San Diego Struggles to Keep Its Young Tech Talent • Hacker News Board

Re: San Diego Struggles to Keep Its Young Tech Talent

#71

Post by Grishnakh » Thu, Sep 15, 2016, 4:12 PM UTC

amyjess wrote: post #65

logfromblammo wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seeing firsthand what adjacency to a large military base does, I wouldn't want to be young tech talent near Coronado or Camp Pendleton, either. Defense jobs are terrible, soul-crushing nightmares that nevertheless pay you enough that it isn't really worth running back through the tech hiring gauntlet, which somehow manages to be worse. My soul is already nearly squashed flat, but it's not too late for you to save you…

> Defense jobs are terrible, soul-crushing nightmares > My soul is already nearly squashed flat Can you elaborate? What, exactly, was soul-crushing? I worked for a small defense contractor from January 2015 to March 2016, and it didn't feel soul-crushing to me. In fact, I liked the fact that we were mostly forbidden from working overtime. Mind you, I don't miss the timekeeping policies one iota (including how we hand…

It has its ups and downs. The general lack of overtime is nice, and from what I've seen of it the work pace is pretty lax and it's not hard to keep your job.

The problem with it is that it seems to be a big make-work jobs program for engineers. Defense projects these days just seem to drag on forever and rarely bear any fruit. It's not like working in the commercial sector where your work has a decent chance of actually going into mass production and being used by lots of people a year or two after you build it. Of course, there's places in the commercial world like this too (mainly at really giant corporations), but it's less likely. Also, a lot of defense contracting jobs seem to be "butts in seats" jobs; you're just paid to occupy a seat and be available to do some ill-defined work, with no clear management.

Re: San Diego Struggles to Keep Its Young Tech Talent

#72

Post by monkmartinez » Thu, Sep 15, 2016, 4:14 PM UTC

roadnottaken wrote: post #52

RCortex wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Meanwhile the housing is still affordable compared to the Bay Area, if not cheap on a national basis. And the Valley is an hourlong Southwest flight away. I see lots of >$1 million homes and >$1500/month rents for apartments, in the suburbs. Do you have any specific areas in mind? I'm thinking about moving.

In north county, places like Rancho Penasquitos (92129) have great schools and you can find decent single-family homes in the low $600's these days. It's about 15 minutes from the coast without traffic -- 25 mins from downtown. Nearby areas like Mira Mesa and Clairemont are cheaper but the public schools aren't as good.

$600,000 is affordable? How about smart? I don't mean to chide, but $600,000 for a cookie cutter tract-home is down right absurd. California is nuts.

Re: San Diego Struggles to Keep Its Young Tech Talent

#73

Post by amyjess » Thu, Sep 15, 2016, 4:16 PM UTC

As someone from Dallas who's considering a move next year (not by choice; our state legislature has promised to pass laws next year that will make it effectively illegal for me to continue to live here), I have no interest in ever setting foot in NorCal, but SoCal is on my short list.

I find the Silicon Valley tech industry frightening and the culture associated with it degenerate. I'm not interested in the out-of-control housing costs either. SoCal, on the other hand, reminds me of home far more than most any other part of the country I've looked at. If I were to move to the LA or SD areas, I wouldn't feel too horribly out of place there.

So count me in as one young-ish person (31, but still technically a Millennial) in tech who would rather live in San Diego than Silicon Valley.

If it helps, I prefer to live in the suburbs and detest the idea of living in any kind of downtown.

Re: San Diego Struggles to Keep Its Young Tech Talent

#74

Post by yuncun » Thu, Sep 15, 2016, 4:18 PM UTC

gusmd wrote: post #48

yuncun wrote: post #9

I mean, you could live downtown and drive 25 minutes to Sorrento valley. Most commuters are going the opposite way. You could even go surfing in the morning before work, if you live just a bit north of Downtown. Sorrento valley is a lonely place though, I do admit this.

As counter-intuitive as this sounds, it's actually the complete opposite. Living downtown and commuting to Sorrento Valley is a pain. My boss does it and he does 6 AM - 8PM to avoid traffic. Meanwhile, my wife goes from Del Mar to Old Town and only starts seeing traffic close to Del Mar on her way back.

Okay, I was just speculating. I lived in Penasquitos.

Re: San Diego Struggles to Keep Its Young Tech Talent

#75

Post by gallonofmilk » Thu, Sep 15, 2016, 4:20 PM UTC

CalRobert wrote: post #54

I moved to San Diego to start a tech company with a partner about 18 months ago. SD was chosen because partner lived there and was established. We found it very difficult to get the attention of any VC's or potential customers. We did manage to get an interview with YC, but were declined. Was this due to the location? Perhaps. I do know that the events we went to were lackluster, and the ecosystem was weak. You've go…

I disagree, San Diego is one of the best US cities period. :)

Re: San Diego Struggles to Keep Its Young Tech Talent

#76

Post by brandall10 » Thu, Sep 15, 2016, 4:22 PM UTC

brryant wrote: post #32

Approaching my graduation from UCSD's CS program back in '08, I couldn't wait to move from SD to SF. Several reasons but the main ones were: 1) hard to find driven people that wanted to make an impact in their field 2) tech scene was heavily dominated by biotech and Qualcomm 3) missing intellectually curious people. I hope it turns around soon however, since it's a beautiful place to live.

UCSD '99 CS grad here. I opted to stay in SD for my career. There has been a huge shift in the last five years -- plenty of startup activity downtown (http://sandiegostartupweek.com/), some of the meetups are quite active (the main js meetup regularly pulls in over 100 people).

Still, it's probably not quite as active as a secondary hub like Austin, but at this rate it probably will be within the next five years.

Re: San Diego Struggles to Keep Its Young Tech Talent

#77

Post by John23832 » Thu, Sep 15, 2016, 4:22 PM UTC

Grishnakh wrote: post #24

djKianoosh wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wait what? DC has one of the worst public transit systems of a major city in the world. portions of it are constantly shut down for maintenance. there was a week this summer with 2-3 fires in the system. "strong" it is not. carry on

Why is this being modded down? It's absolutely correct, as anyone who lives in the DC area would know. Come to DC and try riding the Metro on Saturday or Sunday night and see how you like it. Metro used to be a pretty decent system 20 years ago; today it's a disaster.

I think the fact that DC has a system puts it ahead of most places.

When people talk about DC they should really be talking about NoVa. And size-wise, NoVa is a sprawling southern city. The fact that the Metro covers most of it is much better than SD, or a closer city like Richmond.

Re: San Diego Struggles to Keep Its Young Tech Talent

#78

Post by lisowski » Thu, Sep 15, 2016, 4:23 PM UTC

As a 23 year old software engineer that recently chose to live in SD over SF I find this article kind of funny. It didn't make sense to me to choose a place where i might make more money, but have to spend it all to live. Life can be pretty cheap in SD. I live 20 minutes/15 miles from work, a commute that would take an hour in the bay. I also pay <$700 for the master bedroom in my house. I'm also a 10 min uber to any downtown spot I want. Not much overpriced food here either, and many options if you drive 15 minutes. You may not be working at Google or Apple down here, but that might not be the worst thing.

Re: San Diego Struggles to Keep Its Young Tech Talent

#79

Post by AstralStorm » Thu, Sep 15, 2016, 4:25 PM UTC

ng12 wrote: post #19

willismichael wrote: post #15

Why does tech talent have to be young?

Because we've been in a talent shortage for 10 years. By the numbers the available applicant pool is young.

There is no shortage, it is just that every company wants to hire all the same rock stars and nobody wants to train anymore.

Re: San Diego Struggles to Keep Its Young Tech Talent

#80

Post by gonehome » Thu, Sep 15, 2016, 4:25 PM UTC

monkmartinez wrote: post #72

roadnottaken wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In north county, places like Rancho Penasquitos (92129) have great schools and you can find decent single-family homes in the low $600's these days. It's about 15 minutes from the coast without traffic -- 25 mins from downtown. Nearby areas like Mira Mesa and Clairemont are cheaper but the public schools aren't as good.

$600,000 is affordable? How about smart? I don't mean to chide, but $600,000 for a cookie cutter tract-home is down right absurd. California is nuts.

The comparison is 2million in Palo Alto for an attached townhouse ~2200sqft. You might be able to get an 800k house in a bad neighborhood (east palo alto) that's 1100 sqft.

Friend in Buffalo is buying a house for 120k, difference is extreme.