71–80 of 160 posts
Good lord, so much snark in this thread, so here's some actual suggestions if you want to enjoy yourself (note: I moved out 3.5 years ago). Get coffee at Four Barrel, Ritual, Sightglass, Blue Bottle, Philz Get tacos in the Missions at Taqueria Vallarta, Taqueria Cancun Go to Noisebridge, Sudo Room, Hacker Dojo Hike at Hawk Hill, Skeggs, Muir Woods, Mt. Tam Look up local concerts at funcheapsf.com. There's so many fan…
Sit in traffic on the 101. Take Caltrain to SF between 6am-10am or the other way from 5pm-7pm. Walk around Soma, east some food. Take Bart. Drive East across Dumbarton bridge between 4pm-6pm (actually go West and look at the traffic the other way). Drive by Facebook, drive by Google. Walk around downtown Palo Alto. Also there is Hacker Dojo in Mt. View which is a good place to meet others. You can also walk around do…
Don't forget to eat a $15 lunch special in Palo Alto and for bonus points get a parking ticket for failing to parse the insane special case parking signs. A lot of people like to take selfies at the Facebook sign if you can get to it without being run over.
Good lord, so much snark in this thread, so here's some actual suggestions if you want to enjoy yourself (note: I moved out 3.5 years ago). Get coffee at Four Barrel, Ritual, Sightglass, Blue Bottle, Philz Get tacos in the Missions at Taqueria Vallarta, Taqueria Cancun Go to Noisebridge, Sudo Room, Hacker Dojo Hike at Hawk Hill, Skeggs, Muir Woods, Mt. Tam Look up local concerts at funcheapsf.com. There's so many fan…
Thank you for this. As someone interviewing with a handful of companies in SV and considering relocating, this whole thread reenforces a whole host of misgivings I have of the area. Maybe I'm too Midwestern, but most of the comments read as a big "eff you - don't even bother." Does everyone hate it there so much? I know it isn't perfect, but what city/metro area is?
SF: Spend a night doing coke with the ladies at Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre, bring lots of money...stumble home stepping around the street relics. Don't loose your phone. Goto some snobish coffee shops while hung over. This is about as SF as you can get. (spoken from experience) San Jose: Rent a car and park on the 101. Cruise the suburbs and price snap houses for shock and entertainment!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank you for this. As someone interviewing with a handful of companies in SV and considering relocating, this whole thread reenforces a whole host of misgivings I have of the area. Maybe I'm too Midwestern, but most of the comments read as a big "eff you - don't even bother." Does everyone hate it there so much? I know it isn't perfect, but what city/metro area is?
This is 100% anecdotal. I'm from Minneapolis as are a number of my friends. Some of them moved out to CA (Irvine) and some later moved to Seattle. They /can't wait/ to move back to MN. For a while, I didn't understand them (usually, when they tell me this in the winter). But the music scene, culture, and comparative lack of traffic make a big difference. I've yet to go to CA outside of layovers, but I still want to e…
Irvine is in Southern California. Southern California is a different state than Northern California, which is where San Francisco and Silicon Valley are.
Good lord, so much snark in this thread, so here's some actual suggestions if you want to enjoy yourself (note: I moved out 3.5 years ago). Get coffee at Four Barrel, Ritual, Sightglass, Blue Bottle, Philz Get tacos in the Missions at Taqueria Vallarta, Taqueria Cancun Go to Noisebridge, Sudo Room, Hacker Dojo Hike at Hawk Hill, Skeggs, Muir Woods, Mt. Tam Look up local concerts at funcheapsf.com. There's so many fan…
I'm curious what made you move out. As someone who haven't made it out to SF I've always wanted to see if it lived up to the hype. (if even for nicer weather)
Ahh the legend lives, I see. Unless you live somewhere with unbearable winters it's doubtful that the weather is actually "nicer" in SF. ~60 nearly every day, ~50 nearly every night. Just cold enough to make you wear jeans and a hoodie (what, we just thought that getup looked cool?) and rarely warm enough to take advantage of a pool.
SAN FRANCISCO
1. Mission
Get off at 24th st BART and start at Ritual Coffee. Walk down Valencia street toward 16th st BART station and stop into the variety of stores. At lunchtime go to 18th street and grab a sandwich from Bi-rite -- eat it at Dolores park nearby. At night go to The Chapel and see what's playing, you might be able to get tickets. If not, try stopping by Noisebridge (google it!)
2. FiDi
Start at Philz (300 Folsom) and walk to the Google @ Spear St. If you know someone there you can get a tour. If not, you're now standing near the base of the Bay Bridge and it's quite beautiful. Mozilla is right next door as well if you want a tour. They have a nice monument outside their office. Walk away from the Bay Bridge toward the Ferry Building, and get lunch there. Take the Ferry to Sausalito and work from there in the afternoon -- get dinner there and catch a ferry back to SF. Alternatively you can stick around downtown. If you know someone at Salesforce they are right in the area as well.
Night: Try hitting up some local bars for drinks. Some popular ones include Local Edition, Novela, and Rickhouse.
Bonus: Go see a giants baseball game. It's super cheap and really fun. https://seatgeek.com/san-francisco-giants-tickets?oq=SF+gian... -- the cheap seats high up are the best. You get a great view and you can eat stadium snacks while watching an inconsequential baseball game.
I'm assuming others will give you more tips about San Francisco + tourist stuff, so I'll move on to the Peninsula.
PENINSULA
1. Palo Alto
Take Caltrain from 4th and King in San Francisco to the Palo Alto station. Get off and walk down University Avenue. There are lots of coffee shops you can work from (Philz is popular here). There's also lots of good food options. If you know someone who works at Palantir, their office is right here. Paxti's deep dish pizza is a local favorite and they have reasonable lunch specials. In the afternoon you can stop by Stanford Campus (it's on the opposite side of the Caltrain -- head back to Caltrain from University Avenue and walk down a palm-tree lined road). If you know someone there you can tour the insides of the buildings, otherwise the outside of buildings is nice too.
Night: Rose & Crown is an English pub that has pretty yummy food and is something different after a day of Palo Alto.
2. Mountain View
Get off Caltrain and walk down Castro street toward Red Rock Cafe. This is a non-profit cafe with free wifi and is a fantastic place to get some work done. For lunch there are myriad options -- just walk down Castro street some more, you can't quite go wrong.
If you have friends at Google you should ask for a campus tour, as there is a free shuttle from the Mountain View Caltrain to the Google Campus. Even if you can't get a tour inside the building, go to the campus and walk around. You can bike to Shoreline Park (there's a small lake there) and rent paddleboats / kayaks.
You can also visit Y Combinator HQ (320 Pioneer Way) but I'm not sure there's much to see.
For dinner I'd stay around Castro street as well. There are tons of great options. Afterwards try getting drinks at St. Stephen's Green or Tied House. Make sure you catch one of the Caltrains back to the city (they stop running at a certain time in the evening, probably around 11pm is the last train up from Mountain View).
3. Sunnyvale
When you get off the Caltrain head to Philz for morning work. Then for lunch go over to S. Murphy Ave -- if you don't know what you want to eat, Dish Dash is a local favorite. If you have friends at LinkedIn you should ask them for a tour here.
There's not much in Sunnyvale -- it's pretty suburban.
4. Menlo Park
I'm running out of steam so the basics here are -- Santa Cruz Ave is their downtown and there's a number of coffee shops to choose from. If you know someone at Facebook, get a tour, but it's not quite walking distance from Caltrain; I'd take an uber once you're in the downtown. Their campus is pretty cool...and their food is ridiculously yummy. Another interesting thing would be to go to Sand Hill Road and walk down -- you can see all the VC firms there. Not sure that's an interesting tourist thing to do, but it's something you can if you're interested.
Good lord, so much snark in this thread, so here's some actual suggestions if you want to enjoy yourself (note: I moved out 3.5 years ago). Get coffee at Four Barrel, Ritual, Sightglass, Blue Bottle, Philz Get tacos in the Missions at Taqueria Vallarta, Taqueria Cancun Go to Noisebridge, Sudo Room, Hacker Dojo Hike at Hawk Hill, Skeggs, Muir Woods, Mt. Tam Look up local concerts at funcheapsf.com. There's so many fan…
+1 Taqueria Cancun Hit up Boba Guys if you like bubble tea Do the Lands End walk ( https://goo.gl/maps/UGC651a1Cvt ). Some great bridge photos there
Apply for jobs and attend interviews. Interviews will give you a more realistic sense of companies compared to a walkthrough/visit. Skip meetups
Wow. Unfortunately, I think this is mostly true. A lot of great meetups out there, but unfortunately the people "on the outside trying to get in" have way more of an interest/time to be able to do this.
My favorite meetup ever was the VIM meetup. The fact that it didn't seem like a plausible way to get a job meant that only people actually really interested in going went and so there was tons of cool people.