The upshot of all this is that now he starts his new job, proves himself, makes friends and contacts, and generally becomes part of the SF Bay Area tech scene.

The upshot of all this is that now he starts his new job, proves himself, makes friends and contacts, and generally becomes part of the SF Bay Area tech scene. In 18 months (average tenure of software engineer in SF) he'll have a very different experience. To everybody here who's surprised by the gauntlet he had to run: the old saying hire hard fire easy comes to mind. I grew up in Ohio and started my career there. There are great and awful engineers everywhere, but certainly on average the level of skill and talent is much higher here in the bay area than anywhere else I've worked. Once you're initiated into that, if you do good work, you have a level of mobility here that can only be dreamed of elsewhere. There are just so many startups and tech companies, even compared to other meccas like NYC.