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Which is silly....honestly companies need to start opening offices in more affordable areas. Colorado (Blouder, Denver, The Springs), Texas (Austin, San Antonio
by nullrouted 11y ago
Which is silly....honestly companies need to start opening offices in more affordable areas. Colorado (Blouder, Denver, The Springs), Texas (Austin, San Antonio), Missouri (Kansas City, Saint Louis)....there are so many places you can put your employees that saves them money as well as your company a lot of money not only in Salaries because you'll be able to employees less but your rent/power/etc.
- WalterSear 11y agoThis is one of those things that is a great idea until it isn't. When your employer goes belly up, in SF, you have to fight off job offers. That's not going to be the case elsewhere. It's also much harder on the employers: if you think finding one good job is hard, try hiring an entire team of decent employees at once. Ultimately, it's worth the extra cost of staying where the tech is, prefixing your city name ala 'Silicon xxx' not withstanding.
- rco8786 11y agoAnybody in tech in SF is constantly fighting off job offers, not just when their employers go belly up. At some point, costs will reach a tipping point where people will start to look elsewhere(I don't mean 1% of people and I don't mean the Easy Bay, but actual significant people moving away from the Bay Area).
- WalterSear 11y agoI've been here 20 years, and people have been saying that almost since I got here :)
- rco8786 11y agoNo doubt. I definitely didn't say, "we're at the tipping point"...but it exists...somewhere....
- jkestner 11y agoIt's not like those other cities are tech wastelands. You'll be able to find a good job. Maybe it won't pay as much as a city where you're being fought over, but then, it doesn't need to.
- mooreds 11y agoI had multiple clients (I'm a developer and a contractor) who had job reqs open for months at a good pay scale and had a heck of a time finding people in the Boulder Denver area. I think that the tech frenzy is great enough that people are fighting over tech folks in other areas--maybe not as violently as in SF, but still fighting.
- WalterSear 11y agoWhat is considered a 'good' pay scale outside the bay area?
- wsterling 11y agoIn Denver and Boudler I'm seeing SWE postings with salary 100K - 160K. Not really much different then SF and a lot cheaper housing. You are really much better off in Colorado then Norhter California. Don't tell anyone!
- zyxley 11y agoSounds like their "good" pay scale wasn't good enough.
- mooreds 11y agoI guess that could have been it. I did some hiring a year or so ago and they pay scales were comparable. And the numbers I see are similar to what I've seen with other jobs (friends, email lists, etc). Each client did end up hiring, but it was a slog.
- EC1 11y agoSo I should keep losing money for the possibility to find another job similar to my last one so I can keep losing money?
- WalterSear 11y agoIf you are losing money, you aren't doing it right. Sure, maybe you would be better off somewhere where the competition isn't as hard, and the living costs aren't as high.
- EC1 11y agoThe whole context of this thread is insane rent prices, aka losing money.
- baddox 11y agoSpending 50% of your income on rent isn't the same thing as losing money, unless you're defining "losing" to mean "spending." I doubt many of these SF tech workers started with some savings and are watching their savings decrease each month.
- s73v3r 11y agoNo, the context is insane rent prices. That doesn't translate to losing money. Several people have stated that the difference in salary is making up for it, to where they have as much after rent, after tax income or more than in other places.
- vonmoltke 11y ago> When your employer goes belly up, in SF, you have to fight off job offers. That's a chicken-and-egg problem. Companies choose to set up shop there so employees will feel more comfortable taking risks because of the demand for developers. However, the demand for developers exists because companies tend to set up shop there.
- WalterSear 11y agoSo what? Framing it that way doesn't make it any easier to resolve.
- joesmo 11y ago"When your employer goes belly up, in SF, you have to fight off job offers. That's not going to be the case elsewhere." In my experience, this is not going to be the case in almost every major city and in some areas not near a major city. Places where I've found/been recruited for jobs easily: Seattle, Portland, Austin, Philadelphia, Central NJ, NYC, San Diego, Atlanta, Dallas, DC. And those are just the places I was looking into at the time. Sure, if you're looking for a very specialized niche, the bay area is a better choice, but for most engineers that just isn't the case.
- ryandrake 11y agoKeep in mind that the job market is not predictable. For the moment, getting a job seems to be a little less painful than it usually is, but I will bet you any amount of money you want that this situation won't last. Remember 2007/2008... nobody was "fighting off job offers" back then.
- WalterSear 11y agoI am certain it was much worse being a jobless techworker elsewhere at that time.
- toomuchtodo 11y agoLyft is moving its customer service team to Nashville due to the cost of SF rent. SFBA companies! Get it together! Learn to be remote teams. It makes you a better company in the end. EDIT: And you're not slaving your employees by forcing them to spend so much of their income on the unnecessary expense of SFBA housing.
- lukethomas 11y agoWhere I work (www.crystalknows.com) is based out of Nashville. I'm remote in Portland, ME (tons of good beer & restaurants) and I pay $1200/mo for a mortgage on a 2bedroom condo on the ocean. Just moved from Boston, and I'm saving a ton on living expenses. SF is the last place on earth I would move to.
- toomuchtodo 11y agoI too am a remote worker, and I make an engineer salary while living in low cost-of-living US locals. You can live very well if you're not blowing your salary on rent in SF.
- Nicholas_C 11y ago>Learn to be remote teams. It makes you a better company in the end. Does it? I hear everyone on here say that more work should be remote but I haven't seen any studies that show that workers can be just as productive when not in the office. I would assume they would be.
- famousactress 11y agoOr not open offices (shameless remote work soap-boxing)
- pakled_engineer 11y agoAirbnb's new 72,000-square-foot office allows employees to work wherever they want inside (no fixed workspaces), so why not just let them work remotely instead of spending millions on a new building.
- suryon 11y agoThe problem is they explicitly had to create something like Bay Area. They needed the engineers to be @ place. And the same can happen anywhere if you recreate the Bay Area. Solution: remote work Honestly...160k salaries for some sw roles are silly. But there is need for them because the costs of living are so high. That's plain bs.
- shkkmo 11y agoSolution: Concentrate your tech workers in a area that isn't hostile to expanding the housing supply when needed.
- toomuchtodo 11y agoWhich narrows it down to Las Vegas, and Las Vegas is hell on Earth.
- acconsta 11y agoNew York manages http://www.wsj.com/articles/construction-in-new-york-city-goes-through-the-roof-1438217274 http://www.wsj.com/articles/construction-in-new-york-city-go...
- saryant 11y agoVegas, Houston, Phoenix, Denver, Atlanta...
- toomuchtodo 11y agoI'll give you Denver, definitely high quality of life in Colorado. Not Vegas, most definitely not Texas (save for Austin), not Phoenix, and Atlanta is nowhere near friendly unless you work from home and never need to get into a car. Chattanooga is good, Nashville is good (but getting pricey), lots of space and smart people in North Carolina (Asheville or Raleigh Durham Research Triangle Park). I've heard good things about Des Moines (not a fan of the cold though). At this point, its just masochistic for SF startups to require their tech staff to live in the area, and throw away so much of their income to landlords.
- proksoup 11y agoI am spending 50% of my after-tax income on rent. The 50% I have remaining is more in SF than what I was making in Phoenix or Little Rock or Lincoln. The amount of choice in employer I have as an individual is also much greater here. Still, I'll probably head back to one of those "small" towns soon. Not really worth it here for me personally, despite the employer-choice and the $.
- vessenes 11y agoOr, keep your salary and work remotely for an SF co. Best of both worlds! But, you'll have to do without the longboards if you don't move to a properly hip location.
- xenadu02 11y agoI'm spending 25%. I have the whole house 3br/2ba, a garage, and a back yard. Unfortunately single-family homes in SF aren't rent controlled. You only have to spend 50% if you want to live in a hipster/trendy area of SF.
- proksoup 11y agoHow much do you make? :( (rhetorical, trying to imply you might make quite a bit more than me) Now I feel bad for spending 50% of my income and still not living anywhere hip.
- gokhan 11y agoCan you give some examples for both trendy and not trendy areas?
- falsedan 11y agoThe cheap places in the Sunset disappeared a long time ago
- rokhayakebe 11y agoWhy is it not worth it?
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- tomkinstinch 11y agoI'll put in for Rochester, NY: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10051282 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10051282
- joshmn 11y agoMinneapolis is nice. I'm so biased.
- callmeed 11y agoThey are ... for their non-engineering employees (Lyft in Nashville is the most recent example). But for engineering talent, it doesn't work. I don't know the exact reason but it seems to be some combination of the ability to poach from each other, herd mentality, and the concentration of VC money. Take a look at the remote engineering jobs on WWR. Most of them aren't in SF. To me that screams "We opened an office in an affordable city but we still can't get people to come here" https://weworkremotely.com/categories/2-programming/jobs https://weworkremotely.com/categories/2-programming/jobs
- meatysnapper 11y agoFor people who like big dense cities, you have NYC and SF. That's it. SF has all the 99% of the good tech jobs and great weather. However, as soon as my employer opens up an office in Berlin, I'm out of the US. Even denser, even cooler and way better public transit.
- vonmoltke 11y ago> For people who like big dense cities, you have NYC and SF. Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Miami would all like a word with you. > SF has all the 99% of the good tech jobs Boston would really like a word with you, now...
- mmanfrin 11y agoOr even Oakland. I don't understand why there aren't as many startups on the eastern shore of the bay: same pool of candidates; often cheaper/quicker commute for people; cheaper housing.
- joshrotenberg 11y agoI think it's happening. Uptown is getting busier, and this just happened: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/real-estate/2015/09/exclusive-uber-oakland-sears-building.html http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/real-estate/201...
- meatysnapper 11y agobecause the Bart, which better than most of what the US has, is basically a shambling 3rd world disaster. It's slow, uncomfortable, constantly delayed and doesn't go that many places.
- Kalium 11y agoAmong other things, Oakland doesn't seem to like tech companies moving there.
- jimmyhmiller 11y agoBoulder is one of the places I was looking to move. But looking at houses there it seemed far from affordable. Is that not the case?
- bri3d 11y agoIn Boulder itself houses are far from affordable (but also still far below Bay-area prices) due to growth restriction, but since Boulder is very small in terms of land area the surrounding towns are an easy commute compared to anywhere in the Bay area. And while the locals like to complain about getting scammed out of commuter rail, the existing bus mass transit to and from Denver and the suburbs along Highway 36 is really pretty decent (albeit expensive unless your company or company's tax district subsidizes the pass).
- mooreds 11y agoCome to Boulder. While rents in the Denver area have been climbing recently, they still fall short of the craziness of SF/NY (some facts, here: http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_28740315/denver-area-apartment-rents-soar-even-higher-august http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_28740315/denver-area-a... "median price for a two bedroom is $1550") . And we have 4 real seasons and skiing, unlike LA. If you want startups, Boulder or downtown Denver are pretty good, or if you want more established tech companies, Interlocken or the Tech center are where it's at.
- Nicholas_C 11y agoThere's a PE firm based out of Austin called Vista Equity Partners that does this. Recently they purchased a tech company and moved their headquarters from San Diego to downtown Dallas. This is probably a great way (for the PE firm) to get high salary employees to quit and hire employees at the lower Dallas salary rates. Also probably a stealthy way for them to shed headcount without layoffs and without running the risk of ruining the culture and having the black mark of layoffs.
- hwstar 11y agoPE firms kill companies over the long term by sucking all of the value out, then spitting out the (much smaller) shell of a company. When a company becomes controlled by PE, cost-cutting is the number 1 priority. Layoffs happen, the company slow-pays its suppliers and is constantly on credit hold, pay gets cut, benefits are cut, schedules become completely unrealistic, and misconceived products are launched which fail. I've seen this all happen in the last company I worked for. if you working for a company and it gets bought by PE, leave ASAP.
- rokhayakebe 11y agoPerhaps that is their goal: "Buy it, get 30% return on it, let it die. BUT if the people there somehow manage to revamp it, sell it."
- hwstar 11y agoNo doubt. There's a term for this: Harvest mode. I worked at a company pre-ipo all the way to the point where they were almost ready to turn off the lights. This was a 25 year timespan. In hindsight it was a mistake. I should have left when the PE guys took control.
- pbreit 11y agoI have a new hypothesis that I may actually try out: it's the business people that should be in the Bay Area but the engineers can be elsewhere. A lot of the companies having a great deal of success are iterating on the business model, customer acquisition and user experience side of things far more so than on the technology or engineering. I am hypothesizing that it is those people that benefit from being in the Bay Area and that the builders can be elsewhere. In fact they might be better off elsewhere far from the echo chamber and framework-of-the-month cattle (and cost, of course).
- sjg007 11y agothey tried this with outsourcing and it didn't work.
- presidentender 11y agoIt's working fine for SoFi.
- eitally 11y agoOffshoring/Nearshoring works great if you're not an idiotic manager.
- pbreit 11y agoI think employees are preferable to outsourcing.
- ionforce 11y agoWhy isn't this already done?
- pbreit 11y agoThe prevailing wisdom has been that engineering teams have to be in the Bay Area.