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

Ask HN: Remote workers in a non-tech city, what's your experience?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 187 posts

Re: Ask HN: Remote workers in a non-tech city, what's your experience?

#51

Post by ayyy »

UmRTg26u33367Ye wrote: post #30

I live in Sarasota County, FL and work remotely for a company in San Francisco that everyone here knows about. Sarasota is a city of less than 60k inhabitants, but the surrounding area houses 20 minutes from me is an international airport, and New York City is this less than 3 hours away. Tampa is an hour to the north by car, and Miami is a 3 hour drive away. Orlando with its theme parks is 2 hours away, and I like t…

Howdy neighbor! I also work for an SF company everyone knows about and I moved to Sarasota a couple of years ago. It's the best financial decision I've ever made. Your analysis is spot on, and the Amish food is amazing.

Also, I'm a night owl and now I can work from like 12pm-9pm. Working on west coast time while living on the east coast is a major life improvement for me.

If anyone is considering moving to FL and buying property, Sarasota is the obvious choice. The amount of construction going on here is incredible. I wouldn't buy anywhere else in Florida.

I also looked into Austin TX and Vancouver WA as possible destinations, but the real estate values seemed more predicable in Sarasota. If you get in at the beginning of a construction project here, you're pretty much assured to make money. I bought my house as new construction at the start of a new development and it was worth more than I paid by the time construction was complete.

If someone is considering moving to FL but wants more of that "tech city" vibe, you can rent a really nice place up in St Pete where there's much more happening, but I wouldn't buy there because the whole thing is a flood zone.

Re: Ask HN: Remote workers in a non-tech city, what's your experience?

#52

Post by conductr »

legerdemain wrote: post #40
nonameiguess wrote: post #6

My company is headquartered in Cupertino, CA and I live and work in Dallas, TX. The obvious pros are I don't need to commute or really drive at all, I can work from bed (probably doesn't matter to most, but I've got 10 screws in my spine from past surgeries and it matters to me), and I can live in a 3,000 square foot 4-story townhouse within spitting distance of downtown for less than my sisters in California pay for…

If your health requires you to work from bed, why do you live in a 4-storey house?

IDK GP's circumstances, but my townhouse had a private elevator (also in Dallas)

Re: Ask HN: Remote workers in a non-tech city, what's your experience?

#53

Post by lostmsu »

ayyy wrote: post #51
UmRTg26u33367Ye wrote: post #30

I live in Sarasota County, FL and work remotely for a company in San Francisco that everyone here knows about. Sarasota is a city of less than 60k inhabitants, but the surrounding area houses 20 minutes from me is an international airport, and New York City is this less than 3 hours away. Tampa is an hour to the north by car, and Miami is a 3 hour drive away. Orlando with its theme parks is 2 hours away, and I like t…

Howdy neighbor! I also work for an SF company everyone knows about and I moved to Sarasota a couple of years ago. It's the best financial decision I've ever made. Your analysis is spot on, and the Amish food is amazing. Also, I'm a night owl and now I can work from like 12pm-9pm. Working on west coast time while living on the east coast is a major life improvement for me. If anyone is considering moving to FL and buy…

I have recently started considering Florida (from Seattle). What is the advantage of Sarasota over larger metropolitan area like Tampa? We are in early 30ies, and would love to be able to walk to the ocean/gulf beach a few times a week, have a symmetric fiber Internet at home, and people to hang out with for music/games/geekery.

Re: Ask HN: Remote workers in a non-tech city, what's your experience?

#54

Post by computronus »

ishjoh wrote: post #34
moconnor wrote: post #18

I’ve worked remotely for 15 years, variously in a bustling major city with a startup scene and currently do so in a small seaside town a few minutes from the beach. Quality of life depends where in life you are. City is better for meeting people, seaside town for raising children. Remote work is generally good for work-life balance, nobody cares if I stay at home with a sick child or finish early for a school play, b…

Congrats on year 15! I'm on year 5 of working remotely. Working in software I definitely think most companies are fine with remote individual contributors, and that it has been shown to work effectively. If the company is setup for majority distributed communication (slack, wikis, ticket tracker, etc), then I even think tech team leads can be remote. That seems to be the limit though unless the company is remote firs…

I've been a remote employee at my company for more than 7 years now, and I'm at a tech lead (principal) level and still effective there. Since I'm not interested in the management track, I'm not concerned about limitations there. It's true, though, that COVID has made upper management rethink the need to be constantly in the office.

I'm not seaside, but bayside, and my experience is similar to others in that regard in this thread. Great for family and all that, not so much if you don't like feeling a bit isolated. In the before times, I'd travel to one of the company motherships three or four times a year to get in-person time with the team. That works well to keep the team gelled.

Re: Ask HN: Remote workers in a non-tech city, what's your experience?

#55

Post by Kaze404 »

Honestly? It's great. As much as living in a tech center has its advantages, I like that once I leave my house the concept of a programmer is foreign to people. I don't have to think about it at all if I don't want to, and it's liberating.

I'm also making a significant amount of money due to exchange rates and the fact that my cost of living is so incredibly cheap compared to tech hubs.

Re: Ask HN: Remote workers in a non-tech city, what's your experience?

#56

Post by hosh »

I have been doing remote work for years. I lived in Atlanta and Seattle. Both with enough a tech hub that meeting other techs were easy.

When I lived in Sedona, AZ, there were practically no meetups, or tech to speak of. Of course, I moved there because I liked the hiking and the New Age hippie folks, and enjoyed their company. However, the natural networking I got just hanging out in Atlanta or Seattle disappeared.

I moved fo Phoenix because of family issues. I missed northern AZ, and not only that, the tech scene in Phoenix sucks. For example, no one in town really wants to hire senior Rubyists, or pay them at that rate. As I told recruiters in the Phoenix market, I think all the really good people got remote jobs with companies outside of Phoenix.

I think the rest of the mainstream tech community is catching up. At some point, people will start to realize that you can move to where your lifestyle fits.

For example, if you love the mountains, or like the idea of hobby farms, you can move out into the sticks. Once Starlink becomes generally available, it will be even easier to do so.

Other people live in mobile tiny houses.

People raising kids will find that moving back to your hometown with a lot of extended family to act as a safety net will help a lot. Pr to select the school district for your kids.

For some people, it may even mean becoming more involved in the local community. You act as a kind of economic importer, and your support can make a huge difference.

I know a lot of people got introduced to remote working during a lockdown. If you ever get a chance to continue remote work after lockdowns are lifted, you’ll find that remote-first does not have to mean work from home. It can mean working from a coffeeshop, or patronizing local establishments. It can mean joining a coworking facility. It can mean enjoying your work outside on the patio when the weather is nice (or, if you are like me, coding in the porch while it is raining or snowing is a great experience).

Re: Ask HN: Remote workers in a non-tech city, what's your experience?

#57

Post by hosh »

brudgers wrote: post #14

As a new engineer, onsite is a better career option because it will create more robust bonds in your professional network. Who you know matters. Being onsite will also probably generate more what-you-know as well simply by virtue of casual interaction. There's nothing wrong with remote in theory, but it simply does not provide equivalent networking potential to physical interaction. You can always go remote later. Go…

If you live in a tech hub, you’ll get a lot more out of attending and presenting at the technical meetups. I had more networking opportunities there than I did going to the office.

One of the few times I worked onsite was at a place where ... many of the people on the engineering team already knew me. The company had rapidly hired many Rubyists, and they all had known me from the Atlanta Ruby User Group.

Re: Ask HN: Remote workers in a non-tech city, what's your experience?

#58

Post by claytongulick »

I'm currently in the process of moving from a major metropolitan area (DFW) to a town with a population under 4k.

There's fiber internet, and starlink will hopefully be out this year for North America.

One of the best decisions I've ever made, but it depends on what you like.

I find it peaceful and comforting to write code on my back porch, looking at the trees and the occasional deer stopping by.

There are tradeoffs though. Long drive (1.5 hrs) to nearest Best Buy. Delivery dates for online orders are much longer.

I've been much more productive at work since I removed myself from the bustle of urban life.

Re: Ask HN: Remote workers in a non-tech city, what's your experience?

#59

Post by sologoub »

UmRTg26u33367Ye wrote: post #30

I live in Sarasota County, FL and work remotely for a company in San Francisco that everyone here knows about. Sarasota is a city of less than 60k inhabitants, but the surrounding area houses 20 minutes from me is an international airport, and New York City is this less than 3 hours away. Tampa is an hour to the north by car, and Miami is a 3 hour drive away. Orlando with its theme parks is 2 hours away, and I like t…

Awesome perspective!

Must say the gator situation was hilarious when we first visited a customer in Tampa - half-way through discussions one surfaced in the water right outside the conference room window. Everyone not from FL immediately reacted, but the local team didn’t even flinch and continued on. Made for some great beer talk afterwards!

Re: Ask HN: Remote workers in a non-tech city, what's your experience?

#60

Post by tony »

RGV (Rio Grande Valley, TX) is excellent. Highly affordable. I save a lot here and don't miss anything.

Opportunities open themselves up as well. You can get a really nice homes here: https://www.zillow.com/mcallen-tx/ + hit "remove boundary". You could snap up houses here and rent em. Buy one. This is a market where I could see it growing in the next 5-10 years with more remote work.

Dallas, Houston, and Austin were all viable opportunities but the cost just didn't have the value. Harlingen / Brownsville / McAllen, if you google it, often come up dead first for cheapest cities.

That said, it's way out there. TX is super big. This is 2.5+ hours away from Corpus Christi, 5 hours away from Houston. It makes flying a pain. So it doesn't fit a lifestyle where you need to bounce around a lot. So I highly doubt the prices will fluctuate much, but a lot of TX is like that.

And the SpaceX Starship place is near us (Boca Chica, TX)

Post reply on HN