Higher-paid, faster-growing tech jobs are concentrating in 8 US hubs • Hacker News Board

Re: Higher-paid, faster-growing tech jobs are concentrating in 8 US hubs

#201

Post by shados » Fri, Jul 28, 2017, 3:01 PM UTC

rpazyaquian wrote: post #177

Boston doesn't seem to be doing very well in the long-term. I moved here to take advantage of both the presence of tech jobs, and to live in an accepting, progressive blue state. If I want to stay in the area, what field should I be transitioning into? I know the Boston area has a lot of medical/health companies around, and it might be worth it to start looking at those kinds of companies as a long-term solution. Are…

The Boston area has quite a bit of tech jobs and pays pretty well, with the main issues being that everything is falling apart and people are crazy.

Re: Higher-paid, faster-growing tech jobs are concentrating in 8 US hubs

#202

Post by Consultant32452 » Fri, Jul 28, 2017, 3:06 PM UTC

wakkaflokka wrote: post #172

chronic8k wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I got two guys with Master degrees for $20k less than what you wanted.") but not so good for employees on the upper end of the pay scale. MIT grad, data scientist here. Again, if you are not a top data scientist, it will work fine for you. I routinely get offered $300K/year as a recent PhD grad in the Bay area. I would not get anywhere near proportional compensation in Atlanta or even Seattle.

That's some incredible money, congrats! I'm not going to pretend this is scientific in any way, but using online COL calculators ( http://money.cnn.com/calculator/pf/cost-of-living/index.html ), $300k in San Francisco is supposedly (taken with many grains of salt) equivalent to $172k in Atlanta, which you could surely land?

The thing that's impossible to make up in these COLA calculations is retirement savings. Putting away 10% of $300k is very different than 10% of $172k. And you don't have to retire where you work.

Re: Higher-paid, faster-growing tech jobs are concentrating in 8 US hubs

#203

Post by ffumarola » Fri, Jul 28, 2017, 3:09 PM UTC

5trokerac3 wrote: post #154

justadeveloper2 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I moved to Raleigh back in '97 under the mistaken impression that it would be a major tech hub. While there are many good tech jobs there, the RTP area fell pretty far short of my expectations. Also, the dot-com crash gutted that area like a fish and I'm not sure the commercial real estate sector there has ever recovered even to this day. It was fun for a brief time in the late '90s. I moved away in '06, but went bac…

It fully recovered. I moved here in '12 from L.A. with a job that had the same pay, but the cost of living is probably close to half of California, so it was like having my salary doubled overnight. IMHO this place is a paradise for engineers who care about actual work life balance. NC's growth has slipped in the last couple years, though, because of the HB2 nonsense. It'll be a few years before we recover our image.

It's only like doubling your salary if you spend your entire income. When you move to a new area, the change in disposable income is determined by salary - expenses*cost of living.

Example

You make $100k in city A and spend $40k on expenses. That leaves $60k disposable.

You are considering a job in city B with half the cost of living and the same pay.

You still make $100k but your expenses have gone from $40k to $20k. Your new disposable income is $80k.

Cost of living is half but it's not like having 100% more income, it's 33% more .

Re: Higher-paid, faster-growing tech jobs are concentrating in 8 US hubs

#204

Post by simonsarris » Fri, Jul 28, 2017, 3:14 PM UTC

rpazyaquian wrote: post #177

Boston doesn't seem to be doing very well in the long-term. I moved here to take advantage of both the presence of tech jobs, and to live in an accepting, progressive blue state. If I want to stay in the area, what field should I be transitioning into? I know the Boston area has a lot of medical/health companies around, and it might be worth it to start looking at those kinds of companies as a long-term solution. Are…

> Boston doesn't seem to be doing very well in the long-term.

Can you expand on this?

Re: Higher-paid, faster-growing tech jobs are concentrating in 8 US hubs

#205

Post by Consultant32452 » Fri, Jul 28, 2017, 3:14 PM UTC

rpazyaquian wrote: post #178

vancan1ty wrote: post #99

Whatever happened to telecommuting eventually making it relatively unimportant where you live? Will this happen in the forseeable future, or will the best tech jobs continue in this trend of centralizing around major hubs?

Telecommuting/remote/WFH opportunities are as rare as ever. Companies are shying away from it as they begin blaming it for productivity issues that are the fault of completely different problems, e.g. bad management and culture. I don't foresee remote/WFH taking off any time soon.

Nah, they're hiring remote workers like crazy. They're just working very remotely: India.

Re: Higher-paid, faster-growing tech jobs are concentrating in 8 US hubs

#206

Post by ffumarola » Fri, Jul 28, 2017, 3:15 PM UTC

wakkaflokka wrote: post #172

chronic8k wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I got two guys with Master degrees for $20k less than what you wanted.") but not so good for employees on the upper end of the pay scale. MIT grad, data scientist here. Again, if you are not a top data scientist, it will work fine for you. I routinely get offered $300K/year as a recent PhD grad in the Bay area. I would not get anywhere near proportional compensation in Atlanta or even Seattle.

That's some incredible money, congrats! I'm not going to pretend this is scientific in any way, but using online COL calculators ( http://money.cnn.com/calculator/pf/cost-of-living/index.html ), $300k in San Francisco is supposedly (taken with many grains of salt) equivalent to $172k in Atlanta, which you could surely land?

Those calculators are ridiculous because they assume you spend your entire income. The cost of living adjustment only applies to what you spend when evaluating which salary:city combination is ideal for you.

Re: Higher-paid, faster-growing tech jobs are concentrating in 8 US hubs

#207

Post by skinnymuch » Fri, Jul 28, 2017, 3:15 PM UTC

zw123456 wrote: post #40

Reasons for Seattle: 1) take a long shower 2) wash your car 3) water your lawn 4) cheap electrical rates 5) enjoy the outdoors 6) awesome IPA's 7) pot is legal 8) great culture 9) moderate weather as global warming progresses downside - traffic is horrible. That is my take as a long time Seattlite.

No state income tax has to be a big advantage too.

However the rain and lack of sun kills me. I could handle year round rain if it meant it's at least sunny a lot too. It would suck, but personally the lack of sun affects my mood too much.

Otherwise especially with the no state income tax, if I'm making pretty good bank, and moving isn't an issue, moving to Seattle would be a top choice. Instead, the people who do move for tax reasons have almost all moved to Florida/Miami. Two to Austin and one to Vegas.

Re: Higher-paid, faster-growing tech jobs are concentrating in 8 US hubs

#208

Post by camiller » Fri, Jul 28, 2017, 3:18 PM UTC

j7ake wrote: post #109

flukus wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as long travel times go, trains can be good because you can take your laptop and it's usable time to work on your own projects, watch a movie, play games etc. I'd be more concerned (with zero knowledge of washington) over whether or not the train + connections would take me near most of the tech jobs.

There is a cost to having to commute more than an hour to work compared to living 5 minutes to work by walk. Once you try the difference you won't go back unless there are serious economic differences between the two choices.

Read this article the other day. Makes my 25 min commute seem like a cakewalk.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/21/realestate/extreme-commut...

Re: Higher-paid, faster-growing tech jobs are concentrating in 8 US hubs

#209

Post by fokinsean » Fri, Jul 28, 2017, 3:18 PM UTC

sputknick wrote: post #157

maxdemarzi wrote: post #76

Move to Round Rock folks! You can get a 4000 sq.ft. home, a half acre yard and a pool for less than a San Francisco studio. You pay $4000 a month to rent a 1 bedroom? You can rent a whole house here for half of that. Pay is the same if you just ask. Too many jobs and not enough local people to fill them.

I'm looking at that area. Currently in Seattle. Can you give me some advantage of round Rock, cedar Park or Austin? My current employers office is near The Domain in North Austin. It looks like I can get a decent house in Austin, but cedar Park and round Rock also look nice.

I think the only advantage would be cheaper housing. They are fairly typical suburbs so it all really depends on what kind of lifestyle you are looking for.

Traffic going North/South is getting really bad, so if you are wanting to be central/downtown during the weeknights you're going to want to stick around for a while and delay your commute or somehow offset your commute.

I have a coworker who lives in cedar park (our office is by UT) and fortunately for him his manager allows him to come in around 10 and leave at 4 to miss the traffic, but he has to make up for hours later in the evening.

Re: Higher-paid, faster-growing tech jobs are concentrating in 8 US hubs

#210

Post by logfromblammo » Fri, Jul 28, 2017, 3:18 PM UTC

echelon wrote: post #194

ynniv wrote: post #12

I get that you work with what you have (in this case, a corpus of job postings), but a ranking that places Baltimore in the top three tech hubs fails the sniff test. CBRE has a better list here (email registration wall): https://www.cbre.com/research-and-reports/Scoring-Tech-Talen... I'm biased in that it places Atlanta unusually high, but overall it is a better, less surprising ranking: Bay Area Seattle New York Was…

Atlanta is amazing. It has an extremely low cost of living, yet there are tech companies here paying SF wages. Anecdotally, my rent is $1300/mo for a 900 sqft loft directly on Atlanta's Beltline [1], and my total comp is (edit: decided to remove this since I might get doxed. I'll be happy to talk with anyone seriously considering Atlanta via email). It's also been really interesting to see Georgia rocket to the #2 lo…

I really want to like Atlanta, but the whole city makes my skin crawl.

Whenever we go there, usually to take in an MLB game, I just want to turn around and leave immediately. There doesn't seem to be any rational reason for it. When the spouse drives out of town to go stalk Walking Dead filming locations, the overwhelming sense of dread eases up, and I just get bored looking at bits of rural Georgia that were lucky enough to appear on television for one scene.

Maybe I'm allergic to peachtree streets.

In contrast, NYC, Chicago, Boston, Phoenix, Nashville, San Diego, Denver, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, and most other US cities I have visited just don't have an aura to them that I can pick up. Baltimore felt like I just walked in on someone who had been crying and was trying to hide it. Washington, DC, felt like someone was following me the whole time, like being hunted. Cincinnati felt great just being around it; it made me want to consider moving there.

Atlanta is just the opposite of that, every time I go. Just being there stresses me out for no readily apparent reason.

On paper, it seems like it should be great. Georgia Tech is close, and the local economy is great. All kinds of television shows and movies have that juicy Georgia peach at the end of the credits now, instead of Vancouver. The weather is decent for 10 months out of the year. Lots of local agriculture. Lots of roads leading out of town, and a hub airport for a relatively decent airline. Diverse, cosmopolitan culture, as long as you stay in the city limits and away from the suburbs. About the only thing it lacks entirely is a seaport. I just can't stand actually being there.