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I'm a self-taught developer with nearly 3 years of experience freelancing and none as a company employee. Though I began learning and developing software at the age of 13 (I'm 22 now).
My main expertise is web development (front-end and back-end), and I was involved in many non-web related back-ends (like mobile & desktop back-ends).
I recently started looking for a job in my home country (Israel), and I've been interviewed by two companies so far. The first picked someone else, the second offered me what I consider a generous salary (~20% above fresh CS grad avg, and I don't have a CS degree) and an interesting field to work in (deep learning, in which I have zero experience, but they believe I'm fit for it after testing me).
So this is my first job offer in the field ever, and I was pretty excited at first. The only problem I have is the distance - about a hour and 45 minutes each direction. With a 9 hour workday and 3 hours and 30 minutes of being on the road, I'd be very exhausted every evening which would mean I wouldn't be programming in the little spare time I'd have left. I'd be too exhausted to do any side projects or develop new skills which I love to do very much. This free time I always had in the evenings is what led me to this field in the first place.
I'm not hurrying to take a job, I can support myself via freelancing until I find one. I believe I'll find a job that is much shorter on travel time if I keep looking, but it might be not as interesting as deep learning to me though.
So what do you guys think? As someone who isn't in a hurry to find a job and loves his after-work free time, would you give up your free time for an interesting job or would you keep looking for an interesting job that allows you to keep your free time?