6 ms·

What areas do you consider to be very cheap and talent filled? I always assumed that the expensive areas are expensive because well paid talent is driving up t

What areas do you consider to be very cheap and talent filled? I always assumed that the expensive areas are expensive because well paid talent is driving up the cost of living (though city attitude towards construction plays a large role as well).

bane 12y ago
Well, depends on what you consider cheap and talented I suppose. For example, there are loads of people in Portland and the surrounding area that are employable for far less than you'd get in the Bay Area (by about 35%). You have to work at it though, it's not as bad as offshoring, but you can't half-ass it. The talent won't go as high as the Bay Area, but you'll probably be able to find folks good enough to make the kind of CRUD apps most of us are making anyways. Here's a list and the cost of living delta vs. San Francisco (which translates into direct salary costs for your business). Portland, OR - 35% cheaper Nashville, TN - 80% cheaper Atlanta, GA - 70% Miami, FL - 50% Tampa, FL - 70% Huntsville, AL - 70% Northern, VA - 20% Blacksburg, VA - 60% Charlottesville, VA - 50% Virginia Beach, VA - 60% Fredericksburg - 40% Richmond - 60% Williamsburg - 50% Phoenix, AZ - 70% Columbus, OH - 80% Tri-cities area, WA - 70% Boston, MA - 20% Newark, NJ - 25% Austin, TX - 70% San Antonio, TX - 80% Ft Meade, MD - 30% Chicago, IL - 40% Minneapolis, MN - 50% Las Vegas, NV - 60% Off the top of my head, if you can't hire people in Austin, Nashville, or Las Vegas, you're doing it wrong. All of those have large tech industries and/or are near large cities with big populations. Nashville is near both a big city and a major national lab. They're also cheap enough that you can basically hire two people for the price of one in San Francisco.
- Iftheshoefits 12y ago
  Well, I've lived/worked in a couple of the locations on your list. I'll just say this: I think we have very different notions of what "large tech industry" means. I don't consider Tampa, FL or just about any of the VA listings to have "large" tech industries. Tampa's is especially slim, driven mainly by a couple of hospitals, the university, and a few defense/government contractors. VA's are driven mainly by defense/government contractors (having been there once, I'd not choose it again except as a last resort, and then only reluctantly) and some finance.
  - bane 12y ago
    If you don't think Northern VA or South East VA are large tech industries, then we have very different dictionaries. NoVA/D.C. is only the home to the second largest tech center in the country, larger than NYCs. You can't swing a dead cat without hitting a tech company of any size along the Dulles tech corridor. With a 5% unemployment rate, there are literally thousands of job openings there, the demand is unbelievably high. If that doesn't qualify as a large tech industry, then nothing does. Blacksburg and Charlottesville have all the advantages of a place like MIT or Stanford. Nice STEM focused college towns full of ready to work STEM students who'd love to stay in those towns and low costs of living. If you want to open a remote office, those are good places to do it. Tampa has a sizable tech industry as well. If you didn't notice it, it's because you, like most people, aren't paying attention or you've dismissed every possible company you could have worked for because it wasn't in with the cool crowd. I wonder how many folks in Tampa wouldn't mind working for Tampa pay but get equity in an SV startup? Here's 5 minutes of looking for Tampa tech companies. If there's companies, there's tech employees you can hire for your company. Tech companies can't exist where there aren't people they can hire. (all of these had open tech positions and I didn't even look for non-tech companies with open tech positions) - http://www.actsoft.com/ - http://www.connectwise.com/ - http://www.e-ins.net/ - http://www.fairwarning.com/ - http://www.syniverse.com/home - ... you know what...screw the list, here's 7 thousand developer position near Tampa http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=software+developer&l=Tampa%2C+FL http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=software+developer&l=Tam... I bet most of these are for some boring insurance company, healthcare or real estate company. How many people do you think you can find who want to work for a SV company and get SV startup perks? Here's Nashville with almost 7,000 more open positions. http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=software+developer&l=Nashville%2C+TN http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=software+developer&l=Nas... Portland, a tech friendly city, only has twice as many openings. http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=software+developer&l=Portland%2C+OR http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=software+developer&l=Por... Guess who has more open positions on this board? San Francisco or Washington D.C.? http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=software+developer&l=san+francisco http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=software+developer&l=san... http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=software+developer&l=Washington%2C+DC http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=software+developer&l=Was... The point is that there is plenty of tech industry all over the place, and people in those areas can be hired at fractions of San Francisco's going rates. People also don't like working in boring shitty jobs and the allure of working for a startup, with high payout equity can be a good alternative, if it's offered to them. But Silicon Valley Myopia makes it impossible to see this. It's easier to sell hiring in Hyderabad than in Austin sometimes, and that's a shame. While I see posts on San Francisco's labor shortage and the desire to get more H-1B visas, I can't help think of the hundreds of thousands of qualified tech employees all over the rest of the country. It's not expensive to set up a remote office and not hard to manage one either. If a SV startup can spin a photo sharing site as "changing the world" they can spin opening a remote office in Alabama as a an actual world changer. Here's a very relevant example https://gaganpreet.github.io/hn-hiring-mapped/src/web/ https://gaganpreet.github.io/hn-hiring-mapped/src/web/
- seanflyon 12y ago
  It's an arbitrary distinction, but I wouldn't consider an area "very cheap" until it was significantly below the nation average. According to http://www.payscale.com/ http://www.payscale.com/ cost of living in Austin Texas is 7% cheaper than the national average. I would consider that cheap, but not very cheap. payscale just happened to be the first site that came up but its number seem a little less extreme than the ones you gave: cost of living relative to SF: Phoenix: -41% Miami: -34% Anchorage: -23% Dallas: -41% New York: +38% Knoxville: -45% I doubt you could hire the same quality of developer in Miami for half the cost (especially including benefits). I don't mean to sound argumentative. "very cheap" is an arbitrary distinction and I have no idea if the cost of living number you gave are more or less accurate than the ones I found. There are many places with good developers and significantly lower cost of living than the bay area.

bane 12y ago

Well, depends on what you consider cheap and talented I suppose. For example, there are loads of people in Portland and the surrounding area that are employable for far less than you'd get in the Bay Area (by about 35%). You have to work at it though, it's not as bad as offshoring, but you can't half-ass it. The talent won't go as high as the Bay Area, but you'll probably be able to find folks good enough to make the kind of CRUD apps most of us are making anyways. Here's a list and the cost of living delta vs. San Francisco (which translates into direct salary costs for your business). Portland, OR - 35% cheaper Nashville, TN - 80% cheaper Atlanta, GA - 70% Miami, FL - 50% Tampa, FL - 70% Huntsville, AL - 70% Northern, VA - 20% Blacksburg, VA - 60% Charlottesville, VA - 50% Virginia Beach, VA - 60% Fredericksburg - 40% Richmond - 60% Williamsburg - 50% Phoenix, AZ - 70% Columbus, OH - 80% Tri-cities area, WA - 70% Boston, MA - 20% Newark, NJ - 25% Austin, TX - 70% San Antonio, TX - 80% Ft Meade, MD - 30% Chicago, IL - 40% Minneapolis, MN - 50% Las Vegas, NV - 60% Off the top of my head, if you can't hire people in Austin, Nashville, or Las Vegas, you're doing it wrong. All of those have large tech industries and/or are near large cities with big populations. Nashville is near both a big city and a major national lab. They're also cheap enough that you can basically hire two people for the price of one in San Francisco.

Iftheshoefits 12y ago
Well, I've lived/worked in a couple of the locations on your list. I'll just say this: I think we have very different notions of what "large tech industry" means. I don't consider Tampa, FL or just about any of the VA listings to have "large" tech industries. Tampa's is especially slim, driven mainly by a couple of hospitals, the university, and a few defense/government contractors. VA's are driven mainly by defense/government contractors (having been there once, I'd not choose it again except as a last resort, and then only reluctantly) and some finance.
- bane 12y ago
  If you don't think Northern VA or South East VA are large tech industries, then we have very different dictionaries. NoVA/D.C. is only the home to the second largest tech center in the country, larger than NYCs. You can't swing a dead cat without hitting a tech company of any size along the Dulles tech corridor. With a 5% unemployment rate, there are literally thousands of job openings there, the demand is unbelievably high. If that doesn't qualify as a large tech industry, then nothing does. Blacksburg and Charlottesville have all the advantages of a place like MIT or Stanford. Nice STEM focused college towns full of ready to work STEM students who'd love to stay in those towns and low costs of living. If you want to open a remote office, those are good places to do it. Tampa has a sizable tech industry as well. If you didn't notice it, it's because you, like most people, aren't paying attention or you've dismissed every possible company you could have worked for because it wasn't in with the cool crowd. I wonder how many folks in Tampa wouldn't mind working for Tampa pay but get equity in an SV startup? Here's 5 minutes of looking for Tampa tech companies. If there's companies, there's tech employees you can hire for your company. Tech companies can't exist where there aren't people they can hire. (all of these had open tech positions and I didn't even look for non-tech companies with open tech positions) - http://www.actsoft.com/ - http://www.connectwise.com/ - http://www.e-ins.net/ - http://www.fairwarning.com/ - http://www.syniverse.com/home - ... you know what...screw the list, here's 7 thousand developer position near Tampa http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=software+developer&l=Tampa%2C+FL http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=software+developer&l=Tam... I bet most of these are for some boring insurance company, healthcare or real estate company. How many people do you think you can find who want to work for a SV company and get SV startup perks? Here's Nashville with almost 7,000 more open positions. http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=software+developer&l=Nashville%2C+TN http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=software+developer&l=Nas... Portland, a tech friendly city, only has twice as many openings. http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=software+developer&l=Portland%2C+OR http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=software+developer&l=Por... Guess who has more open positions on this board? San Francisco or Washington D.C.? http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=software+developer&l=san+francisco http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=software+developer&l=san... http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=software+developer&l=Washington%2C+DC http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=software+developer&l=Was... The point is that there is plenty of tech industry all over the place, and people in those areas can be hired at fractions of San Francisco's going rates. People also don't like working in boring shitty jobs and the allure of working for a startup, with high payout equity can be a good alternative, if it's offered to them. But Silicon Valley Myopia makes it impossible to see this. It's easier to sell hiring in Hyderabad than in Austin sometimes, and that's a shame. While I see posts on San Francisco's labor shortage and the desire to get more H-1B visas, I can't help think of the hundreds of thousands of qualified tech employees all over the rest of the country. It's not expensive to set up a remote office and not hard to manage one either. If a SV startup can spin a photo sharing site as "changing the world" they can spin opening a remote office in Alabama as a an actual world changer. Here's a very relevant example https://gaganpreet.github.io/hn-hiring-mapped/src/web/ https://gaganpreet.github.io/hn-hiring-mapped/src/web/
seanflyon 12y ago
It's an arbitrary distinction, but I wouldn't consider an area "very cheap" until it was significantly below the nation average. According to http://www.payscale.com/ http://www.payscale.com/ cost of living in Austin Texas is 7% cheaper than the national average. I would consider that cheap, but not very cheap. payscale just happened to be the first site that came up but its number seem a little less extreme than the ones you gave: cost of living relative to SF: Phoenix: -41% Miami: -34% Anchorage: -23% Dallas: -41% New York: +38% Knoxville: -45% I doubt you could hire the same quality of developer in Miami for half the cost (especially including benefits). I don't mean to sound argumentative. "very cheap" is an arbitrary distinction and I have no idea if the cost of living number you gave are more or less accurate than the ones I found. There are many places with good developers and significantly lower cost of living than the bay area.