SF may not have been the best choice, but I will say welcome to California! I moved here about 6 years ago and I don't intend to ever leave.
Ask HN: Just moved to SF. How can I leverage my new location to skill up in dev?
21–30 of 57 posts
Re: Ask HN: Just moved to SF. How can I leverage my new location to skill up in dev?
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where can you find these meetups normally? Just by googling?
When you make your Meetup.com account, they'll ask for your interests. You can specify programming, and even specific languages/areas/etc. Then talk to the people there, and you'll hear about other events...
the good meetups aren't on Meetup.com anymore since it went to shit after selling out
and we run some events from our discord https://www.latent.space/i/115665083/events
Re: Ask HN: Just moved to SF. How can I leverage my new location to skill up in dev?
#23Isn't that way too many ideas and options already? By this I mean, keep looking for great options sure, but also focus. Perhaps it's simply the tools involved in your current job (getting better at them - which your employer may pay for). It's not specific to the area but it's still right there.
"Someone to work with", yes that is a local strength - but it's also not very accessible. Not quickly. Noisebridge is a small crowd for example - but yes, it's right there in SF and very easy to visit.
Several of these tools you work with may have local developer groups or conferences. That might work.That might be the right intersection between these things.And both googling and Noisebridge might be ways to find them.
Re: Ask HN: Just moved to SF. How can I leverage my new location to skill up in dev?
#24Follow your interests. If you're passionate and interested in technology the success will follow.
Re: Ask HN: Just moved to SF. How can I leverage my new location to skill up in dev?
#25SF may not have been the best choice, but I will say welcome to California! I moved here about 6 years ago and I don't intend to ever leave.
Definitely the best choice.
Re: Ask HN: Just moved to SF. How can I leverage my new location to skill up in dev?
#26Hang out at noisebridge or something.
I second the recommendation for Noisebridge; some additional practical advice:
- Be aware that NB is perhaps best described as a “501(c)(3) disorganization.” The entire thing is volunteer-run, more or less by whoever happens to be there that day, so it’s pretty chaotic and your experience as a newcomer can vary wildly depending on when you happen to visit.
- You can just show up! Ring the doorbell and hope someone answers (6-8PM is a good bet, though there can be people there at all hours). Once you get a tour, hang out and chat with people. As others have noted it can be a mixed bag who you run into on any given day. The space is open to the public, with all that entails.
- You might also try some of the regularly scheduled events (some combination of https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Category:Events and https://www.meetup.com/noisebridge/events/ should get you a sort-of-mostly-up-to-date view of things); that way you’ll have an organizer and a topic to start with.
- There are also a lot of other hackerspaces/makerspaces in the area! Many of them are more formal than Noisebridge, with all the differences that come with that.
Re: Ask HN: Just moved to SF. How can I leverage my new location to skill up in dev?
#27Get a job that pays well and has high learning prospects. Deal with the start up business after getting money and a fall back. You'll learn more all round stuff at a start up, but that's not what matters atm, only pure dev does. Tech meetups are cool.
To expand, it's better to get a well-paying job before going to a startup because it will give you more time to grow your money over the length of your career and the brand-name company will open doors that startup experience will not, in terms of signaling value and the network you can build at larger companies.
To throw my 2 cents in - big companies suck. Startups are fun and you'll still be paid pretty well.
Re: Ask HN: Just moved to SF. How can I leverage my new location to skill up in dev?
#28[flagged]
I'm hoping that the OP and others don't take the parent comment too much to heart. I lived in the bay area before I got into tech, working in its restaurants and grocery stores for about a decade before teaching myself software engineering and computer science and changing my circumstances dramatically.
I've also had friends swallowed up by the bay area, also to violence and drugs. They all had in common that they were scraping by on a little over minimum wage or engaging in sex work to survive or homeless or almost homeless
By and large, the bay area is not dangerous for salaried tech folks receiving benefits that, yearly, amount to more than double what most service class folks earn in cash in 5 years. The bay area is dangerous for the homeless and the mentally ill and the folks with vastly fewer resources, working as dishwashers but classed as 1099 contractors or totally under the table.
The bay area is an extremely cruel place to most of the people who aren't on tech or finance salaries. Most of my friends not in tech are constantly having to move because their buildings are getting sold to companies that flip properties into luxury housing.
Anyway, if this isn't you, the bay is your oyster. There's constantly technical talks and dev oriented events and conventions and hackathons and meetups and spaces like noisebridge and sudo room in the east bay. There's great food, excellent excellent healthcare and probably the best mental healthcare in the world in terms of quality of care and accessibility. There are phenomenal libraries and bookstores (see Moe's in Berkeley and SFPL and alleycat books). Lots of great companies, lots of opportunities for mentorship.
Re: Ask HN: Just moved to SF. How can I leverage my new location to skill up in dev?
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
To expand, it's better to get a well-paying job before going to a startup because it will give you more time to grow your money over the length of your career and the brand-name company will open doors that startup experience will not, in terms of signaling value and the network you can build at larger companies.
To throw my 2 cents in - big companies suck. Startups are fun and you'll still be paid pretty well.
Generalizations suck, too. Big companies are made of small teams. Some are nice, some aren’t. A lot comes down to the immediate manager.