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I've noticed a spike in emails from recruiters for jobs/gigs in California recently, both from the companies cited (I've had emails from all 3) and from others.

I've noticed a spike in emails from recruiters for jobs/gigs in California recently, both from the companies cited (I've had emails from all 3) and from others. I've lost track of how many times in the last week alone I've had to tell recruiters "I'm not willing to move to California at the moment". Thinking of making a macro for it. Also, I've come close a few times to telling recruiters to tell their clients to please discover the joys of ssh/sftp/dropbox/basecamp/email/irc/phone, ie. telecommuting. I'm increasingly finding it funny that employers care where my body is considering how an extreme gap there is between the demand for qualified engineers and the supply of available+interested+affordable ones.

jedberg 16y ago
99.9% of my job can be done from home. Yet I still commute 2 hours every day to get to the office. Why? Because there is just something to be said for working in the same room as the other folks on your team. Sometimes we'll all work from home, and we'll be in IRC all day chatting the same way we do in the office. Yet when we are in the office, we seem to get more done. The best example is when I hear some of the other folks talking about a new feature or a code change, and I overhear something that sets off my sysadmin alarm bells. If we weren't in the same room, we'd have to wait until the code review phase to find out, "oh hey, the servers can't DO that." This way we can head off these problems early with minimal overhead. How annoying would it be to have to send an email every time you had an idea, and then wait for everyone to approve it? When everyone is in the office, we just turn around and finish that process in a few seconds.
joe-mccann 16y ago
Totally. Trying to get me to leave Austin, TX which is half the cost of living AND has no state income tax is a tough sell to us devs here. Remote work is becoming more and more accepted lately as recruiters and companies are realizing people actually may not want to live in Cali. Granted, monthly in person meetings may be necessary but a flight and a hotel is a reasonable fee, IMO.
jshen 16y ago
And some of us would love to work for company X, but bought houses during the bubble and are now effectively stuck where we're at. I'd would be great to telecommute, but most aren't up for that as jedberg illustrates.
- larsberg 16y ago
  If you are a superior candidate (significant years of experience, many successful products that you were one of the couple key dev members on), interview anyway. There are relocation benefits usable to the large players with deeper pockets, one of which includes third-party companies that will buy and resell your house from you via a subsidy provided by your new company.
  - jshen 16y ago
    I'm over $150k upside down on my house. No one is going to make up that difference.
    - nradov 16y ago
      If you're that far in the hole, does it really make sense to keep throwing good money after bad?
      - jshen 16y ago
        Im not sure what you mean exactly. Sadly I have a recourse loan because i refinanced which means the bank can come after my assets if I default. Being a well paid programmer for a decade means i have assets to take unlike many people in my situation. They aren't limited to taking just the house and ruining my credit, so I'll be gambling to some degree if I try to walk away from it.
      - ChuckMcM 16y ago
        Most of the people who are stuck are folks who either have second mortgages or refi-loans which included a recourse. In order to step away from that you'd have to file personal bankruptcy and that can be really hard. That being said, I don't doubt for a minute that for the right candidate Google or Facebook would pay the difference on what you owed vs what you sold for if you agreed to pay them back if you left in under 3 years. They aren't stupid and the math works in their favor. ($150K is equivalent to 300 shares of 'restricted stock' @ $500/shr price (they call them GSUs) which vest over 4 years) Top engineers should be getting better than that so its worth a shot.

jedberg 16y ago

99.9% of my job can be done from home. Yet I still commute 2 hours every day to get to the office. Why? Because there is just something to be said for working in the same room as the other folks on your team. Sometimes we'll all work from home, and we'll be in IRC all day chatting the same way we do in the office. Yet when we are in the office, we seem to get more done. The best example is when I hear some of the other folks talking about a new feature or a code change, and I overhear something that sets off my sysadmin alarm bells. If we weren't in the same room, we'd have to wait until the code review phase to find out, "oh hey, the servers can't DO that." This way we can head off these problems early with minimal overhead. How annoying would it be to have to send an email every time you had an idea, and then wait for everyone to approve it? When everyone is in the office, we just turn around and finish that process in a few seconds.

joe-mccann 16y ago

Totally. Trying to get me to leave Austin, TX which is half the cost of living AND has no state income tax is a tough sell to us devs here. Remote work is becoming more and more accepted lately as recruiters and companies are realizing people actually may not want to live in Cali. Granted, monthly in person meetings may be necessary but a flight and a hotel is a reasonable fee, IMO.

jshen 16y ago

And some of us would love to work for company X, but bought houses during the bubble and are now effectively stuck where we're at. I'd would be great to telecommute, but most aren't up for that as jedberg illustrates.

larsberg 16y ago
If you are a superior candidate (significant years of experience, many successful products that you were one of the couple key dev members on), interview anyway. There are relocation benefits usable to the large players with deeper pockets, one of which includes third-party companies that will buy and resell your house from you via a subsidy provided by your new company.
- jshen 16y ago
  I'm over $150k upside down on my house. No one is going to make up that difference.
  - nradov 16y ago
    If you're that far in the hole, does it really make sense to keep throwing good money after bad?
    - jshen 16y ago
      Im not sure what you mean exactly. Sadly I have a recourse loan because i refinanced which means the bank can come after my assets if I default. Being a well paid programmer for a decade means i have assets to take unlike many people in my situation. They aren't limited to taking just the house and ruining my credit, so I'll be gambling to some degree if I try to walk away from it.
    - ChuckMcM 16y ago
      Most of the people who are stuck are folks who either have second mortgages or refi-loans which included a recourse. In order to step away from that you'd have to file personal bankruptcy and that can be really hard. That being said, I don't doubt for a minute that for the right candidate Google or Facebook would pay the difference on what you owed vs what you sold for if you agreed to pay them back if you left in under 3 years. They aren't stupid and the math works in their favor. ($150K is equivalent to 300 shares of 'restricted stock' @ $500/shr price (they call them GSUs) which vest over 4 years) Top engineers should be getting better than that so its worth a shot.