CanadianBadass

I can answer this one since this is exactly what I'm doing right now (Software Engineer). Also from Canada, I lived in NYC for 3 years, and now in Melbourne for almost 2. I'm starting to become a bit restless and eyeing Japan or Germany next.

You rates reflect your environment, period. Don't expect to be paid NYC rates in middle of nowhere, where the rent and food is cheap. Some countries (many commonwealth) allows you to work, almost unrestricted, for a year (like in Australia, it's called a working holiday visa). After that, you need to get sponsored. The USA is a lot stricter however and you need a proper visa before entering the country (if you're Canadian, a TN visa is fairly easy to get with sponsorship).

In her case however, it's very different since she owns her own business and doesn't have to work for someone at the location she's at, which I would imagine you'd be doing. If not, you simply need to create your business in your 'residential' country and travel where ever using a travel visa. Unless you conduct business in that particular country (working for your company while there doesn't count), you're all good.

I've been doing Flash and Flex for 14 years, can confirm. Flash is the easiest way to do very interesting interactions because it is frame based compared to Javascript which is more like traditional languages except with a lot less access to lower level APIs, hence why a lot of animations (CSS3 included) are very rarely smooth.

I'm working for a Melbourne company currently. My dream would be to own my business and travel wherever I please. I have several side projects that I'm working on to accomplish this in the meantime :)

If you're good at what you do, finding work in the industry is really easy. Finding a good company however is difficult.

First time?

Yes and no. The main difference, in my opinion, is the schooling. Engineering school in Canada is very standardized because of the Canadian Engineering governing body. The school needs to follow a very strict curriculum, which means that any engineer (mechanical, computer, electrical, civil, environments, chemical, software, etc) all have the same schooling. The only difference would be how good (or bad) the professors are. In Comp. Sci, these is no standardization and the schooling can differ quite a bit.

From personal experience, I'd also say that software engineers are better problem solvers/architects since engineering school itself is very arduous. In the end though, it all depends on how much you push yourself. I learned 90% of what I'm doing by doing it myself. I started coding at 14 and by the time I went to university at 17, I already knew how to properly code. The background of the person really doesn't matter, it's the passion and drive for perfection that will separate a good developer from a bad one.