SF with 1% on the full stack.
Ask HN: Should I stay in London or move to San Francisco?
11–16 of 16 posts
Re: Ask HN: Should I stay in London or move to San Francisco?
#12In either London or SF working for a funded (>Series A) startup you should be making more than that with designer & front-end skills.
But in any case you should think about what you want to do longer term and use that to make your decision.
Re: Ask HN: Should I stay in London or move to San Francisco?
#13My 2 cents... You seem motivated enough to learn on your own. You also left off a key detail - where are you from, and what is the visa situation? 46K is not much to live off of in SF, and you could struggle to find a new job w/out a Visa. All that said, you should consider some other things: 1) Do you want to live abroad? If you are young, this should dominate the decision. I am of the "Go abroad at all costs" camp,…
Thank you for a very honest breakdown. I have lived an equal amount of my life in both London and NJ, and am a citizen of US and UK, so visas aren't my problem. "Abroad" would be neither of the two, unfortunately. I haven't worked in a consumer space startup before, so it may be wise to get some experience there. It's pretty hard to gauge the culture of the new startup, as I've only met the CEO and videoconferenced w…
Good luck. It's not a bad problem to have. Either way, the decision isn't irreversible. The same option may not be there in a year or two, but other options will be.
Re: Ask HN: Should I stay in London or move to San Francisco?
#14I've been thinking of moving to London. I'm glad you're enjoying it! Do you really get by on £24k? Surely your housing is something like 40% of your salary if you're in zone 1, 2 or 3 (I'm assuming shared accommodation)? Plus what, £135 for a monthly travel pass? After bare minimum expenses (housing, utilities, food) there can't be much left? edit:
My monthly take home amounts to about £1600. I live in a really nice shared flat on the edge of Zone 1/2 (Shoreditch) which costs £700 inc. utilities. I don't have a monthly pass, I top up my Oyster card with £20 every month or so. I use a combination of walking/biking/bus/tube to get to places.
So that's £880 left. I spend £100/month on my gym and I budget around £20/day for food. And about £30-50/week on drinks. So at worst I'm left with £440 every month as play money.
It's definitely enough for me, but then again my lifestyle is cheap. YMMV
Re: Ask HN: Should I stay in London or move to San Francisco?
#1546k is a shit salary in SF for a dev. In fact most visas require a base salary of 89$k or so as a software engineer.
And 1% equity is worth nothing.
If you want to move to SF, find a better offer. The one you have now is scammy.
Re: Ask HN: Should I stay in London or move to San Francisco?
#16Move if you can afford it.
The UK is slowly going down the drain.
I am pretty incensed right now, they are equipping the UK with fibre broadband, and in a lot of cases the people who pay 0 income tax (and 0 every other tax) are getting 100mbit fibre, and the people in the same town are not getting fibre at all.
Reasoning: if you're stuck at home all day, jobless, you NEED 100mbit to stream tv: if you work, you don't. Only in the UK do the people who pay for everything get nothing whilst the people who don't pay for anything get everything free!
Move whilst you can and never look back!