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Your post makes it sound like the only place for tech jobs is the Bay Area...which I find is not true as an east coast remote. I mean, yeah if you move to rura
by jclardy 10y ago
Your post makes it sound like the only place for tech jobs is the Bay Area...which I find is not true as an east coast remote.
I mean, yeah if you move to rural South Dakota you won't find much, but there are plenty of growing tech centers like Raleigh, Boulder, Austin, etc. that have much lower cost of living, but still a lot of availability in local tech jobs.
Also to note, the 3-9 month job search should be much more sustainable in Nowheresville, whereas in SF you are going to be screwed if your job search is extended.
- eldavido 10y agoSo, honest question (not trying to troll) - what jobs are available in Raleigh/Boulder/Austin/etc? Because where I'm sitting, facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple, which are 5 of the top 6 most valuable US companies, are HQ'd in the Bay Area or Seattle. So if you want that caliber of job, with the opportunities and pay ($200-300k+ for mid-level people), you really do have to live in SF/Seattle. I don't work a BigCo job for other reasons but the reasoning does seem sound.
- shostack 10y agoGoogle is in Boulder. But from what I've heard of the area in general (not specific to Google), they have Bay Area housing prices with Colorado comp, so overall you are taking home less and getting less for your money.
- sigstoat 10y agoi'm near enough to boulder that google's boulder location would be a <15 minute commute, and <$500k buys you a 2000 sqft house in a quiet neighborhood and enough of a yard you can't see through your neighbor's window. pretty sure that's rather drastically cheaper than sf. if you're ok with a 30 minute commute, you can shave $100k off that. 60 minute commute would shave another $100k off. while i'm commenting, i'll note that i don't feel boulder really competes with NC's research triangle, or austin. boulder county population is 310k, and a sizable chunk of that is tied up in and around the university and government research facilities that i feel don't impact local tech industry that much.
- nedwin 10y agoWould you mind unpacking "NC research triangle"? North Carolina? Three research heavy universities?
- closeparen 10y agoThe Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill combined metro area in North Carolina. Home to UNC, Duke, and the somewhat famous Research Triangle Park, a suburban campus containing R&D for Red Hat, IBM, and several big pharmaceutical companies. The Palo Alto of the South.
- sigstoat 10y agoah, of course: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_Triangle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_Triangle
- shostack 10y agoCan you share some links to real estate listings like you are mentioning, and what towns or parts of Boulder they are in? There are cheap homes in places like Longmont, but there is no real downtown to speak of. Are these cheap houses you mention suburban subdevelopment sprawl? Or are they urban homes on the edge of the city?
- coredog64 10y agoAmazon & Microsoft both have a significant software presence in Phoenix. I don't know if they still do, but at one point Google had some stuff here as well. Amazon recruiters have also been pinging me for jobs they have in SoCal, although I wouldn't say that LA is significantly cheaper than the Bay Area or Seattle.
- ryandrake 10y agoI guess your last point depends on one's savings. I think for most people's savings a 3-9 month job search is a pants-on-fire emergency, regardless of where in the country you are. I used to live in South Florida, and I bet I could exhaust the search space of "tech jobs south of Orlando" in about two weeks of interviewing. After that, you're looking at a move. It's not like the same companies will interview you over and over until you pass.