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Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?

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Re: Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?

#421

Post by ixacto »

automatwon wrote: post #361
pmoriarty wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I considered moving to Portland, until I read about how a big earthquake would pretty much completely wipe it out: http://www.oregonlive.com/earthquakes/index.ssf/2015/07/the_...

Might as well live in Washington at that point. No state income tax, while there is Oregon state income tax. Then again, Washington has sales tax, whereas Oregon does not. I used to live in Portland, and some peopled lived / worked in Vancouver, Washington, and drove to Portland to do all their shopping, groceries included.

No income tax + legal weed everywhere + alcohol in grocery stores + liberal gun laws + you can pump your own damn gas.

Re: Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?

#422

Post by Tempest1981 »

closeparen wrote: post #165
amelius wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Best is to move there in an RV :)

Where do you imagine you're going to park it? It's 2 hour parking in resdidential areas unless you have a resident permit (not that there'd be any available), no overnight parking in commercial areas. A paid parking space will run you the price of a 1-bedroom in a sane region.

Some Walmart stores allow RV parking -- not sure if there is a limit, or what the quality-of-life is like.

Mountain View's Walmart does not, according to this: http://www.walmartlocator.com/no-park-walmarts-in-california...

Re: Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?

#423

Post by smsm42 »

Rapzid wrote: post #412
shostack wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget about home repairs and renovations, HOA, and services like gardening, etc. depending on what you buy. It is easy to end up spending double rent on a comparable place. The difference is for now at least the home you buy can grow nicely so you need to do the math on rate of return for that vs other uses of that cash.

And closing/financing fees! If you end up taking a job out of area and decide to sell(understandable as now isn't the right time to be purchasing a rental) you're out the fees.

Oh yeah, those. You pay through the nose when you buy and when you sell. Can easily knock several percentage points off the price you thought you're selling for, or add the same to the price you though you're buying for. One has to be very careful to include those in all calculations. Renting is mostly flat-rate experience, and owning has much higher variance of payments. But owning has its own benefits :)

Re: Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?

#425

Post by Kluny »

freddyc wrote: post #251
Kluny wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Investors diversify their portfolios by investing in a number of startups and also in more reliable investments like well-established companies. You can't treat a job that way - there's no way to diversify the hours of day into several different companies with different risk levels. What the author describes is gambling. You bet all your resources (time, in this case) on one horse and hope it pays off big. That's not…

I had a friend who moved from start-up to start-up every 12 months after his initial tranche of options vested. He knew how much cash he required to live (with a little buffer for emergencies) and then traded cash for more equity in his salary negotiations with a view to building a diversified portfolio via sweat equity. He did this for 5-6 years, and one of the companies has already exited with another looking likel…

That sounds smart! It would take a stern constitution to cope with such frequent changes, but it sounds like a decent way of diversifying if you can stick to the strategy.

Re: Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?

#426

Post by sytelus »

kosei wrote: post #417

This article focuses entirely on cost of living through home pricing, however there are many additional areas impacted. First, perhaps most importantly, Washington does not have state income tax. Additionally, there are differences in price of groceries, restaurants, etc that are not considered here.

Even for home pricing comparison is not apple-to-apples. In Seattle, you can still buy descent house in 10-rated school area for $500k. In Bay area you can probably buy house with 30% more money but it would be no where close to what you can in Seattle area.

Re: Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?

#427

Post by hacknat »

I just left Seattle a year ago, be careful about confusing Seattle Metro with Seattle. Seattle is surrounded by water and its mass transit system is nascent, so it's pretty hard to live too far outside the city to take advantage of the cheaper real estate.

Seattle city proper prices are getting ridiculous and I suspect they will catch up with the Bay Area quite quickly and maybe even surpass it.

Seattle doesn't come close to the level of tech/economic output that the Bay does, but the output is more geographically dense. Amazon is, effectively in downtown Seattle. The most far flung tech outlier is Microsoft a mere 20 miles away. Expedia moved all of its staff from Bellevue to downtown. I would venture to put median home prices closer to 600k than the 450k reportedly here.

Re: Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?

#428

Post by [deleted] »

krenoten wrote: post #271
WhitneyLand wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>go to Bay Area to a big firm to build your reputation Doesn't make sense. The big 4 have campuses across the country. Instead of telling people to move to SV I would recommend making sure to get into the right (big 4 or not) team and role for your career. Just fixing bugs at big SV company will not help much. You want to make sure you have a chance to contribute something to show your skills on an innovative or lead…

Joining one of the FANGs as your first job is a great way to kill your chances of developing a highly diverse skill set early on. Good luck doing anything interesting when there are 120 superior engineers who are bored out of their minds all vying for the opportunity. Working in a smaller company that has real problems to solve tends to be much more rewarding. There's a reason the technical leadership at the big 4 te…

[deleted]

Re: Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?

#429

Post by hacknat »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #340
geldan wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seattle has no income tax, and sales tax doesn't apply to most food from the grocery store, so taxes in Seattle really depend on how you choose to spend your money.

Washington state will ding you in other ways to make up for the lack of an income tax...e.g. more property tax.

Actually Seattle's property tax is pretty good. You wouldn't believe how unprogressice WA is in practice.

Re: Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?

#430

Post by rockinghigh »

twblalock wrote: post #230
the_gastropod wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How exactly do you figure increasing your take-home pay by contributing to a 401k? I guess it depends what you mean by "take-home". The original premise was "saving 100k in 2 years". I hope we can agree that saving money in a 401k is saving money, regardless of whether we agree it's "take-home".

I assumed we were talking about money for a home down payment, which would not normally go into a 401k. Getting it out would require a 401k loan, and a 401k loan for a six-figure amount is almost always a terrible idea. The only other way to get it out would be to take an unqualified distribution and get hit with a significant fine. Most 401k loans become due in full if you leave your job. That traps you in your job…

401k loans are limited to $50k.
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