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Possibly unpopular opinion: there was always plenty of room for individuals to have a fulfilling tech career outside of the Bay Area, and those opportunities ha

Possibly unpopular opinion: there was always plenty of room for individuals to have a fulfilling tech career outside of the Bay Area, and those opportunities have if anything grown in recent years. Bay Area folks always talk like all the opportunities are concentrated there but that's never really been true and will just be less and less true as VC money dries up. I'm sure some of it depends on what you're trying to accomplish in life, but since you didn't specify I'll answer for myself (someone who just wants to do work I enjoy for a really solid upper-middle-class paycheck and retire early)—no, you don't need to be in the Bay Area. EDIT: To give some concrete numbers, San Jose and San Francisco represented ~180k of the nation's ~1650k software developers in 2023 [0]. That's ~10% of all US-based software developers and ~0.6% of all software developers in the world [1]. [0] https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151252.htm https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151252.htm [1] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-many-software-developers-world-codeninjainc https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-many-software-developers-...

Waterluvian 3y ago
> there was always plenty of room for individuals to have a fulfilling tech career outside of the Bay Area So plainly true it feels weird to read.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
duped 3y ago
Moving to the Bay Area was the best thing I've ever done for myself financially. The network of companies, developers, and investors/advisers (in good times) is unparalleled and enough to make you a career if you can hack it, and give you the exposure to people to mentor you and teach you how to hack it. Moving away from the Bay Area was the second best thing I've ever done for myself financially, because once you have the skills and network there's not much gains to be had by staying in that dystopian hellhole where the only positive quality of life is the weather.
- kika 3y ago
  came here to write exactly this :-) The best decision in my life was moving to Bay Area in 2010. The second best decision was to move out in 2022.
- mint2 3y ago
  “ that dystopian hellhole where the only positive quality of life is the weather.” Eesh that’s laying in on thick. SF is clearly not your cup of tea but no need for this type of hyperbole. I happen to enjoy the Bay Area, and S.F. in particular. People have different things they are interested in. You wouldn’t want me to hyperbolically rant on about how many other areas of the country are concrete mcdonaldified wastelands. Or whatever place you moved to, some people would rant about how bad it is.
  - duped 3y ago
    I mean the point was to be hyperbolic, but "concrete mcdonaldified" is just a notch below the SFBA. There's a kind of northern Californian exceptionalism that reeks of people who have never traveled to the other 49 states. Or even within California. I've lived in a number of different places in the country and the Bay Area is hands down the worst, and it always baffled me how many people that lived there thought it was the peak of American living. I'm sorry that most places you don't need to worry about stepping over needles and human excrement in the streets. But there are some pretty mountains that catch on fire only every couple of years, so I guess it's alright?
    - ldayley 3y ago
      While this also feels hyperbolic, I noticed this attitude while living in Northern California myself. But I saw that exceptionalism state-wide, and most especially with young people. The first time I saw a notable break from that attitude was during 2020 pandemic when moving to Austin, TX became de jour (even though many returned). The irony that people would leave a large, wealthy state full of exceptionalist attitudes for a similarly large, wealthy, exceptionalist state was not lost on me! But I maintain close personal and business ties to CA and my networks there and won’t live long term more than a days drive away. Maybe I’m part of the problem.
paxys 3y ago
No one has ever said that 100% of software engineers need to be in the Bay Area. Yes there are plenty of people living elsewhere who have had fulfilling careers in the industry. Yet it is undeniable that – just like being an actor in LA or an investment banker in New York – your opportunities for job search, networking, career growth etc. are significantly higher by being where the ecosystem is concentrated.
- lolinder 3y ago
  > Yet it is undeniable that – just like being an actor in LA or an investment banker in New York This is what I object to: the comparison to acting or investment banking tends to exaggerate the centralization of tech jobs. If you want to be in a film and aren't in LA then you don't really want to be in a film, because a solid majority of the jobs are there. I imagine the same is true for investment banking and New York. San Jose and San Francisco, on the other hand, represented ~180k of the nation's ~1650k software developers in 2023 [0]. That's ~10% of all US-based software developers and about 0.6% of all software developers in the world [1]. Not a tiny percentage, but nowhere close to Hollywood's dominance in film. [0] https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151252.htm https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151252.htm [1] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-many-software-developers-world-codeninjainc https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-many-software-developers-...
  - andsoitis 3y ago
    It might be wrong to think in terms of “where the most jobs are”. Rather think in terms of where the center of gravity is.
    - lolinder 3y ago
      So, somewhere in Nebraska or Colorado?
  - esoterica 3y ago
    Most programmers are $90k/year code monkeys. The $400k+/year jobs are very heavily concentrated in a small number of tech hubs, and mostly in the bay, and that’s the relevant statistic that should inform your decision making if you want to make that type of money.
SkyPuncher 3y ago
I've had to move for my wife's job a bunch. I've had a very good career, entirely outside of the Bay Area. That being said, I essentially have no connections or network in the Bay Area. I've worked for companies where most of my peers are not in the Bay Area. This puts me at a huge disadvantage for continuing to level my career. I'm largely subject to the whims of remote. While COVID dramatically increased the number of remote positions, it also exponentially increased competition for those positions. I recently left to be a stay-at-home-dad, but I'm dreading the day I attempt to get back into the workforce. I just don't really see it being feasible.
- shrimp_emoji 3y ago
  Who else did a doubletake when reading this post
  - SkyPuncher 3y ago
    Oh, that last line does read confusingly. Sounds like I’m saying I left the Bay Area. I just left my job. I don’t look forward to finding another remote one when I start looking again.
    - jjav 3y ago
      I took a handful of years off to be home with the young kid, what a wonderful experience. Getting back to work later wasn't hard. What I did, and do recommend, is to do a little bit of consulting. I rarely did more than a few hours a week (and on some months nothing). But having a consulting company and a few real customers meant that companies saw me as legitimately self-employed (and I was, even if very low hours) instead of unemployed. (Did it make a difference? I don't know. But can't hurt.)
jjav 3y ago
> ~180k of the nation's ~1650k software developers in 2023 Software is certainly everywhere in every industry and thus every city, town and village (eating the world as the saying goes). No need to be in SV to work in software. The kind of jobs used to be very different in SV. Here you didn't just work on software development, you worked in legendary tech companies. HP (back when that was a good word), Sun, SGI, Netscape and many thousands smaller but equally exciting tech shops. Things have changed though. Now there aren't many actual tech companies in SV. Of all the big names, only Apple is a tech company. The others are either advertising or social nonsense or movies or sales. They use tech but don't sell tech, so they are not tech companies.

Waterluvian 3y ago

> there was always plenty of room for individuals to have a fulfilling tech career outside of the Bay Area So plainly true it feels weird to read.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

duped 3y ago

Moving to the Bay Area was the best thing I've ever done for myself financially. The network of companies, developers, and investors/advisers (in good times) is unparalleled and enough to make you a career if you can hack it, and give you the exposure to people to mentor you and teach you how to hack it. Moving away from the Bay Area was the second best thing I've ever done for myself financially, because once you have the skills and network there's not much gains to be had by staying in that dystopian hellhole where the only positive quality of life is the weather.

kika 3y ago
came here to write exactly this :-) The best decision in my life was moving to Bay Area in 2010. The second best decision was to move out in 2022.
mint2 3y ago
“ that dystopian hellhole where the only positive quality of life is the weather.” Eesh that’s laying in on thick. SF is clearly not your cup of tea but no need for this type of hyperbole. I happen to enjoy the Bay Area, and S.F. in particular. People have different things they are interested in. You wouldn’t want me to hyperbolically rant on about how many other areas of the country are concrete mcdonaldified wastelands. Or whatever place you moved to, some people would rant about how bad it is.
- duped 3y ago
  I mean the point was to be hyperbolic, but "concrete mcdonaldified" is just a notch below the SFBA. There's a kind of northern Californian exceptionalism that reeks of people who have never traveled to the other 49 states. Or even within California. I've lived in a number of different places in the country and the Bay Area is hands down the worst, and it always baffled me how many people that lived there thought it was the peak of American living. I'm sorry that most places you don't need to worry about stepping over needles and human excrement in the streets. But there are some pretty mountains that catch on fire only every couple of years, so I guess it's alright?
  - ldayley 3y ago
    While this also feels hyperbolic, I noticed this attitude while living in Northern California myself. But I saw that exceptionalism state-wide, and most especially with young people. The first time I saw a notable break from that attitude was during 2020 pandemic when moving to Austin, TX became de jour (even though many returned). The irony that people would leave a large, wealthy state full of exceptionalist attitudes for a similarly large, wealthy, exceptionalist state was not lost on me! But I maintain close personal and business ties to CA and my networks there and won’t live long term more than a days drive away. Maybe I’m part of the problem.

paxys 3y ago

No one has ever said that 100% of software engineers need to be in the Bay Area. Yes there are plenty of people living elsewhere who have had fulfilling careers in the industry. Yet it is undeniable that – just like being an actor in LA or an investment banker in New York – your opportunities for job search, networking, career growth etc. are significantly higher by being where the ecosystem is concentrated.

lolinder 3y ago
> Yet it is undeniable that – just like being an actor in LA or an investment banker in New York This is what I object to: the comparison to acting or investment banking tends to exaggerate the centralization of tech jobs. If you want to be in a film and aren't in LA then you don't really want to be in a film, because a solid majority of the jobs are there. I imagine the same is true for investment banking and New York. San Jose and San Francisco, on the other hand, represented ~180k of the nation's ~1650k software developers in 2023 [0]. That's ~10% of all US-based software developers and about 0.6% of all software developers in the world [1]. Not a tiny percentage, but nowhere close to Hollywood's dominance in film. [0] https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151252.htm https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151252.htm [1] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-many-software-developers-world-codeninjainc https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-many-software-developers-...
- andsoitis 3y ago
  It might be wrong to think in terms of “where the most jobs are”. Rather think in terms of where the center of gravity is.
  - lolinder 3y ago
    So, somewhere in Nebraska or Colorado?
- esoterica 3y ago
  Most programmers are $90k/year code monkeys. The $400k+/year jobs are very heavily concentrated in a small number of tech hubs, and mostly in the bay, and that’s the relevant statistic that should inform your decision making if you want to make that type of money.

SkyPuncher 3y ago

I've had to move for my wife's job a bunch. I've had a very good career, entirely outside of the Bay Area. That being said, I essentially have no connections or network in the Bay Area. I've worked for companies where most of my peers are not in the Bay Area. This puts me at a huge disadvantage for continuing to level my career. I'm largely subject to the whims of remote. While COVID dramatically increased the number of remote positions, it also exponentially increased competition for those positions. I recently left to be a stay-at-home-dad, but I'm dreading the day I attempt to get back into the workforce. I just don't really see it being feasible.

shrimp_emoji 3y ago
Who else did a doubletake when reading this post
- SkyPuncher 3y ago
  Oh, that last line does read confusingly. Sounds like I’m saying I left the Bay Area. I just left my job. I don’t look forward to finding another remote one when I start looking again.
  - jjav 3y ago
    I took a handful of years off to be home with the young kid, what a wonderful experience. Getting back to work later wasn't hard. What I did, and do recommend, is to do a little bit of consulting. I rarely did more than a few hours a week (and on some months nothing). But having a consulting company and a few real customers meant that companies saw me as legitimately self-employed (and I was, even if very low hours) instead of unemployed. (Did it make a difference? I don't know. But can't hurt.)

jjav 3y ago

> ~180k of the nation's ~1650k software developers in 2023 Software is certainly everywhere in every industry and thus every city, town and village (eating the world as the saying goes). No need to be in SV to work in software. The kind of jobs used to be very different in SV. Here you didn't just work on software development, you worked in legendary tech companies. HP (back when that was a good word), Sun, SGI, Netscape and many thousands smaller but equally exciting tech shops. Things have changed though. Now there aren't many actual tech companies in SV. Of all the big names, only Apple is a tech company. The others are either advertising or social nonsense or movies or sales. They use tech but don't sell tech, so they are not tech companies.