I hear the complaint about not finding local engineers in those places. Thing is, we don't find any local engineers in SF either. Maybe 2-3 people out of 100. Everyone else is a <5 year transplant, relocated either by us or their previous employer. We have more people from the same random Chinese high school than from California.
You probably wouldn't, though. You're probably not going to relocate to Tulsa or St. Louis or wherever, because once you start looking at the decision seriously, you're going to realize that even if this one particular company has attractive jobs there, if you ever want to leave or get laid off or whatnot, the rest of the job market there ain't so great.
It's the kind of thing that sounds great initially, but starts to fall apart upon deeper analysis.
Only people I know who can make that work have either doctors or other software engineers for spouses.
So if you move, start a family because you can now afford it, and then lose your job 5 years later, you're going to be less mobile and also limited by job options.
I live in Colorado and over the past couple of years have seen a lot of Bay area companies coming to Denver. Not sure if they are moving SF engineers over, but they are definitely building teams in these lower cost areas.
It's not just about number of tech jobs, but the quality thereof.
These days, programming is such a needed skill that coders are almost like accountants, practically every business above a certain size needs at least a few for internal tools. But that kind of work makes you a cost center, with the attendant technical and cultural problems.
What the major tech hubs offer is an abundance of even high quality programming jobs, in a wide variety of fields.
At least that's my impression given how many of my senior coworkers have absurd commutes as they continue to live in the same house they had before joining.
I agree it’s weird to invoke the word senior so early in the job ladder... I would expect 3-4 more rungs where Eng II currently sits.