4 ms·

Thanks for the long write-up, I'm thinking of moving out west as well (from South Carolina of all places), and San Jose is on my radar. I'm a 25yo single male u

Thanks for the long write-up, I'm thinking of moving out west as well (from South Carolina of all places), and San Jose is on my radar. I'm a 25yo single male used to living very cheaply, so those numbers are helpful. I'd be living out there doing contract work for people in NC, which is probably backwards from the optimal setup...

iamelgringo 19y ago
Once you get out here, you can network pretty easily. I've been hanging out on the rails business group: http://groups.google.com/group/rails-business?hl=en&lnk=gschg http://groups.google.com/group/rails-business?hl=en&lnk=... and I've gotten an email or two a month looking for contract developers in the area. Or you can go to some of the Rails meetups or Bay Piggies (Python users group) in the area and at least you should be able to meet some people and possibly pick up some contract work out here. You just have to make an effort to get out and meet people. Jobs don't seem to be a big problem right now.
- davidw 19y ago
  Any of you guys in SV get a sense that that area is headed south along with the rest of the economy... or not? I recall moving back to the bay area in 2002, and it was pretty bad. I found work, but it was kind of difficult to connect to potential employers as there were a lot of .com people still milling about, looking for something to do.
  - iamelgringo 19y ago
    I know that Yahoo just fired 1000 people in the past few weeks, but I hear that many of them got a 3 months severance. That should be enough time for them to start a business or find another gig. Friend was a laser engineer, just got laid off after 25 years, but had 5 offers on the table in two weeks. GOOG's stock price has taken a tumble, but they still seem to be hiring: http://www.google.com/support/jobs/bin/topic.py?loc_id=1116&dep_id=1173 http://www.google.com/support/jobs/bin/topic.py?loc_id=1116&... Even the "big names" out here that are VC funded web startups, that would be at risk of taking a one way to the dead pool in the event of a "bubble pop", don't really have that many employees. Digg has 50 employees, Facebook had 300 at my last count but is still hiring like crazy: http://www.facebook.com/jobs/ http://www.facebook.com/jobs/ It seems like there are a lot of companies that are coming and going, but there aren't the huge layoffs that hit the place so hard 6-7 years ago, because web startups have kept it pretty lean and mean. For the most part, the engineers still seem to be running the valley, not the biz dev guys. Startups have been built without a lot of money, and are used to running on a shoe string. If the economy tightens up, I don't think that it will the startup guys that hard. Some of the big hardware companies might shed some people if capital expenditures take a nose dive across the country, so that means that Intel, HP and Sun might shed some employees. But that's about it.

iamelgringo 19y ago

Once you get out here, you can network pretty easily. I've been hanging out on the rails business group: http://groups.google.com/group/rails-business?hl=en&lnk=gschg http://groups.google.com/group/rails-business?hl=en&lnk=... and I've gotten an email or two a month looking for contract developers in the area. Or you can go to some of the Rails meetups or Bay Piggies (Python users group) in the area and at least you should be able to meet some people and possibly pick up some contract work out here. You just have to make an effort to get out and meet people. Jobs don't seem to be a big problem right now.

davidw 19y ago
Any of you guys in SV get a sense that that area is headed south along with the rest of the economy... or not? I recall moving back to the bay area in 2002, and it was pretty bad. I found work, but it was kind of difficult to connect to potential employers as there were a lot of .com people still milling about, looking for something to do.
- iamelgringo 19y ago
  I know that Yahoo just fired 1000 people in the past few weeks, but I hear that many of them got a 3 months severance. That should be enough time for them to start a business or find another gig. Friend was a laser engineer, just got laid off after 25 years, but had 5 offers on the table in two weeks. GOOG's stock price has taken a tumble, but they still seem to be hiring: http://www.google.com/support/jobs/bin/topic.py?loc_id=1116&dep_id=1173 http://www.google.com/support/jobs/bin/topic.py?loc_id=1116&... Even the "big names" out here that are VC funded web startups, that would be at risk of taking a one way to the dead pool in the event of a "bubble pop", don't really have that many employees. Digg has 50 employees, Facebook had 300 at my last count but is still hiring like crazy: http://www.facebook.com/jobs/ http://www.facebook.com/jobs/ It seems like there are a lot of companies that are coming and going, but there aren't the huge layoffs that hit the place so hard 6-7 years ago, because web startups have kept it pretty lean and mean. For the most part, the engineers still seem to be running the valley, not the biz dev guys. Startups have been built without a lot of money, and are used to running on a shoe string. If the economy tightens up, I don't think that it will the startup guys that hard. Some of the big hardware companies might shed some people if capital expenditures take a nose dive across the country, so that means that Intel, HP and Sun might shed some employees. But that's about it.