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

Cities with High Salary to Cost of Living Ratios for Software Developers

tgeonetta.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 267 posts

Re: Cities with High Salary to Cost of Living Ratios for Software Developers

#181

Post by Domenic_S »

nilkn wrote: post #120

If more employers understood the value of distributed teams, this wouldn't even need to be an issue. You could live exactly where you wanted to live. Want a 700 sq ft studio in Manhattan for $3k/month? Great. Want a 2000 sq ft ranch home next to a river out in the country with your own garden? Done. Want to just save as much as you can, with a cheap apartment in a cheap town outside a cheap city? You got it. Maybe yo…

> You could live exactly where you wanted to live.

Until that awesome employer has layoffs and your options get really limited out in Nowhere, UT.

Re: Cities with High Salary to Cost of Living Ratios for Software Developers

#182

Post by kingnothing »

eranation wrote: post #172

Weirdly Atlanta is not on the list, but this is why I'm probably never moving to SF. Yes, all the cool jobs are there, but for what price? GA tech is releasing very high quality engineers and the startup scene here is great (Mailchimp and many others), and you live in a frikin mansion 10 minutes commute to work (if you live in Alpharetta). Tons of technical meetups and both thriving startup scene and established ente…

I'm also surprised Atlanta isn't on the list. I live here for now, but my main gripe is that there isn't much to do in or near the city. We don't have any worthwhile natural features like mountains, lakes, or beaches, and the cultural scene (museums, etc) is a joke.

Re: Cities with High Salary to Cost of Living Ratios for Software Developers

#183

Post by eranation »

madcaptenor wrote: post #180
eranation wrote: post #172

Weirdly Atlanta is not on the list, but this is why I'm probably never moving to SF. Yes, all the cool jobs are there, but for what price? GA tech is releasing very high quality engineers and the startup scene here is great (Mailchimp and many others), and you live in a frikin mansion 10 minutes commute to work (if you live in Alpharetta). Tons of technical meetups and both thriving startup scene and established ente…

and you live in a frikin mansion 10 minutes commute to work (if you live in Alpharetta) Yeah, but then you have to live in Alpharetta. Would be nice to see more jobs ITP. I currently work for a large enterprise company, at an office in Roswell (our office was moved here from Alpharetta a few months before I started) and I see lots of people (including me) commuting up. I'm coming up 400 the whole way so it's not too…

Alpharetta is great (if you are 35+ with kids)

Not so great if you are a young couple before having kids and want to have some city action, I agree... I think that most ITP jobs are more tending toward younger startups, Rails, Python etc. Alpharetta is much more enterprise / Java / .NET, funny how your tech stack needs to change dramatically based on where you choose to live...

I actually think the cooler jobs are midtown ;)

Re: Cities with High Salary to Cost of Living Ratios for Software Developers

#184

Post by madcaptenor »

sb8244 wrote: post #100
chucksmash wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Atlanta is only 50 road miles closer to Raleigh than New York City.

Maybe it's just how I read this sentence, but I think "Raleigh is 50 road miles closer to Atlanta than it is to NYC" cleared things up for me. Regardless, that's a really interesting fun fact I learned today.

I'm surprised to see this as well. Alternatively: by road, Raleigh is equidistant from Philadelphia and Atlanta.

Re: Cities with High Salary to Cost of Living Ratios for Software Developers

#185

Post by slantedview »

logicallee wrote: post #178
wahsd wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very good points. It has really been baffling me why, especially in an industry like tech, where products for distributed networking and communications are developed, companies are so hell-bent on co-location. I have my suspicions that it actually has to do with tax code and incentives to have corporate offices in expensive locations, but that's just an untested theory I have at the moment.

The most likely explanation is that it doesn't work. Bootstrapped companies are very strapped for cash. They often use a distributed team early on. if a distributed team worked, at least some startups would continue on the model - after all it's in the company culture and muscle memory. And we would hear about them. (especially when they succeed really big.) We do, sometimes hear from them: https://news.ycombinator.c…

> What's the closest a distributed team has come to that?

Tough comparison since so few companies embrace remote work, but see Automattic.

> does it work for succeeding really big

For really big companies there's always only so many people in any given city that you can hire. What's interesting is that most office based teams are effectively distributed in the collaborative work that they do with offices in other cities, yet they don't embrace individual distributed workers.

Re: Cities with High Salary to Cost of Living Ratios for Software Developers

#186

Post by eranation »

kingnothing wrote: post #182
eranation wrote: post #172

Weirdly Atlanta is not on the list, but this is why I'm probably never moving to SF. Yes, all the cool jobs are there, but for what price? GA tech is releasing very high quality engineers and the startup scene here is great (Mailchimp and many others), and you live in a frikin mansion 10 minutes commute to work (if you live in Alpharetta). Tons of technical meetups and both thriving startup scene and established ente…

I'm also surprised Atlanta isn't on the list. I live here for now, but my main gripe is that there isn't much to do in or near the city. We don't have any worthwhile natural features like mountains, lakes, or beaches, and the cultural scene (museums, etc) is a joke.

We can change that! :) If more companies will move from SF / NY to Atlanta / Alpharetta - there will be more things todo. I agree that seeing the Aquarium, Fernbank, High museum once is pretty much enough for a lifetime, but what about top golf? the new avalon? things are getting more and more interesting... ;)

Re: Cities with High Salary to Cost of Living Ratios for Software Developers

#187

Post by birk5437 »

eranation wrote: post #172

Weirdly Atlanta is not on the list, but this is why I'm probably never moving to SF. Yes, all the cool jobs are there, but for what price? GA tech is releasing very high quality engineers and the startup scene here is great (Mailchimp and many others), and you live in a frikin mansion 10 minutes commute to work (if you live in Alpharetta). Tons of technical meetups and both thriving startup scene and established ente…

I wouldn't move back to Atlanta unless I had a job ITP....I worked in Alpharetta for 2 years right out of school and hated the location...all of the action is near midtown/ponce/buckhead

Re: Cities with High Salary to Cost of Living Ratios for Software Developers

#188

Post by Domenic_S »

wahsd wrote: post #142
nilkn wrote: post #120

If more employers understood the value of distributed teams, this wouldn't even need to be an issue. You could live exactly where you wanted to live. Want a 700 sq ft studio in Manhattan for $3k/month? Great. Want a 2000 sq ft ranch home next to a river out in the country with your own garden? Done. Want to just save as much as you can, with a cheap apartment in a cheap town outside a cheap city? You got it. Maybe yo…

Very good points. It has really been baffling me why, especially in an industry like tech, where products for distributed networking and communications are developed, companies are so hell-bent on co-location. I have my suspicions that it actually has to do with tax code and incentives to have corporate offices in expensive locations, but that's just an untested theory I have at the moment.

> where products for distributed networking and communications are developed, companies are so hell-bent on co-location.

IME, not everyone has equal experience using those tools. It's WAY easier to do a cubicle fly-by than to train your non-technical workforce how Skype works (if that sounds crazy, trust me - it's not).

I work mostly remotely, but I care deeply about communication. I've invested in a great headset so calls aren't plagued by WFH artifacts. I have a cough button. I have a dedicated office in my house. I get up, showered, and dressed every day so I'm online and ready for an ad-hoc video call at all business hours. My internet is fast and stable, and I have two backups in the very rare case it goes down (iPhone tether, Verizon hotspot).

In sum, I don't want my convenience (wfh) to inconvenience anyone else, so I do everything I can to make that the case. It's worked out really well so far. But I can tell you, most developers don't go through the hassle.

Re: Cities with High Salary to Cost of Living Ratios for Software Developers

#189

Post by philwelch »

ph4 wrote: post #112
pXMzR2A wrote: post #104

This is happening more and more. WTF web devs? Me: Where are the charts themselves? Me: Oh, I'm using noscript. Me: Displaying PNGs now requires javascript.

Sorry, the trivial amount of people using noscript is simply unimportant to me.

How about the fact that the page stalls and freezes and is completely unusable on an iPhone 5?

Re: Cities with High Salary to Cost of Living Ratios for Software Developers

#190

Post by eranation »

birk5437 wrote: post #187
eranation wrote: post #172

Weirdly Atlanta is not on the list, but this is why I'm probably never moving to SF. Yes, all the cool jobs are there, but for what price? GA tech is releasing very high quality engineers and the startup scene here is great (Mailchimp and many others), and you live in a frikin mansion 10 minutes commute to work (if you live in Alpharetta). Tons of technical meetups and both thriving startup scene and established ente…

I wouldn't move back to Atlanta unless I had a job ITP....I worked in Alpharetta for 2 years right out of school and hated the location...all of the action is near midtown/ponce/buckhead

Yep, not the best place for right out of school job, but it's heaven on earth if you are with a family and want to settle down. When I go out today, (not as often as before) we less go to a buckhead rave party, and more to each other's huge basements playing pool / watch movies in our 3D home cinemas drinking from our home made bar because of all the money saved from living in Alpharetta ;) (sorry, was mixing a bit of fantasy with reality, but I have 2 kids and I go out every week or so, it's just that things change with time, especially after getting married and having kids, at least for me...)
Post reply on HN