I grew up in a small town in the Connecticut countryside. I now life in the SFBA. Why? Because there are no software companies in my hometown. None. Zero.

I grew up in a small town in the Connecticut countryside. I now life in the SFBA. Why? Because there are no software companies in my hometown. None. Zero. Zip. Nada. I briefly had a computer-related summer job in my hometown, changing backup tapes and inventorying hardware for a local racing school. They were in the process of trying (and failing) to replace an antiquated event booking system with something new. I might have managed to finagle an actual programming job there, doing the job that their existing contractor was failing to do. Of course, I'd have been working alone. Instead, I moved to California. In the years since then, I've worked with and learned from many amazing people. I'm ten times the programmer I would have been if I'd stayed at home. Are there software jobs outside the SFBA, Austin, Seattle, Boston, and the other big hub cities? Of course, and if you find one, good for you. But if you're sitting in a dead-end job in a city with no better prospects, your only choices are to stagnate or to move. And if you're going to move, there's much to be said for going where the jobs are.