I would like to talk about something that might be hard to accept and might trigger the feeling of regret but that’s an important topic we must entertain in our brains. Ask yourself a question: If you are climbing a hill right now, is that the highest hill you are capable of climbing?

In computer science, a Hill Climbing algorithm can get stuck at a Local Maximum, a peak that is higher than everything immediately around it, but significantly lower than the highest possible peak, called the Global Maximum. To reach the Global Maximum, you first had to walk down the hill leaving comfort, taking risks, and crossing the valley of uncertainty to reach the right hill and then climb again.

I have climbed too many local maximum hills in my life. The most prominent was my time at the United Nations (IAEA) in Vienna, Austria. UN is a highly prestigious place to work, offering a tax-free salary, numerous perks, that might include education subsidy, extra long paid vacations, great pension payments, etc. If you get high enough you even get a diplomatic passport and be treated as a VIP anywhere in the world. Life in Austria is very stable, you get an incomparable quality of healthcare, and a great free education for kids. It is just the pinnacle of stability and quality of life you can get in central/western Europe.

One of the interesting aspects of working there as a software engineer was that I had to read some very old code. There were not many people I could consult about that code, as the people who wrote it have either retired, or…  died. I recall my interactions with much older colleagues at work and this made me realize that that place, while very prestigious and comfortable is exactly that – way too comfortable. A place to work towards your retirement, not the place to thrive and grow.

The problem is that you cannot realistically climb any higher. Even if I were to spend a good 10 years to reach a director level (unlikely) I would still be limited by “Noblemaire Principle” and my income and net worth, despite being very high in comparison to other salaries in Austria, will grow very linearly. Just to pull some numbers, a director at UN would probably make just <200K$ net, when a senior engineer with just a handful of years of experience at FAANG in the US would be taking home (after tax) a lot more than that. In a summary: D1 at UN is the peak of that specific hill. Hard to get, hard to maintain, capped upside. When merely L5/L6 at FAANG is still close to the base of a gigantic tech hill that is almost uncapped upside.

Moving to Canada, going through years of uncertainty (another immigration process), was my climbing down of the Local Maximum hill only to climb a bigger hill. In a way that was paying “Immigration Debt” in the valley. I worked for Amazon for a good 2.5 years and after switched to Google, which was a great boost to my income and career trajectory. Unfortunately I was still climbing the wrong hill out there. Yes, a lot bigger than the previous hill, but still not the biggest hill on the horizon. At the same time, gaining more certainly by becoming Canadian was my walk along the valley and staying at the “base camp” for a period of time just to get to the next big hill more comfortably.

The debt is not always just temporary paycheck cuts or discomfort of moving, sometimes the debt comes in the form of relationships. I had my university friends back in Ukraine, and my connection with them slowly and gradually decreased as I moved to Austria. These days we don’t even wish each other happy birthdays. The same happened when I moved to Canada. I still have a base of good friends in Austria, but the timezone difference made it challenging to keep the connection. When I visited Austria two years ago it was great to meet all of them, but unfortunately that’s the high price I am paying for moving around. The same has happened again by moving to the US, some friends are just north across the border. I have friends everywhere but the depth of connection is dissolving.

I am now at Meta in the Seattle Area, looking up at this very big mountain. It is a challenging, rewarding ascent, and I am focused on the path ahead. The “risk” of down-climbing from Vienna paid off with a trajectory I couldn’t have imagined back in Europe. Because I have down-climbed before, I no longer fear the descents. Life is a struggle, I accept it, if in some years spot a higher peak, maybe one with a different terrain or climate, whether it’s an updated career growth or something else, I won’t hesitate to pack my gear, walk down into the valley, and start climbing again, ready to pay the price again.