121–130 of 232 posts
Move to Washington State. Don't pay California income tax. Instant 8% boost to your take-home pay.
Denver is even better—competitive wages w/ washington & lower cost of living.
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Many/most companies pay something like this for relocation. I never thought of it as a bonus, rather a way for an employer to offset the expense and misery of moving. If a company didn't help pay for relocation, I wouldn't want to work for that company. It's not a bonus, it's an expectation.
Facebook pays $50k to relocate to Bay Area!
Pros/Cons of living in the Bay Area for most tech workers: Pros - Proudly displaying "San Francisco" in your Twitter bio. - An abundance of career opportunities. Cons - Making six figures, but still living with roommates. - Commuting to work in awful public transportation. - Becoming desensitized to poverty and fecal matter on the streets. - Feeling unwelcome by locals. - Not being able to afford to live in a cool pa…
You forgot at least two pros: - Large salaries lead to higher savings rates - Opportunities are just not comparable almost anywhere less expensive: there are tens of thousands of jobs from hundreds of employers here in the Bay Area for technology that pays well, compared with hundreds or maybe a few thousand jobs for maybe a dozen or few tens of employers Also the "monoculture" dig applies to tech specifically: in te…
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I lived in Menlo Park for 8 years with my family. When I moved there the startup I went to work for was a 5 minute walk from my house. My current startup is also in Menlo. A year ago my wife and wanted a larger place. We looked in Menlo and PA. $3M for a teardown / needs tons of work. After thinking about it we started to look outside of the area. School district was a key factor of course. We ending up going as far…
Been meaning to checkout Morgan Hill. I hear downtown Morgan Hill is pretty happening these days. I also noticed that there is a self-driving car company down there: http://velodynelidar.com Are there any other interesting tech companies down there? Nice thing is that if you live near downtown you could take the Caltrain up to downtown MTV or PA.
The main issue is the Cal-Train schedule is limited due to the fact that it goes to a single track down that far.
Anyone who owns a home in the bay area is going to pay 5-6% in fees to sell their home. $10k isn't going to cover that loss. The ultimate perk (which is often provided by big corporations in a relocation) is to cover the real estate fees.
"was if you're in the Bay Area and you take a job with Zapier we'll pay $10,000 to help you relocate to anywhere, or as we call it, de-locate." ..so this is just a one time re-location "bonus"? I think many large companies "pay you" something close to this amount to re-locate to the bay area. This really doesn't help that much. What would be better is to pay bay area salaries/rates in another part of the country that…
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You forgot at least two pros: - Large salaries lead to higher savings rates - Opportunities are just not comparable almost anywhere less expensive: there are tens of thousands of jobs from hundreds of employers here in the Bay Area for technology that pays well, compared with hundreds or maybe a few thousand jobs for maybe a dozen or few tens of employers Also the "monoculture" dig applies to tech specifically: in te…
Large salaries only lead to higher savings if they don't get gobbled up by taxes and a high CoL.
He (and Sam Altman for all YC companies) should have the startup(s) all de-locate to the same town that's within driving distance of the Silicon Valley. I bet you could convince a lot of tech people to move to Santa Cruz or Monterey. You could also recruit from UC Santa Cruz and Cal Poly. Both downtown Santa Cruz and downtown Monterey feel pretty small town urban-y. Plus the Silicon Valley VC's can play golf at Pebbl…
I know a few folks who work remotely with SF companies that live in Reno. They'll make the trek occasionally to come into the office, too.
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You forgot at least two pros: - Large salaries lead to higher savings rates - Opportunities are just not comparable almost anywhere less expensive: there are tens of thousands of jobs from hundreds of employers here in the Bay Area for technology that pays well, compared with hundreds or maybe a few thousand jobs for maybe a dozen or few tens of employers Also the "monoculture" dig applies to tech specifically: in te…
We had a dev working for the summer who got a job at an SF startup this past week. He's making $2k a week, but his rent for his apartment costs $3k and he's got roommates. As someone who has lived off of $40k and rented a $1.4k a month loft that was absolutely palatial, in the middle of the city with great views, this sounds like insanity. My coworker who is from the Boston area was similarly aghast at the difference…
Centrally located, safe(-ish), and beautiful. You can run through Bernal Heights Park, get ice cream at Humphrey Slocombe, and bike to the 24 Hour Fitness on 16th and Potrero. If you're in tech, you can definitely live well in SF :)
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The same can be said for WA, OR, and TX (Austin).
I live in Austin. It's really not that bad. Sure there are many people coming from CA (like I did 3 years ago) but Texas in general and also Austin in particular have distinct enough cultures that they haven't become just another CA. Just my personal opinion of course.
We're used to waves of people moving in though and that's probably also what makes it somewhat less felt from the newcomers. We call ourselves the friendly state because of our welcoming attitude. However, I think if we ever flip from red to blue the pre-recession Texans are going to freak out.