SF may not have been the best choice, but I will say welcome to California! I moved here about 6 years ago and I don't intend to ever leave.
Definitely the best choice.
Definitely a subjective opinion.
Ask HN: Just moved to SF. How can I leverage my new location to skill up in dev?
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Re: Ask HN: Just moved to SF. How can I leverage my new location to skill up in dev?
#32Welcome to California, one thing to checkout is there are a bunch of tech meetups here. I'm a co-organizer of a generative AI meetup in the south bay if you're interested: https://www.meetup.com/gen-ai/
Re: Ask HN: Just moved to SF. How can I leverage my new location to skill up in dev?
#33Scandinavian here. Had a very brief attempt at Silicon Valley and SFO, 2012. It seemed like a Disneyland of tech. In the end all I got was some very great parties, friendly and inviting people whom I didnt realize were just shmoozing me. Most of that was outright lying. 0% of the connections and the "leads" got anywhere
I threw a bunch of sand in the air and it came crashing down to the ground fast.
I would have loved to stay and lived the millionaire tech dream I thought was achievable.
Loved the scenery, Marina to Sausalito was a great run.
Re: Ask HN: Just moved to SF. How can I leverage my new location to skill up in dev?
#34Some "side quests" you might enjoy:
San Francisco Public Library (Main Branch) has a pretty great collection of CS books. Fourth floor (or fifth... can't remember), 000 on Dewey Decimel System. You can place a hold on any book in the SFPL system and have it delivered to whatever branch is most convenient for you.
Definitely make a pilgrimage down to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. And walk around the Google campus since you'll be right there anyways.
I also find it inspiring to read up on all the stuff that was created at Stanford and Cal and then walk around those campuses. There are a lot of physical locations around the Bay Area that were the physical birthplaces of important developments in the computer industry.
Last and most importantly... welcome!
Re: Ask HN: Just moved to SF. How can I leverage my new location to skill up in dev?
#35In addition to the meetups and finding some projects/work.
Search linkedin for people doing work you are interested in and say you'd like to learn about what they do. Offer to buy them coffee or a drink. But be very clear you are not recruiting or trying to sell anything. Expect maybe 1 in 10 to actually respond. But you will meet some interesting people and get to know some good coffee places (or bars). People are generally happy to talk about themselves as long as they feel like there isn't a catch.
I am not directly in development but I do work in Biotech software in SF. I am happy to chat, probably not directly relevant to your goals but maybe a starting point.
Re: Ask HN: Just moved to SF. How can I leverage my new location to skill up in dev?
#36I think another comment mentioning look into meetups is the most solid advice in this thread.
To be honest, your post is a bit of a mess in both what you are doing (and have done) and what you are seeking. You clearly have some skills since you are getting paid to be remote and work on technical projects. I would consider taking a step back and figuring out a way to package that.
Next, what sort of external engagement do you want? I think Meetups are great. I'd also look things like Super Happy Dev House and similar events to meet with other people across a mix of interests / skillsets.
Most importantly - what do you want to do / achieve? You have a job paying you, where you feel like you need to grow, but they are letting you be remote. Keep that until you grow more. Those saying join a startup are bat shit stupid. Startups are a walled cage to deliver on the goal of the company and investors. They are great for learning and opportunities for growth, but you need to first narrow down what you want to work on. And most importantly, do not give up that remote option you currently have.
And, honestly, do not idolize the "brain power of the country". There are many in Silicon Valley that will push others under the bus to maximize total comp/etc. Look for those wanting to build and discuss ideas not just push a particular thing.
Good luck. But also, I don't know your age, it sounds like you are in your early 20s, make sure to allow time for you and your GF in addition to your working hours.
If you see a startup saying "we work hard, we play hard, we are a family" RUN THE FUCK AWAY. They just want cheap labor and all your time. I've been to multiple YC "work for a startup" days where companies say this and ... people there were not happy unless they had no GF/other life.
Edit: Also consider looking up Hacker Dojo in Mountain View and events there.
Re: Ask HN: Just moved to SF. How can I leverage my new location to skill up in dev?
#37SF is really nice, but I hear a lot of noise about extreme thought policing and other political propaganda-thumping (for lack of a better phrase). In other words, the impression I got was it isn't for people who are not "joiners" and conformists, especially risky if you want to risk it all and start a company there.
But then again I'm mentioning that here because I probably only heard one side of the story there. And also, it's all about who you know, so I guess that sort of a culture makes sense in a discomforting way.
Re: Ask HN: Just moved to SF. How can I leverage my new location to skill up in dev?
#38I think another comment mentioning look into meetups is the most solid advice in this thread. To be honest, your post is a bit of a mess in both what you are doing (and have done) and what you are seeking. You clearly have some skills since you are getting paid to be remote and work on technical projects. I would consider taking a step back and figuring out a way to package that. Next, what sort of external engagemen…
Re: YC work at a startup days... years back Justin of Justin TV was there and he admitted he was looking for people to help in a chaotic and heavy hour environment and I always have appreciated the candor. Sadly the work hard, play hard, we are a family appeals to those (I was sucked in years ago) without warning.
Re: Ask HN: Just moved to SF. How can I leverage my new location to skill up in dev?
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
To throw my 2 cents in - big companies suck. Startups are fun and you'll still be paid pretty well.
Generalizations suck, too. Big companies are made of small teams. Some are nice, some aren’t. A lot comes down to the immediate manager.
And those small teams merge / move resources 'people' at various times. On a startup you start small and expand under un/under qualified leadership where getting a home run will erase early mistakes. You can get nice for both places but one has a full hr with paperwork for you to fill out while the other will probably screw up your taxes in some way.
Startups can be great "the owner pays for lunch" or bad "the owner orders food and constantly skips out when the bill comes". Either way you get a chance to eat with senior management when the company is under 10 and see how the sausage is made
Re: Ask HN: Just moved to SF. How can I leverage my new location to skill up in dev?
#40Biotech is big in the Bay Area. Perhaps your GF can identify openings, or neat people to speak with. The kind of skills you speak of remind me of the way that perl infiltrated biotech like WD-40 infiltrates squeaky hinges. It just works. How Perl Saved the Human Genome Project https://bioperl.org/articles/How_Perl_saved_human_genome.htm... Skip down to "I think several factors are responsible:" for the TLDR list. Now…
There may be a log of people in the industry, but biotech is not "big" in the Bay area. QoL for biotech is low due to cost of living and everyone there in biotech is sad that they aren't making as much as the developers. If you want to work in biotech, San Diego of Boston, or even something like dc, toronto or research triangle is a better choice.
As for getting into tech, in the bay it's rather hard to break in unless you have a cs degree, or graduated from Stanford, or you are seen as cheap labor (South Asian), or possibly if you fill a DEI quota (but it was still hard[0] and not even that one anymore after belt tightening). Used to be easier. Not anymore.
Good luck! You'll need it. Hustle hard.
[0] I used to watch bay area startups harp about DEI and pass on perfectly good boot camp hirees and go for a white male from Stanford (actually never any good), but also all the non-asian diverse people I knew in personal life didn't have a problem getting tech jobs, so I have conflicting data. Watched an Asian male friend churn through 180+ job rejections over 9 months until I picked him up when I got hiring authority, he was perfectly good coder