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Walking around Sunnyvale over 20 years ago, I expected Silicon Valley to diffuse, at least across the US. If anything, tech is more centralized in the Bay than

Walking around Sunnyvale over 20 years ago, I expected Silicon Valley to diffuse, at least across the US. If anything, tech is more centralized in the Bay than ever. Tech isn't even diffuse across the US or California, never mind people who speak another language 10 time zones away.

ashtonkem 5y ago
We'll see post-covid, the push towards remote among line level workers is very strong, but the most "diffuse" possibility I see is that each region ends up with its own tech hub. Denver, Austin, New York, etc. There is very little chance that these will ever fully replace SV though, but they let tech hire people who would refuse to move to SV. The time zone issue you mentioned is the real killer. Working across time zones is hard. It's easy to dismiss them until you've had to work with a Ukrainian team who is a solid 9 hours off phase with you.
- anyfactor 5y ago
  You have more first hands experience than I have as an offshore remote dev. My experience is that to immigrate to America you have to study there first or be incredibly talented so that businesses have confidence to bring you there. After hundreds of applications to American companies that hires for fully remote roles, I got 3-4 replies on my application. One of them asked me to reach out to their offshore offices rather than HQ at states. And that is from a funded startup with a 7 figure investment.
  - burntoutfire 5y ago
    I'm not incredibly talented and have worked fully remote for 3 American startups already. Lots of other people do as well (I'm in Eastern Europe).
    - anyfactor 5y ago
      Can you give me some pointers? Give my github a view if you can.
      - burntoutfire 5y ago
        In my case, what go me the jobs were: Job 1: Knowing a very niche domain (that I happened to work on as a serious hobby for a couple of years) and lucking into a startup that works in that very domain (not really replicable). Job 2: Applying to a startup which interviewed solely based on algorithmic puzzles, and apparently acing all of them. Job 3: Knowing a fairly uncommon technology (Scala) and getting into a startup which had a super-hard time hiring Scala devs in Bay Area. None of which is directly replicable, but I guess the more you develop your skills, the more likely you're to get in one way or another. I didn't even have a github account back then FWIW.
        anyfactor 5y ago
        I work in a niche that is so niche that I couldn't find a full time job. So I work on a per project basis of automation, data analytics (pandas) and general purpose programming & API development (Python). So, trying to pivot to a more full service role of Data Analytics or SQL/Python Developer. I have been doing freelancing for 5 years now. Not sure how can I develop my skills any further, unless I just study statistics for data modeling and build various projects which I am already doing right now. Project building has its limitations. My hobby projects wouldn't scale up to a position where I have to learn and apply anything that is intermediate-ish. I can look into learning cloud services but I will never get good at it as I don't have a product based on that. Edit: I might sound I am making up problems and I am a defeatist person but I am working on web applications as I have nothing else to do. But those projects have very little chances to be a showcase of my skillset as they are not scaled to use cloud services effectively and complicated SQL db.
        burntoutfire 5y ago
        > So, trying to pivot to a more full service role of Data Analytics or SQL/Python Developer. I'm not sure if any of those fields are in enough demand for US companies to look for people overseas. Perhaps one exception (that I know of) is Data Engineers - there's a huge move in Data Engineering to use Python. Perhaps you could try specializing in that area.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

ashtonkem 5y ago

We'll see post-covid, the push towards remote among line level workers is very strong, but the most "diffuse" possibility I see is that each region ends up with its own tech hub. Denver, Austin, New York, etc. There is very little chance that these will ever fully replace SV though, but they let tech hire people who would refuse to move to SV. The time zone issue you mentioned is the real killer. Working across time zones is hard. It's easy to dismiss them until you've had to work with a Ukrainian team who is a solid 9 hours off phase with you.

anyfactor 5y ago
You have more first hands experience than I have as an offshore remote dev. My experience is that to immigrate to America you have to study there first or be incredibly talented so that businesses have confidence to bring you there. After hundreds of applications to American companies that hires for fully remote roles, I got 3-4 replies on my application. One of them asked me to reach out to their offshore offices rather than HQ at states. And that is from a funded startup with a 7 figure investment.
- burntoutfire 5y ago
  I'm not incredibly talented and have worked fully remote for 3 American startups already. Lots of other people do as well (I'm in Eastern Europe).
  - anyfactor 5y ago
    Can you give me some pointers? Give my github a view if you can.
    - burntoutfire 5y ago
      In my case, what go me the jobs were: Job 1: Knowing a very niche domain (that I happened to work on as a serious hobby for a couple of years) and lucking into a startup that works in that very domain (not really replicable). Job 2: Applying to a startup which interviewed solely based on algorithmic puzzles, and apparently acing all of them. Job 3: Knowing a fairly uncommon technology (Scala) and getting into a startup which had a super-hard time hiring Scala devs in Bay Area. None of which is directly replicable, but I guess the more you develop your skills, the more likely you're to get in one way or another. I didn't even have a github account back then FWIW.
      - anyfactor 5y ago
        I work in a niche that is so niche that I couldn't find a full time job. So I work on a per project basis of automation, data analytics (pandas) and general purpose programming & API development (Python). So, trying to pivot to a more full service role of Data Analytics or SQL/Python Developer. I have been doing freelancing for 5 years now. Not sure how can I develop my skills any further, unless I just study statistics for data modeling and build various projects which I am already doing right now. Project building has its limitations. My hobby projects wouldn't scale up to a position where I have to learn and apply anything that is intermediate-ish. I can look into learning cloud services but I will never get good at it as I don't have a product based on that. Edit: I might sound I am making up problems and I am a defeatist person but I am working on web applications as I have nothing else to do. But those projects have very little chances to be a showcase of my skillset as they are not scaled to use cloud services effectively and complicated SQL db.
        burntoutfire 5y ago
        > So, trying to pivot to a more full service role of Data Analytics or SQL/Python Developer. I'm not sure if any of those fields are in enough demand for US companies to look for people overseas. Perhaps one exception (that I know of) is Data Engineers - there's a huge move in Data Engineering to use Python. Perhaps you could try specializing in that area.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]