Hacker News Reader

Comment by zeamaize | Hacker News Reader

I left the Bay Area in 2011 because I was tired of the endless suburban hellscape, the high cost of housing, and the poor cultural offerings (yeah SFO is great but that's a long way off).

I was worried it'd be tough to move jobs or careers and that getting new jobs would be harder.

It hasn't been. I've been steadily moving up and into new positions at new companies every 2 years just like I was in the Bay Area. My salary is 2.7x higher than it was when I left the Bay Area, and I now have a 5,000 sqft home in a great city that I paid about 1/10th as much for as I would have in the Bay Area.

View on HN

> tired of the ... poor cultural offerings

Can you expand on this? Where are you located now that is richer culturally?

Just about everywhere else I've lived is culturally richer, DC, Chicago, Miami, London, Houston, all had better cultural and art scenes.

I'm big in theater, ballet, and art. San Francisco is way too expensive for artists to live in anymore and the art scene there is very limited, inorganic, and a bit stale. Further the distance to San Francisco means it's a chore (and a drive) to get there from the South Bay where all the jobs are.

Now I can take public transit to cultural institutions, and walk to a lot too. We have organic arts districts with real artists in residency, regular gallery showings and art walks, and some amazing local musicians.

You might get that in Oakland these days, but even Oakland is getting prohibitively expensive.

As a denizen of Houston and a very interested party in salary discussions I'm glad to see you mention us. Most people don't think of Houston beyond "Houston, we have a problem" and stereotypes of pickup trucks with gun racks in the window. However Houston is now more ethnically diverse than NYC [1], has a thriving arts scene [2] and as Wikipedia puts it "... is one of only five cities in the United States with permanent professional resident companies in all of the major performing arts disciplines: opera (Houston Grand Opera), ballet (Houston Ballet), music (Houston Symphony Orchestra), and theatre (Alley Theatre)."

Are there downsides to living here? Undeniably. The biggest being sprawl and traffic. However next to Austin's city council actively fighting growth and traffic management investment we're in better shape despite an unfortunate anti-rail mentality.

[1] https://kinder.rice.edu/uploadedFiles/Urban_Research_Center/... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_Houston#Arts_and_th...

> Are there downsides to living here? Undeniably. The biggest being sprawl and traffic.

I think you missed the two biggest that will never change: The weather (105F and 90% humidity for 3 months out of the year, hurricanes) and the politics (Lege doesn't like what you're up to? Prepare to be stomped in the Capitol building like Denton was).

I'm a native Texan who grew up in Dallas with all of the baggage that entails--including an innate dislike of Houston because "rivalry"--so I know where I'm coming from. Ever since moving to Seattle years ago, I've become a lot more of an outdoor person because going outside doesn't physically hurt for six months out of the year. My first job was pushing grocery carts on a blacktop parking lot for Sack 'n' Save and the temperatures haven't gotten any better since. And the politics...oh, the politics. I really love living in a state that doesn't do things to cause it to be openly mocked by the rest of the country.

I love my home state, I visit quite often, and I'm genuinely proud to be a Texan but it truly escapes me how any one can say "hey, y'all come on down, the legislature and the sun won't hurt you that much" because they both really do.

Yeah, I have to say while Texas is a pretty nice state, the politics and some of the people I met are not my cup of tea. When it comes to people its better than Cali, but politics are worse than the west coast.

Hopefully the city council here in Seattle can get out of its own way and dezone the city so that it may densify. Height caps and parking minimums are forcing suburban hellscape style infill in Seattle, which is very destructive and guts the neighborhood of its classic charm. Large buildings clustered around transit would be much more productive for our city versus tearing down 100 old homes to replace them with 200 odd 2800sqft boxes on postage stamp size parcels.

> I really love living in a state that doesn't do things to cause it to be openly mocked by the rest of the country.

Not sure what you're referring to. Living in WA, I'd be asked non-stop by others how the pot was.

We loved Houston and since going back to visit the area has only improved. Neither of us had ventured south of the Mason-Dixon before moving there.

I lived in Houston about 30 years ago, and you had to either love driving in bumper to bumper traffic or live inside the loop to have easy access to the arts for people with normal working hours. Walking to anything would make me want to take a shower by the time I got to my destination.

> My salary is 2.7x higher

The original salary must have been low, no hate.

Different strokes for different folks. If you're working at a company that already pays well and you're not in the Bay Area, then your options for switching are either exciting but very risky startups (< $1 billion) or small satellite offices of big corps that have limited team options and little political influence (bad for advancement in senior positions). These would typically be lateral movements at best.

> The original salary must have been low, no hate.

My new salary is just much higher, I've had several major steps up. I've found salaries in major metro areas to be pretty much the same as a competitive offer in the Bay Area.

> Different strokes for different folks. If you're working at a company that already pays well and you're not in the Bay Area, then your options for switching are either exciting but very risky startups (< $1 billion) or small satellite offices of big corps that have limited team options and little political influence (bad for advancement in senior positions). These would typically be lateral movements at best.

The Bay Area isn't the only place with a tech sector, and there are plenty of companies whose main offices aren't in the Bay Area. Washington DC, Chicago, Austin, Denver, all have tremendous tech industries. I've even had job offers at great places that are further out there.

My "one that got away" was a job offer in Portland I still think about. It was a great opportunity and a fantastic city, but I ultimately went elsewhere primarily based on the desire to bring some of my projects with me.

> My new salary is just much higher

Let's just talk numbers for a moment, were you earning at least $200k?

I find it very difficult to believe any other metros, especially small cities, could afford to pay a non-senior engineer over $200k in total comp.

I'm in a "senior" position now. But I'm not talking numbers on the internet.

Right now I'm head of R&D.

I can tell you starting engineers on my team make about 10% more than their Bay Area counterparts. That's a deliberate decision backed by our Board.

> I'm not talking numbers on the internet.

I can respect that.

It sounds like you actually were promoted a couple of times since relocating and now you're in a leadership/director position. I'm not surprised your salary increased.

But honestly, I find it hard to believe you can match a senior level salary here in the Bay Area at a larger company.

A standard offer for someone that is not really "gifted" is $160-$190k base + $100-$150k/yr RSUs.

You're really able to pay people over $250k?

And I'm not even including 401k matching, ESPP, healthcare, discretionary bonuses and annual incentive bonuses.

The promotions are the reason to job hop, aren't they?

That's always why I moved in SFO. Wisdom I always received was every 2-3 years it's time to move out and up. It's served me well. I think now I'm "career" as we like where we live and I want to build something in my division.

And yes, we easily offer that. Why is this a surprise? Our costs are lower and our clients are largely the same as they would be in the Bay Area. Our major markets are national and international. We don't discount our enterprise level systems and new tech for having been developed in fly over country, and we have a MUCH lower cost of doing business. Physical plant is CHEAP here as are our taxes. This results in more capital available for HR, and we consider human capital our single most important investment.

Our entire strategy is built on innovation and we do that by hiring the top talent we can. That means offering top tier compensations.

Like dkfmn said, it's surprising because most companies just adjust salaries to cost of living and try to get away with paying the least they can.

I applaud your approach and would love to one day work for your company as it sounds like a great place to work since you actually appreciate your human capital.

I also agree on the 2-3 years hopping, it's a great strategy.

It's probably surprising because most companies design compensation programs that are normalized on [talent and geography] rather than talent alone. Sounds like your company has a more holistic approach and that's likely a strategic advantage for hiring.

Side note: SFO is the airport, SF is the city.

I'm used to calling metro areas by their major airport callsign, then again I fly 2-3 times a month, minimum.

Fair enough, as long as you don't tag us SQL :)

(SQL is the IATA and FAA identifier for San Carlos Airport, near the Oracle headquarters half way between San Francisco International (SFO) and Palo Alto (PAO))

Correct... but there was also a bad joke in there.

Oh, good joke, just wanted to make sure everyone got the double entendre (I assume everyone here knows Structured Query Language, but San Carlos is a fairly small airport, isn't it)

Yes, completely tiny, but great if you'd like to rent a Cessna for a few hours. I'm sure the extra detail helped a few people :)

Do you mind sharing where the company you work for advertises open positions? You could just share 5+ such sites to avoid revealing anything if you are concerned. I'm at the tail end of interviewing and have some great options however finding open remote positions at remote-friendly companies can be difficult.

I've been looking at sites like weworkremotely.com and remoteok.io.

I tend to do my recruiting two ways:

1) From people I know well who make a solid recommendation.

2) At major tech conferences.

Hiring is a very risky and high stakes proposition. A new hire easily costs us a million or more if it doesn't work out. We are very cautious, and I take our hiring process very seriously.

Junior positions we typically recruit from Univerisities in the region with top CS and ECE programs since they are less likely to be skeptics of fly over country.

DC, Chicago, Austin, and Denver absolutely have booming tech industries. And rising costs of living to match.

It should not surprise anyone that wages in other top-tier cities match the Bay Area.

Austin still beats everything else for salary proportional to cost of living.

https://hired.com/blog/candidates/where-engineer-salaries-pa...

I'm now living in a much smaller city, and the salaries here are even higher.

Good tech companies know they have to make nationally competitive offers.

Which city, if you don't mind me asking?

Sorry. I try not to give too much info.

You wouldn't guess it if I gave you 20 questions is my bet. When I got the offer for an interview the wife and I almost passed entirely on the opportunity (I didn't apply for it they recruited me) because we thought "We don't want to live there" and I had a solid offer in Seattle and Portland, where we thought we wanted to move.

I flew out anyway as a courtesy to the VP who reached out to me because we had a long history and he told me I needed to come see what they had to offer.

Flew my wife out the next day, she was super skeptical "I'm not going to like it!" (She is also in tech). She fell in love. We bought her dream house a month later. Still in our honeymoon period with this new city, but we have never been in love with a city like this before.

> You wouldn't guess it if I gave you 20 questions is my bet.

I'd take that bet. ;)

There's only 50 states and we probably can rule out the 15-20 coastal ones and Hawaii and Alaska. If the maize in your name has any relation to your job, we can quickly use five guesses on Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Illinois, Indiana.

Guessing about your wonderful city aside, one concern I and many here would have about relocating are the job opportunities. In smaller areas, you may be living in company towns, and if you ever want to change jobs, it would involve moving across the state. Of course if you're being paid a handsome amount, you're in a position to negotiate a generous relocation package.

I think its odd that you keeping referring to an abstract "here" as a an alternative and standard of comparison to the Bay Area but won't say where that is. This whole discussion is about geography as it relates to career.

I guess the big thing we've learned from this person's posts is that it is possible to like a city that is not SF.

And you get better offers when you're poached by a VP you are acquainted with.

It shouldn't take long to confuse your salary in these circumstances with the salaries of people working for and around you. Your immediate reference is probably that VP who is also VP :D

And that you can make 2.7 times a Bay Area salary and own a 5,000 square foot home in a city with mass transit that is much more culturally rich than S.F. It really sounds magical.

Somewhere in Iowa.

If it's in his comment history I figure it's fair game to state it here.

Just about everywhere else I've lived is culturally richer, DC, Chicago, Miami, London, Houston, all had better cultural and art scenes.

You might get that in Oakland these days, but even Oakland is getting prohibitively expensive.

Do you have any tips for that? I've found it harder and harder to get the attention of distributed companies, to the point where I'm fairly sure I'll be relocating to an A or B tier city in the near future.

I don't work for a distributed company. I'm in R&D these days and head up the main science section of my company. I used my network to find jobs, applied for every opportunity and stayed on the ball.

Earlier in my career I'd send 150+ applications. The last move I only looked at three positions and got offers from all three.

Please tell us more! What city did you end up in?

I've lived in Miami, Chicago, London, DC, Boston (briefly), and Houston.

I'm now somewhere else entirely, and while I don't want to say, I'll just say you'd find it surprising, because I certainly did. We like it, though, and there is a strong science-based economy with big growth in cloud and data, low crime, a highly educated population, and an amazing metro area.

Heh .. and I thought I was the only one. I'm 38 (a research scientist) and lived in so many different cities! Because of the PhD and post-doc, the house purchase was delayed. We had a baby recently and I really feel like I need to give her stability.

Where we are, house prices have doubled since 2008. We are also trying to think out of the box in terms of where to live. Cheers!

"endless suburban hellscape"

hilariously accurate

Can I ask where you moved to?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com