Why IT Professionals Leave Home: Survival, Choice, and the Next Generation

The Reader's Dilemma

A 29-year-old developer in Hangzhou, originally from Henan, asks: with aging parents and no decent internet companies back home, why must IT people leave their hometowns? What is the meaning?

Author's Background

The author, Jun Ge, former technical director at Ele.me, grew up in rural Anhui. He graduated from a second-tier university in 2005 with a starting salary of 1,800 RMB/month. His father couldn't understand Java or distributed systems — only whether he could fix computers. Jun Ge progressed to architect at Yihaodian (1号店) and later led 70+ people at Ele.me.

Why the Migration Is Forced

IT technology, information, and opportunities grow in specific soil. In small cities, you might not touch high concurrency for half a year, see no new tech for a year, and conversations revolve around personal connections rather than code quality. Skills don't just age — they depreciate rapidly. Young people flock to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen not because they love moving, but because they have no alternative.

The Difficulty of Returning

Leaving is getting harder. AI is arriving, front-end demand is falling, and many experience advantages are being erased by tools. You work late in a rented room, yet housing prices, household registration, and parental care remain unsolved. Liepin reports that 23% of those who "escape" first-tier cities return within 15 months. Core positions and industry resources stay in the hubs; leaving the node means leaving the table.

Three Layers of Meaning

1. Survival

You must eat before you talk ideals. Hometowns cannot provide IT jobs; you go where the jobs are.

2. Choice

You go to big cities not to stay forever, but to see the best technology, work with the strongest people, and be tested by complex systems. Only then do you earn the right to choose: stay, return, or work remotely. Choice is the asset migrants must accumulate.

3. The Next Generation

Some generation must leave home. If it starts with us, let it end with us. Remote work, digital nomads, and AI tools are weakening geographic bonds. In a few years, a programmer in a hometown town may join cutting-edge projects, and "leaving home" may no longer belong to IT people.

Advice for the Young

If you're still young and have energy, go out and struggle. Not to stay in a big city forever, but to go where information density is highest, fatten your abilities, and then you'll have options. Leaving home was never the goal — it's just the fare our generation of IT people pays for "having a choice."

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