I've read a remark in some thread (don't remember which and even which search keyword can retrieve it) that a dev can charge a significantly higher hourly if he's able show up at the customer's office. I'm probably better off reposting this at SO or HN or a local community, but I'm yet to establish myself there.

I wonder by how much such temporary jobs can boost one's earnings if the home is chosen at an appropriate place - a 'hub' allowing to commute to as many congregations of IT offices as possible. (To clarify, renting instead of owning property is considered much more of a life failure in the Russian culture than in the American one, so the strategy of renting and saving money in mutual funds despite being able to afford an own property is at risk of giving me a more dubious social status, leave alone that landlords tend to be less friendly to tenants here than in America.)

Long story short, I kind of know what the variables are in the 'optimisation problem', but I'm not so sure what their weight is, e.g. how often one gets a contract that requires office commute.

Of course there are local (Russia / Moscow) specifics - as far as I can see, because of the weakness of the national economy, in-person jobs pay somewhat lower on average than analogous online jobs for Western customers.

However, some companies from the developed world branch out to Russian innovation technoparks and their payrolls are tied to the dollar or the euro and thus stabler. So I reckon that the assumption that most of the decent contract jobs are in those parks yields quite an accurate approximation for an optimal home location.

That said, cost-effectiveness of housing is yet another variable. Most of the time, the projects will be made from home, and thus it makes sense to strive for a cheaper place of abode even though it's farther from IT offices. I don't know, though, how well customers would tolerate the need to wait for 1.5-2.5 for me to commute; I wonder what their tolerance threshold is, from what distance from their office they still accept workers.

It's of course up to national mentality, but afaik, 1.5 hours to commute are considered fine, especially if the office is in a suburb because the city is ridden with traffic jams. So I reckon that choosing a home at a rural place that is close to the most IT-heavy suburb is a decent cost-efficient strategy. Being remote would be more of a problem if I was considering ever having a romantic life, but as I'm in proud solitude, I don't care that much about people with whom I have no contract.

As far as modes of transport, I have no car and never intend one, but going by train or bus has benefits - it frees the hands up and allows to write code on a phone.

I guess it's just a rant that I needed to put into text and store somewhere, I don't mind putting it on 2+2. But I'd still love to hear about people's experiences.