4 ms·

I would be curious to see the ROI for someone like Schwab for staying in the Bay Area. Does the reduce capital costs of people, taxes, and buildings outweigh t

by lykr0n 7y ago

I would be curious to see the ROI for someone like Schwab for staying in the Bay Area. Does the reduce capital costs of people, taxes, and buildings outweigh the talent pool in the area? Makes me wonder what the numbers look like.

undefined3840 7y ago
Schwab isn’t exactly competing for the “tech” talent pool so there isn’t anything particularly special about staying in SF vs elsewhere for them.
- lykr0n 7y ago
  Why not? Billions in assets. Automated investment and market prediction projects. Extremely well built Web UI- you can tell they're hiring industry UI/UX people by the interface they are beta-ing- upgrade in functionality but major downgrade in usability.
  - undefined3840 7y ago
    A middle of the road developer can make all of those things. You don’t need a 10x ninja in SF who demands 500k/year to do that. Highly doubt Schwab has really been competing on salary in SF for tech roles as is.
    - lykr0n 7y ago
      Does anyone?
  - atombender 7y ago
    What beta products are you referring to?
    - lykr0n 7y ago
      They're working on a new research UI. So you plugin a symbol like SPY and you get a bunch of information on the stock. There is a banner for a beta redesign
      - atombender 7y ago
        Oh, that. I've used it, and didn't find it very impressive, certainly not what I'd expect from top UI/UX talent. Schwab's site isn't terrible, just very old-fashioned (and a little buggy).
  - scurvy 7y ago
    They don't pay very well. They can't compete for top talent like other companies can.
Ozzie_osman 7y ago
Yes. I'm building a distributed engineering team now (hiring people both inside and outside the bay area). Everyone underestimates how much talent there is outside the core hubs (Bay Area, Seattle, NY, etc). Yes, talent does cluster in those cities, but they don't have a monopoly. There are lots of smart, driven people outside the talent hubs. Also as a sweeping broad generalization that I frankly can't back up with data, they are a lot less entitled and don't job hop as frequently.
- scarface74 7y ago
  Why do I have the feeling that “entitled” is being defined as “they ask for lower salaries that allow the company to keep more of the money they make.”
  - Ozzie_osman 7y ago
    Well they do ask for lower salary (their cost of living is lower), and in my case it's less about "keeping more of the money" and more about having a bigger chance at building a successful product with the runway we have (being an early-stage startup and all). But that's not what I mean by entitled. Entitled is an attitude of thinking one is special and thus deserving of special treatment.

by lykr0n 7y ago

undefined3840 7y ago

Schwab isn’t exactly competing for the “tech” talent pool so there isn’t anything particularly special about staying in SF vs elsewhere for them.

lykr0n 7y ago
Why not? Billions in assets. Automated investment and market prediction projects. Extremely well built Web UI- you can tell they're hiring industry UI/UX people by the interface they are beta-ing- upgrade in functionality but major downgrade in usability.
- undefined3840 7y ago
  A middle of the road developer can make all of those things. You don’t need a 10x ninja in SF who demands 500k/year to do that. Highly doubt Schwab has really been competing on salary in SF for tech roles as is.
  - lykr0n 7y ago
    Does anyone?
- atombender 7y ago
  What beta products are you referring to?
  - lykr0n 7y ago
    They're working on a new research UI. So you plugin a symbol like SPY and you get a bunch of information on the stock. There is a banner for a beta redesign
    - atombender 7y ago
      Oh, that. I've used it, and didn't find it very impressive, certainly not what I'd expect from top UI/UX talent. Schwab's site isn't terrible, just very old-fashioned (and a little buggy).
- scurvy 7y ago
  They don't pay very well. They can't compete for top talent like other companies can.

Ozzie_osman 7y ago

Yes. I'm building a distributed engineering team now (hiring people both inside and outside the bay area). Everyone underestimates how much talent there is outside the core hubs (Bay Area, Seattle, NY, etc). Yes, talent does cluster in those cities, but they don't have a monopoly. There are lots of smart, driven people outside the talent hubs. Also as a sweeping broad generalization that I frankly can't back up with data, they are a lot less entitled and don't job hop as frequently.

scarface74 7y ago
Why do I have the feeling that “entitled” is being defined as “they ask for lower salaries that allow the company to keep more of the money they make.”
- Ozzie_osman 7y ago
  Well they do ask for lower salary (their cost of living is lower), and in my case it's less about "keeping more of the money" and more about having a bigger chance at building a successful product with the runway we have (being an early-stage startup and all). But that's not what I mean by entitled. Entitled is an attitude of thinking one is special and thus deserving of special treatment.