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Comment by TulliusCicero | Hacker News Reader

> Have you tried asking SF people to relocate to those places? Because I and most of my coworkers say we would do so easily.

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.

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Sure, but there's a middle ground between SF and Tulsa. Say, Denver or Chicago or SLC. Less tech jobs than SF, but still plenty. Higher cost of living than Tulsa, but not SF or NYC levels.

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.

> Less tech jobs than SF, but still plenty.

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.

I am in Tulsa and actively recruiting SF people, zero takers so far.

So what? You can just move again. The ability to put down roots as long as your job holds is better than no ability to put down roots at all.

Works well if you don't have a family.

Well sure, if you're already paid well enough to have a family in the Bay Area, discussion about compensation/COL anxiety is moot.

Only people I know who can make that work have either doctors or other software engineers for spouses.

Sure but the grandparent post is talking about moving to a low cost of living city for some company, and then some years later that company downsizing or closing and laying people off, and then not having many other similar employment options available.

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.

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