Primary benefits:
- Strong pipeline of new engineering talent from schools like UCSD.
- Lots of talented senior engineers working in the chip fab, defense, and life science industries who are looking to make a lateral move to startups.
- Great quality of life with 30-40% reduction in COL vs SF. This translates to reduced burn for companies and more disposable income for employees.
- Fantastic weather, beaches, urban life, outdoors, great public schools, etc.
- It's SoCal so public transportation is limited, but with lots of highways there's reasonably low traffic (I'm looking at you Austin and LA), and you can get most places in the county within 30 minutes.
Contrary to popular opinion there's also a ton of VC investment in the area, and San Diego ranks ahead of Beijing, London, Austin, Seattle, Toronto, and Paris in terms of total dollars invested. [1]
[1] http://www.citylab.com/tech/2016/01/the-rise-of-global-start...
I'm not in San Diego right now, but I've started projects and a company there, and hired dozens of engineers from the talent pool. If you have are a decent employer, you can have your pick of the litter . . . of bright, experienced folks who are aggressively 9-5.
I'm not knocking 9-5ers. They're in the right place: San Diego is truly paradise, and I support work/life balance more than I used to.
But the consistent high quality of life, and the large portion of talented people who live there for it, will always suppress San Diego's entrepreneurial aspirations.
Of course, if you are OK with less-than-leading-edge projects, or you are aggressively seeking stability, I can't recommend it enough.
Not sure if that's normal, but San Diego sounds a lot cheaper than 30% (it is a nice townhouse though)
Is that normal for the area?
Have to have housemates in Palo Alto - otherwise you end up living by yourself in an old run down apartment for $2800 a month. You can find cheaper if you're willing to live in a tiny studio for ~$2300 or if you're willing to live outside of Palo Alto itself (maybe as low as $1800 for a studio in East Palo Alto).
If you share a house with 4 other roommates and choose the tiniest room you may be able to get $1200 a month.
As a bonus, if you live in Palo Alto you don't have to worry about your roommates finding girlfriends and moving out - since that'll be pretty unlikely.
Love that. It's actually one of the things I was wondering about. At that high amount, you really stand to lose if a room is vacant.
All in all I can't imagine living/working anywhere better.