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Comment by ktsmith | Hacker News Reader

The Tesla factory is not in Reno and will not benefit Reno. Neither are the majority of manufacturing facilities that have opened here recently. If you are a welder I can can get you a job making between $25-50 per hour depending on your certifications in about ten minutes. If you are a programmer you'll be hard pressed to find a job paying market rate.

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> If you are a programmer you'll be hard pressed to find a job paying market rate.

If you're a programmer, work remote and disconnect your wage from your geography.

As an engineer with a remote job, you will be unlikely to get certain kinds of jobs that have the same sort of pay-off that people get locally. If I was a remote worker for Facebook or Google, I wouldn't be able to use the cafeteria, and most start-ups in early stage tend to want people onsite where they can talk to each other much more. Furthermore, companies seem to pay significantly more just to have you on-site. In contrast, I've noticed most of the remote jobs I've applied to just aren't as good in compensation as ones onsite. I can easily find a random job as a senior engineer for $160k+... but it's really hard to find that as a remote worker. The extra $20-$40k / yr does add up even if you're in a significantly lower cost of living area.

> I can easily find a random job as a senior engineer for $160k+... but it's really hard to find that as a remote worker. The extra $20-$40k / yr does add up even if you're in a significantly lower cost of living area.

I don't believe the $60K+ more a year ($160K SFBA vs $100K remote) makes a SFBA job a net positive, considering how substantially higher the cost of living is. Equity, of course, is always a lottery ticket.

>>Furthermore, companies seem to pay significantly more just to have you on-site.

That's because they are usually located in places with high cost of living.

It's ~25 minutes east of downtown Reno; much of the workforce will live in Reno/Sparks.

Expectations here are that the vast majority of people employed there will probably choose to, or already will be living in Fernley. The ties to Reno in the press are more about the name and the fact that it's the largest population center in this area.

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