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Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?

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Re: Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?

#291

Post by mwfunk »

chrisper wrote: post #176
skylark wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience doesn't line up with your preconceived notions of the Bay Area at all. I've worked at three different jobs in San Francisco, and all of them were standard 9-5 jobs. I've worked weekends under 5 times. Most of my friends are in the same situation. Sure if you want to work at an early stage startup, you can grind yourself into a paste. But there are plenty of jobs here where that's not the case.

Maybe it is because I live in the South Bay. But here it seems that everyone is just going to work and back home.. and that's it. There is nothing else going on here, but work work work.

Whether or not that's true, your lifestyle isn't dictated by what "everyone" does, it's only dictated by what you do. I know lots of people who are workaholics or spend all of their non-work time with their families, and I know as many or more people with rich and varied lifestyles that go out and do stuff with friends all the time. It's what you make of it, like many things in life.

Re: Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?

#292

Post by ryandrake »

komali2 wrote: post #18
rememberlenny wrote: post #4

This point is interesting: [3] We find that engineers often under-value startup success (growth rate, revenue) when looking for jobs, and instead place an emphasis on brand-recognition, or whether they find the subject area exciting. Now, I don't mean to judge anyone for this — working in an areas of passion may be great choice. But if your goal is to maximize your financial outcome, looking at startups more like an…

I never understood this mindset here, maybe because we didn't have it in Houston where I grew up before moving out to the Bay Area for an engineering job. I found a nice small but profitable company and am quite cozy here, but people are always telling me I need to do the 2 year startup hop. It seems like gambling to me - 2 years of my life again and again in the hopes I'll strike gold? I'd rather slowly and steadily…

The way I look at it: Your career is time boxed like a baseball game. You only get a few at-bats then you're done. So you can use your chances to swing hard for the home run, or you can go for the safe base hits. But you don't get 100 chances.

Investors on the other hand get thousands of at-bats. They're only limited by the amount of money they want to invest, so they can diversify all they want.

Re: Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?

#293

Post by beachstartup »

michaelchisari wrote: post #5

I ended up in Los Angeles because, despite being an expensive city, rents were cheaper than the Bay Area, and the salaries being offered were equivalent. I have a great place in LA that would easily be 50% to double the price in the Bay. This wasn't the only reason but it was one of the biggest. Another reason being that I wanted to work in tech as it relates to media and content, and there were many more options to…

for those who don't know, quality of life in LA is entirely dependent upon your commute. your life can either be the single best big-city experience in the country, or a hellish, dystopian nightmare that will send you into a suicidal depression.

i'm not joking. if you move to LA, plan ahead.

Re: Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?

#294

Post by st3v3r »

twblalock wrote: post #76
OmarIsmail wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A single person does NOT need to spend 3600/month in SF. That's crazy. A studio/1 bedroom can be had for 2500. And if you're willing to compromise on location (i.e. "the ghetto") you can get under 2K. Families that need 2+ bedrooms and a good/safe neighbourhood are screwed though.

You don't have to live in San Francisco. There are plenty of nearby cities with cheaper rent.

But then you'll have to likely sacrifice several hours of your day just to commuting.

Re: Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?

#295

Post by ryandrake »

superqd wrote: post #88
jeroen94704 wrote: post #41

This article seems to assume you're single and not in a hurry to start a family. I'd be interested to read an article "Does it make sense for a programmer with a wife and kids to move to the bay area". I secretly suspect the answer will be "no", since no matter how you slice it, a 4-bedroom house in the Bay Area won't be reachable until you are well on your way to, say, 40 or so.

I interviewed over phone and skype with a Bay area company not too long ago. In between interviews, since things were going well, I started looking for places to live. I have 2 kids, and currently live in a 4200 sq ft house in Texas. I was more than fine with downsizing, but not at the cost of eating up all my salary to live with my family in an apartment that was barely acceptable when I was single. My kids are curr…

Yea, you have to set your expectations lower here in the Bay Area. A 2K square foot home is absolutely ENORMOUS out here, especially for a single family. And good school neighborhoods are extremely expensive. You're not going to afford that combination working at ANY tech company besides maybe a few outlier high-salary companies.

Re: Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?

#296

Post by yarou »

Mz wrote: post #188
chrisper wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it is because I live in the South Bay. But here it seems that everyone is just going to work and back home.. and that's it. There is nothing else going on here, but work work work.

It might be your specific location. It also might be a combination of "selection bias" -- people tend to be friends with people who are like them in some way -- and psychological filtering where you just don't see anything else for some reason. I remember reading a piece about alcoholism where it was describing an alcoholic who concluded that everyone drinks a great deal and just doesn't admit it because that was wha…

I think it comes down to culture.

The culture of the South Bay is relatively non-existent outside of small pockets like Palo Alto, Los Gatos, Mountain view, and maybe Santana Row. It's geared toward raising kids and family life in general.

Re: Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?

#297

Post by _lex »

This analysis is very low quality. Engineers move to the bay area not for salaries, but for equity and RSUs. It's not unusual to make your salary again in RSUs, which are usually not that risky. Equity is a mixed ball, however. But these two factors are the unique element in the Bay area, and why you should move there. If you are an engineer in the bay area without loads of equity or RSUs, you're getting ripped off.

Re: Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?

#298

Post by ryandrake »

bandrami wrote: post #122

DC/NoVa is hurting for programmers. Particularly if you can get a clearance, there's no shortage of work out here, at a (somewhat) cheaper cost of living.

I lived in NoVa for a bit, and found that employers would strongly rather you already have clearance, and don't really care if you're clear-able. Most places I looked had no uncleared work to fill so they'd literally have to hire me and sit me behind a desk doing nothing for months waiting for my clearance. That was usually the deal breaker.

I'm currently probably not clearable anymore (married a foreign national) so it's less relevant for me now, but I agree it's a nice area.

Re: Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?

#299

Post by cortesoft »

beachy wrote: post #136
Kluny wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Investors diversify their portfolios by investing in a number of startups and also in more reliable investments like well-established companies. You can't treat a job that way - there's no way to diversify the hours of day into several different companies with different risk levels. What the author describes is gambling. You bet all your resources (time, in this case) on one horse and hope it pays off big. That's not…

Gambling and investing are just points at each end of a continuum. Just because you can't diversify doesn't mean its not still a good idea to pick your employer in the same way an investor would.

I am not sure it is a good idea to pick your employer like an investor would.

An investor in startups is going for high risk, high reward investments. For every individual investment they make, the chance of any sort of return is quite low; they make up for this because the rare startups that succeed make enough to compensate for this low success rate. Since they are making a lot of these high risk/high reward 'bets', they can be fairly assured they will receive the expected value in return.

As an individual, you only get to place one bet on your employer. For most startup employees, that means they are very unlikely to get any sort of payout because of company success. It doesn't matter that the 'expected value' of working for a more-likely-to-hit-it-big startup is higher than for another company, since the probability is that you will not hit it big.

As an individual, you are more concerned with things like salary, working conditions, and personal enjoyment of the work. Those are the things you are CERTAINLY going to experience; the tiny chance of huge success is most likely not going to affect you.

I think there is a good analogy to poker here; in Texas Hold'em, two aces are the best starting hand. There is almost no situation where it is best to fold them before the opening flop; your expected value is always positive against ANY other combination of opponent hands.

However, there are a few cases where even though you have the highest expected value for your hand, it is in your best interest to fold. One such case is if you are playing in a tournament, you are in the money, and two people with much larger stacks have already gone all-in. In that case, your best bet is likely to fold; even though you have the highest odds of winning the hand out of everyone, if you LOSE, you are out and can't keep playing. Even if you win, you will still have the smallest stack and are unlikely to move up any spots and win more money; if you fold, though, someone else is likely to be knocked out and you can move up.

It seems counter intuitive, but this holds because expected value only works as your primary decision making point when you can make many bets; if you only get one bet, lower risk with lower reward is often better for you even if the expected value is lower.

Think about it this way; lets say you only have $1,000, and you need it to pay your monthly rent (if you don't pay, you will be kicked out and be homeless). Someone comes up and offers you a bet; you bet $1000, and you get a 1% chance of winning $200,000. In terms of expected value, this is a great deal! If you made the bet many times, you will expect to win $1000 for each bet made! However, 99% of the time you are going to be homeless. For most people, the choice is to go against the expected value and play it safe.

Re: Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?

#300

Post by jknoepfler »

_lex wrote: post #297

This analysis is very low quality. Engineers move to the bay area not for salaries, but for equity and RSUs. It's not unusual to make your salary again in RSUs, which are usually not that risky. Equity is a mixed ball, however. But these two factors are the unique element in the Bay area, and why you should move there. If you are an engineer in the bay area without loads of equity or RSUs, you're getting ripped off.

The analysis is low quality for a lot of reasons...

1. It motivates moving to sv because there are "lots" of successful startups. Is the rate of successful startups higher than elsewhere?

2. Average reported salary is a garbage statistic. Compare median values, between jobs of equal "status" (Google != j-random shipping company... Compare Google sv to Google Seattle within job title groups)

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