Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why do developers who could work anywhere flock to the most expensive cities?

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 408 posts

Re: Why do developers who could work anywhere flock to the most expensive cities?

#321

Post by throwasehasdwi »

rubicon33 wrote: post #38

I used to live in SF. It was exciting, but also shitty. I felt connected and alive, which was great, but also drained of resources, which really sucked. Oh, and there were 6 of us, in a 3 bedroom apartment. I had the living room. Yea. I lasted 3 years, until I met my wife, and by then I was ready to move. We did. Now, life in the suburbs, is slow. I feel somewhat disconnected and like I don't really belong to this co…

I share a similar life story so far.

As soon as I graduated I moved to NYC. I loved it, it was the most alive I've ever felt in my life. I lived there for 4 months and every day after work I walked around and marveled at a city so massive and stimulating that it didn't seem real. However, I was soon broke. Defeated, with credit cards maxed out, I got a plane ticket home with my last 300 bucks.

I lived in a midwestern suburb for about three years after that, close to home and bored out of my skull after living something like NYC.

When I built up some savings and experience I jumped again, this time for what I considered a happy medium between the two lifestyles, to Austin TX. So far so good here.

One day I will jump one last time to Silicon Valley, just to see what it's like. From there, having lived in all the places I really want to experience, I'll choose my final destination and settle down there.

Re: Why do developers who could work anywhere flock to the most expensive cities?

#322

Post by vostok »

gervase wrote: post #320
vostok wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think I'm not saving aggressively? I have saved at least a six figure quantity every year since my early 20s, which seems sufficiently aggressive to me. Being able to save is part of being able to afford living here. You're right that I could take a higher paying job in the suburbs or in a rural area and save even more, but money isn't everything to me.

If you can live in NYC/SF and still save 6 figures a year, I think your current job would already qualify as "high paying", depending on your lifestyle and expenses.

I did say "higher paying" rather than "high paying".

Re: Why do developers who could work anywhere flock to the most expensive cities?

#323

Post by dgudkov »

georgiecasey wrote: post #138
adamors wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moving to the US is not a rational decision in 2017.

take a random sample of 100 devs in Ukraine and India and offer them a green card to the US of A. how many do you think would take it? and for people who wouldn't, how many do you think would cite Trump as their reason?

Many would take it, no question. However, taking a green card doesn't necessarily mean that the person will stay in the US forever. The American culture and lifestyle is rather specific and not for everyone. It requires living in the US to start realizing it. You can't grasp it from abroad. Some developers return to Ukraine/India and feel happier there.

Re: Why do developers who could work anywhere flock to the most expensive cities?

#324

Post by dang »

reason_police wrote: post #161

> people with self-determination, i.e., a country, have decided You know that's just flat out false, especially considering you've personally never been asked about it. > countries agree to give up part of sovereignty Again, you were not asked. Neither was any other ordinary person affected. > the tourist visa explicitly has a number of terms and conditions I brought up the idea of the Social Contract. You're talking…

We've banned this account for violating the HN guidelines. Would you please stop creating accounts to do this with?

We detached this flagged subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14031121.

Re: Why do developers who could work anywhere flock to the most expensive cities?

#325

Post by throwasehasdwi »

iplaw wrote: post #217

Just because developers can feasibly work from anywhere, especially remotely for already-established companies, do not immediately presume that it is best for developers to work from anywhere. Working remotely is not for everyone. Some people have problems with efficiency and procrastination when working from home or when working without immediate oversight. Some people have poor communication skills which are furthe…

Austin isn't cheap when you look at the nation overall, but for tech hotspots it's still a bargain. I chalk it up to being a democratic city in a deeply republican state. Lack of regulation coupled with low taxes, great combo if you ask me.

Re: Why do developers who could work anywhere flock to the most expensive cities?

#326

Post by Anderkent »

ryandrake wrote: post #307
Swizec wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Ok, which of the 3 decent restaurants am i going to today?" Gets really boring after a while. New ones to try open every few years instead of every few weeks. You look at Yelp or similar and you've been to everything it suggests and decided it's meh. Or your friends have been and aay it's kinda meh. There's also that argument that Oatmeal mentioned once. In a small city you have Asian restaurants. Maybe Chinese, Jap…

I don't get this whole hang-up about restaurants. To me, "the number/type of restaurants in the area" is something I don't even consider when deciding if I want to live somewhere. Admittedly I'm not a restaurant guy. I pretty much never go to them. To me, they're just an expensive way to eat food. And they are a pain in that you need to do so much just to "enjoy" the experience. Get dressed up, drive or walk to the p…

People like different things. What a shock!

> Same goes for nightclubs, museums, movie theaters, "culture". This is really why people want to live somewhere???

What do you do in the afternoons? Almost every home-hobby I can think of is improved by company of people with similar interests. Rather than do DYI in a garage, I'd rather go to a hackerspace. Rather than play the same N boardgames with the same X people, I'd rather to go a boardgames meetup.

And well, while you might not be into 'culture', there's a reason why nightclubs, museums, theaters, cinemas, etc exist. People like entertainment!

> Get dressed up, drive or walk to the place, wait in line, get seated and wait again, place your order and wait again, finally you get to eat, trying not to think about how much of your life you just wasted, then when you're finally done enduring all that, drop $100 that you could have used to buy groceries for a week.

Well, here's the opposite view. I don't cook at all; I'd much rather place a delivery order at one of 20 great restaurants around, depending on whether I feel like italian, thai, vietnameese, british, american, or any other cousine. Why would I spend hours buying ingredients and preparing food, when someone else can do the same for me, but better?

Going out to restaurants is a bit different - when you go as a group, the fact that you have free time as your food is being prepared is a benefit, not a cost. That's the main reason you go, after all - to spend time together, while at the same time enjoying a good meal.

Re: Why do developers who could work anywhere flock to the most expensive cities?

#327

Post by kzisme »

kerbalspacepro wrote: post #311
kzisme wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment resonates with me. After leaving university, and moving on to a full time position in a suburb I feel completely disconnected. I didn't attend a ~huge~ school, but the sense of community was there. The lack of this feeling has been hard to explain, but this comment explains it very well. I'm not sure if I will(or can) ever do something about this feeling either.

i read this as "those commas resonate with me"

Heh I had originally written "This post", but didn't want anyone to be confused with the OP.

Re: Why do developers who could work anywhere flock to the most expensive cities?

#328

Post by JCharante »

ryandrake wrote: post #300
vostok wrote: post #32

I make good money. Why would you expect me to live in the middle of nowhere when I can live in the greatest cities of the world?

"I make good money. Why should I have to live in a cramped city when I can live in a 3000 sq.ft house on 10 acres of land and send my kid to an elementary school that doesn't need metal detectors and armed security guards?"

Surely private schools in SF don't have metal detectors.

Re: Why do developers who could work anywhere flock to the most expensive cities?

#329

Post by softawre »

sidlls wrote: post #220
briandear wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basecamp and Gitlab seem to be off to a good start. Github also is extensively remote.

I don't know about Basecamp but Gitlab's salaries are about 60% of my current base for SF, and go down for less expensive locations that I have already considered living in. These locations cost about 66% of my current situation (I commute into the City from about a 30 minutes train ride). I'd have to move to a place that resembles a rube filled backwater by comparison for break-even.

Care to give numbers? I will.

I make 125k/year with 15k bonus, good 401k/stock/health/etc. This is outside Indianapolis, where you can buy a nice 3k sq. ft. home for 250k.

To have the same size house where you live, how much would I have to make? I have done some math, it is well over 200k. Maybe you make that much?

Re: Why do developers who could work anywhere flock to the most expensive cities?

#330

Post by lordCarbonFiber »

humanrebar wrote: post #177
flowardnut wrote: post #44

I moved from a medium sized city that had ~5 dev shops to work at. They all sucked. I had friends from college at each one, and we all basically spent our days plugging fixes into 8 year old java or .net apps and trying to keep our brains entertained. I did the usual and moved to "an expensive city" of portland. There's hundreds of places hiring, from "work on our inventory system in java" to healthcare to high tech…

> tons of beer This sort of thing confuses me. It's not difficult to get fancy alcohol anywhere, especially wines and spirits, since they have better shelf lives, but you can get niche beers as well.

For those into the craft beer scene, it's about locality. Many local breweries simply don't have the scale (or sometimes desire to scale) to ship outside of the state, or even the city in some cases. You're correct in your assessment that you can get a certain selection of niche brews almost anywhere, but for many metro cities in the US there's a huge host of options you can only find there.
Post reply on HN