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Let People Move to Jobs

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Re: Let People Move to Jobs

#271

Post by lipstone »

codekansas wrote: post #177

There's at least one large tech company that has located themselves totally outside the typical tech hubs - Epic Systems, in Madison. I interviewed for them after graduation but ended up taking a job at Facebook in Seattle. The offer was for half my current salary. They tried to argue that with the cost of living adjustment I could buy a house, but what 22-year-old wants to buy a house? Locating in Madison is kind of…

Quite frankly, I think Epic Systems realizes it can't compete with Facebook. But the value is much better in comparison to many non-FAANG Bay Area companies.

I was actually in a similar situation, where Capital One offered 90K for Richmond, VA and it seemed better than ~120k offer in the Bay Area. But then I got a Google offer and stopped considering both of the others.

The high-CoL companies really only make sense financially if you're in the upper tiers of pay (and/or on the path to reaching that level of pay).

Re: Let People Move to Jobs

#272

Post by opportune »

codekansas wrote: post #177

There's at least one large tech company that has located themselves totally outside the typical tech hubs - Epic Systems, in Madison. I interviewed for them after graduation but ended up taking a job at Facebook in Seattle. The offer was for half my current salary. They tried to argue that with the cost of living adjustment I could buy a house, but what 22-year-old wants to buy a house? Locating in Madison is kind of…

It’s also part of their strategy to churn through 22-25 year olds by overworking them in their first jobs out of college when they likely don’t have as many family obligations or well calibrated expectations for what work-life balance entails. And it saves them money since they don’t have to promote that many people to senior positions.

There are plenty of other companies outside big tech hubs, you just don’t hear about them as much and they don’t recruit the same way a lot of other tech companies do. For example, Epic’s competitor Cerner is in Kansas City which many people on this post are using as an example of a cheap place with a small tech scene, despite Cerner employing over 10K

Re: Let People Move to Jobs

#273

Post by bobbiechen »

dodobirdlord wrote: post #62
remote_phone wrote: post #4

The author made a blind guess that 80% of Google would quit If they moved HQ without any actual evidence. If Google opened up a new large office in a place like Kansas City with no salary cut and a strong internet presence and some other tech companies (ICE exchange for example), I bet enough Google employees would want to move there to make it worthwhile. Cheaper cost of living, better schools, better for families e…

As a counterpoint, in the leadup and when Amazon announced their HQ2 in Northern Virginia, one thing they were very clear about is that no teams and no employees except some execs were going to actually get reassigned to the new location. All staffing at the new location would be via new hires at the new location. They knew full well that if they tried to move a team, most of the members of the team would transfer to…

Relevant story from Peopleware (Tom DeMarco and Tim Lister):

One thing Townsend seems to have missed entirely is the presence of women in the workforce. The typical person being moved today is part of a two-career family. The other half of that equation is probably not being moved, so the corporate move comes down hard on the couple’s relationship at a very delicate point. It brings intolerable stress to bear on the accommodation they’re both striving to achieve to allow two full-fledged careers. That’s hitting below the belt. Modern couples won’t put up with it and they won’t forgive it. The company move might have been possible in the 1950s and 1960s. Today it is folly.

Even in the sixties, organizational moves didn’t make much sense. A case in point is the decision by AT&T’s Bell Laboratories to move the 600-person ESS project from New Jersey to Illinois in 1966.

[...]

Years after the ESS cutover, I arranged to interview Ray Ketehledge, who had run the project. I was writing some essays on management of large efforts, and ESS certainly qualified. I asked him what he saw as his main successes and failures as boss. "Forget the successes," he said. “The failure was that move. You can't believe what it cost us in turnover." He went on to give some figures. The immediately calculable cost of the move was the number of people who quit before relocation day. Expressed as a percentage of those moved, this initial turnover was greater than the French losses in the trenches of World War I.

[...]

And that accounts only for the initial loss. In the case of Bell Labs, there was another large exodus starting about a year after the move. These were the people who had honestly tried to go along with the company. They moved and, when they didn’t like the new location, they moved again.

Re: Let People Move to Jobs

#274

Post by clktmr »

pb7 wrote: post #249
clktmr wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So much wrong with this comment: Remote work doesn't mean home office. You can rent part of a shared office and still have colleagues for lunch. You don't need to move to a place where you will be 'the rich guy'. It's your choice. Even with your big tech salary you won't be better off than the local business owners in a place with around 20k inhabitants.

How much do you local business owners profit on average?

The average isn't relevant to my point. But in every town you'll find doctors, lawyers etc. who have a healthy social life despite their high income.

Re: Let People Move to Jobs

#275

Post by david-gpu »

bitforger wrote: post #268
reallydontask wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Friends are peers that have similar life experiences and values (and humor) This is an pretty narrow definition of friendship.

If you have a better definition, I'd like to hear it. I don't have many friends, so my definition encompasses all of them. Maybe if I had a better definition, I'd be able to make more friends.

A friend is somebody you know whose company you enjoy. Depending on context, it does not include members of your family.

Re: Let People Move to Jobs

#276

Post by dredmorbius »

claudeganon wrote: post #161
wutbrodo wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol, imagine thinking that the undersupply of housing in US metro is due to the market having too much say.

Lol, imagine thinking housing serving as a speculative asset for global Capital doesn’t constrain and distort supply away from what is needed vs what provides the greatest returns for this class of investors.

There are better ways of expressing this valid notion.

Re: Let People Move to Jobs

#277

Post by pasabagi »

esotericn wrote: post #186
abnry wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"On your level" just screams pretentiousness. Since when is money the measure of a man anyways?

I'm not talking about some sort of scorecard but the fact that a lot of these low CoL areas have crushing poverty. If you want to be the one-eyed man amongst the blind, go for it, but not everyone wants that. Socioeconomic groupings exist in the metro areas too. Senior management hanging out with the workers is relatively rare. Because it's just a pain in the arse to guard yourself in every conversation and not seem…

I don't get it. I have lots of money. I've never had any feeling I had to 'guard' myself in any conversation with people from literally any social demographic. I mean, unless you're some kind of oddball, all you're using money for is buying nicer food, more space, and more time. So nobody's going to get upset because you're eating loads of avocados, even if it did come up in conversation.

Re: Let People Move to Jobs

#278

Post by titanomachy »

humanrebar wrote: post #174
titanomachy wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it's because I'm relatively young, but I actually like working in an office. I bike 15 minutes to work rather than commuting 2 hours, because my work pays me enough to live close by. I spend some of my time collaborating closely with smart people who are a lot more experienced than me, which seems to be the fastest way to learn. I spend then rest of the time with headphones on facing the corner of the open offi…

> I bike 15 minutes to work rather than commuting 2 hours, because my work pays me enough to live close by. For now. Unless you marry another professional, it will be difficult to keep that commute if you decide to start a family. Part of the problem with the Bay Area and NYC is that it's cradle-to-grave unsustainable. That's not to say people don't make it work, but it's unlikely that the average tech worker in thos…

I agree that bay area and NYC seem to both have housing costs that outstrip even the high salaries available there. Seattle has similar pay but the cost of living hasn't quite caught up yet. A lot of young professionals buying homes in the city still. Might change in another 10 years though.

Re: Let People Move to Jobs

#279

Post by titanomachy »

astura wrote: post #235
titanomachy wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it's because I'm relatively young, but I actually like working in an office. I bike 15 minutes to work rather than commuting 2 hours, because my work pays me enough to live close by. I spend some of my time collaborating closely with smart people who are a lot more experienced than me, which seems to be the fastest way to learn. I spend then rest of the time with headphones on facing the corner of the open offi…

In fairly old and I like going to the office most days. I worked for years as a sole developer on a project. While I worked from an office I didn't collaborate with others in any meaningful way, yet I still liked going into the office. I've certainly never been friends with my coworkers, but it's really nice to have the same people around with the same goals. I can understand work-from-home like once a week though. I…

Even for someone who likes the office, work from home once a week is a boon. I'd prefer a 4-day workweek, but I'll take what I can get.

Re: Let People Move to Jobs

#280

Post by titanomachy »

m0zg wrote: post #67
titanomachy wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it's because I'm relatively young, but I actually like working in an office. I bike 15 minutes to work rather than commuting 2 hours, because my work pays me enough to live close by. I spend some of my time collaborating closely with smart people who are a lot more experienced than me, which seems to be the fastest way to learn. I spend then rest of the time with headphones on facing the corner of the open offi…

And those people can come to the office. But it should really not be a requirement, and work should be structured in such a way as to not penalize people who are remote: around written communication, with infrequent teleconferencing.

It could work. I think the best model is when a company/team adopts a remote-first mindset, then the people who prefer working that way can be productive and happy while people who prefer working in person can work together in an office.

My company is pretty well set-up for remote (lots of communication over email and chat, video in every meeting) but I still feel like I miss a lot when I'm not there in person.

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