italian citizens.

I'm an American in Italy, so while there are things I don't like here, I don't feel 'trapped' - I can always go home.

Go to London or Berlin or something. There are tons of Italians in both places working in tech.

Where do you live in Italy? There are good companies here and there if you look hard.

Say hi if you're ever near Padova, where I live. Offer goes for anyone on HN, for that matter.

I know it's hard. I know that you think that everything sucks, because I used to think that, too. But there is passionate people around you, there are good companies, there is an interesting work. You have just to go and find them. Network and things will go better, I promise.

Junior Italian programmer here. I totally get your point, the thing is here in Italy we're used to a different level of expertise than most of the rest of the world.

I don't know which university you're attending but it's highly likely they're teaching you either useless stuff or useful stuff in a very superficial manner (which will be nowhere near enough for passing a technical interview in the U.S., for example).

As somebody else has already said, one of the best things you can do is to get (very) good at programming. There's a lot of material available on the web for studying on your own and practicing your skills: TopCoder and HackerRank are the first two websites that come to mind. Study hard and practice there, some of the problems you find on those websites are very close to the ones people will ask you during technical interviews. You'll need to be quick and accurate in an interview, so be sure to understand why a certain algorithm/data structure works for a given problem. It's hard and it requires a lot of time, but since you're a student time is on your side (trust me, when you'll be working time will be your most valuable resource).

Another good thing to do IMHO is to practice programming using open source resources such as GitHub: build a nice repo of projects and you'll get noticed. A couple years ago I made a stupidly simple JavaScript program (which I've since deleted) that changed the font size of a text, giving it the shape of a wave, a slope, etc. Very simple, very stupid, but still: I posted it here on HN and I got a couple people watching my GitHub repo. Also, working on personal projects is good for learning programming practices (how to structure code, how to design classes, etc.).

As a final note, it may be hard to believe but there are some nice programming jobs here: you just have to look very hard to find them. Don't settle for the first job offer you get: I know the market is pretty bad here at this moment but still, unless you really (and I do mean really) need the money, keep looking and most important of all, keep practicing. Experience pays off.

You can find some of my contact info on my profile, let me know if you have some questions.

Good luck.

For me the easiest way to escape from Italy was through AIESEC, a worldwide student-run organization which sends you abroad for an internship.

I ended up working in Denmark, but as far as I remember there where plenty of big corporates (like Google, IBM, Microsoft) in the network, looking for interns.

Other than that, you should definitely focus on networking, blogging, side projects/open source.

Try not to apply via the regular channels, go and find connection (i.e. actual employees) that can recommend you to recruiters

Like many other have said Europe is on your doorstep. I run and engineering team in London and most of my recent hires have been people emigrating from countries like Spain, Italy and Poland. For most they are coming from backgrounds similar to yours. Our Office is hugely diverse with staff from all over the world. This is the case with most London startups and the are looking looking for talented engineers to join them.

If you are interested check our or jobs page http://busuu.com/jobs or email me on jobs@busuu.com mentioning HN so I know its you

Good luck with the future you are only getting started!

As Italian myself, I lived almost 5 years ago and I have never looked back. If you want an advise, live. If you can go to US good, otherwise almost any other country would do too.

But you are not trapped... You are what? 23? With a EU Visa. At this age you can take 1 year off and go to a place, any place, that you like and start from there.

Finally, do you actually have a github? If you are studying 10 hrs a day to be "third in your final year", then that's why you are trapped. You are trapped in that terrible Italian way of thinking that grades are all that matters. Get lower grades and go build stuff, get a job, even a "normal" job like a waiter will teach you a lot.

I'm Italian and moved to London 3 years ago. I had a nice 10-min commute permanent job and a mortgage but I was feeling pretty much like you. I decided to escape and spent all my savings (not much really) to move a abroad and experience something different.

I did it for me, for my job, for my family and my future. And I'm doing good (I'm a software dev in a financial company) and I really feel all these efforts were worth it.

I've learnt a lot of things and still learning, but most of all... I'm happy to have left my country to its decline and contribute with my best to UK, which is giving me the opportunity of a better living. I only live once, I can't afford to fix Italy.

I think Italy is still a little treasure chest.... but it's living in the past. My suggestion is to move away as soon as you graduate (or even now if you wish) and go to some other country like Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands or UK. I'm sure you'll be fine.

I live in India, and I face the same situation time and again, which you are facing now.

I've come to a conclusion that it's because of Hacker News, the more you see HN, the more you get worried by watching a lot of start-ups growing in front of you, and you can't do nothing but press an upvote button, applauding their success.

What you need to do is close HN and minimize the time you spend on it, instead work on something, start small and don't get depressed easily.

The stories you see on HN are months hard work, they also feel same time and again, but they don't lose hope.

I know my comment is bit harsh and not sympathetic, but IMHO right now you don't need sympathy instead you need motivation.

Work Hard! Good Luck.

I hear you on the lack of focus on modern technologies in universities - but the same is true here in the UK for the most part. It's understandable with the European economy being the way it is, and some countries really suffering, you would want to find a better life elsewhere.

One of the problems is that you will find many of the 'enterprise' jobs that you feel will trap you are commonplace in a lots of countries - certainly here in the UK and I'm sure in America also. There are more jobs in startups in the USA but not so many as you might be hoping (even if you could get a VISA). My point is the grass is not always greener on the other side.

You may actually have more success and find what you are looking for in upcoming 'developing countries' such as Mexico if you are considering all locations.

Whatever happens best of luck and I hope you find a profession you are happy with.

Take a look at Balsamiq ... a startup in Italy that definitely doesn't suck. And I'm guessing that Peldi can point you to others.

Note: It doesn't mean you have to stay

How's your Erlang? http://joinupptalk.tumblr.com/post/71969117552/server-core-s...

I have a completely different story: I spent 4+ years abroad and I wanted to go back to Italy so badly that I found a remote job.

If you look through my history you'll be able to find a blog post that tells the story. I'm more than willing to tell you more if you want and maybe hook you up for an internship.