5 ms·

Is it time for this soon-to-be computer science grad to move to the Valley? Is this a good or a bad thing for new grads?

• moultano 16y ago
  If you are looking for a big company job, it shouldn't be too hard to get one before moving. The burn rate on living expenses is pretty high out here unless you have a valley-sized salary too, so I recommend that. Apply to Google. :) You can always leave for a startup once your short-term finances are secure.
  • staunch 16y ago
    Or just rent a room in an apartment with roommates for $700/mo and don't get a car. Now you can get a job at an exciting startup instead of a 12 year old advertising company with 15,000 programmers.
    • moultano 16y ago
      $700 per month is still exorbitantly expensive relative to most of the country. In Columbus Ohio that gets you a three story house with beautiful wood floors, or a furnished multi-room apartment in downtown Cincinnati. Only in the valley is that kind of expense living frugally, and it's something someone with a student's level of savings ought to take stock of before making the leap.
      • pyre 16y ago
        Really? ~$700/month gets you a two-bedroom apartment in parts of Portland, Oregon, but that seems to be around a minimum. The cheapest thing that I was able to find at one point was ~$500/month for a house-share w/ 7 other people. That's a far cry from what you're talking about in Ohio, and I'm not even in the Valley, and the prices here aren't too far off from prices in Toronto, Ontario. I'll also note that Ohio isn't known for being a prosperous part of the country either. I'm sure you could find cities around the country where the housing prices are similar to SF (though still maybe less).
        • moultano 16y ago
          In the valley, $700/month doesn't even get you a studio. It gets you half of a 1 bedroom.
          • pyre 16y ago
            That's true, but trying to illustrate how hyper-expensive prices in The Valley are by comparing them against prices in places that are ultra-low seems disingenuous (to me at least). The post came off like it was implying that in The Valley $700/month is a bare-basement price, while everywhere else in the country it buys you a mansion and several servants.
            • moultano 16y ago
              The point is that it's probably a lot more expensive than what the poster is used to, and it's worth working somewhere that can give you some financial security for a while until you know the place.
      • roel_v 16y ago
        "$700 per month is still exorbitantly expensive relative to most of the country" I find that hard to believe. Maybe in backwater Georgia. I happen to have some experience with US residents moving temporarily to Europe and they don't even blink at paying local market rate, with some mentioning that it's 'quite cheap compared to home'. Market rate here for a non-luxurious 2-bedroom apartment or semi-detached is 800-1000 USD. (they're not highly paid managers, either, line personnel).
        • Retric 16y ago
          I know a couple with a really nice 3 story house with an attic and full basement that might be worth 50k. Granted most of the housing in the US is in a much better area and is worth more than that, but most of the actual land in the US is poorly located and vary cheap.
      • chopsueyar 16y ago
        What if I don't like 'goetta'?
        • moultano 16y ago
          Question your humanity. ;)
      • loewenskind 16y ago
        Uh, what? In the middle of the Midwest with literally one tech company to work for rent was $500/mo. You're calling $700/mo when you have choices where to work for at a 50%+ higher rate exorbitant? I think you need to step outside your normal boundaries a bit.
        • moultano 16y ago
          If you're splitting a one-bedroom in the midwest, you can easily do $200 per month, which is what $700 gets you in the valley.
    • patrickaljord 16y ago
      Facebook and twitter are advertising companies too ;)
      • dschobel 16y ago
        But at Facebook and Twitter the chance to become very wealthy within the next few years is substantially greater than at Google.
        • patrickaljord 16y ago
          So why do you feel the need to call it an "advertising company"? Or was that a snarky anti-google comment? ;)
          • dschobel 16y ago
            That wasn't me.
    • miked 16y ago
      > Now you can get a job at an exciting startup instead of a 12 year old advertising company with 15,000 programmers. I assume you're referring to Google.
• ScottBurson 16y ago
  If you're smart and ambitious, I think yes, you should move here. The reason I make the advice conditional is that it's an expensive place to live; if you don't burn to work for a startup, you might be better off elsewhere. My sense is that the demand is skewed toward the top end of the market, i.e., the best developers are getting much more difficult to find; I don't know if you'll see the same demand/supply imbalance at the entry level. Still, if you intend to get to be one of the best, this is the place to do it.
• cageface 16y ago
  If you're looking for a first job then probably yes. Quality of life for a young, single male in the Valley is pretty low though. After 10 years in the Bay Area I'm moving to NYC where women actually exist.
  • queensnake 16y ago
    'Sunnymale'; 'Man Jose'. (Well /I/ laughed when I heard them :) )
  • jscore 16y ago
    I almost thought I wrote that. When you get to NYC, lemme buy you a beer.
  • aneth 16y ago
    In the Valley maybe. San Francisco proper is filled with women and has a great quality of life on par with, but different from, NYC.
  • rdouble 16y ago
    I did this. If you are a single, straight guy, NYC is indeed better for dating. I didn't find dating in San Francisco to be completely horrible, just kinda weird. For example, in SF the women I would meet were very averse to 1-on-1 dating and everything had to be done as part of a group outing. On the other hand, I've gone on a lot of dates in NYC, but have not been successful in locating a crew of friends to hang out with. I guess one of the beneficial side-effects of "group dating" was that I ended up meeting a bunch of bros. In San Francisco, he numbers were definitely not in favor of the male. I remember going into any bar in SF and it would be groups of say, 6 guys, sitting with 1 woman. Certain bars, like Toronado, did not have any women in them, ever. In NYC I've actually gone into a bar during happy hour and been the only male in there... an experience I've never had before in my life.