

Advice/Resources for Someone Moving to San Fran - philrea

hey guys&#x2F;gals, I am in the process of packin up my stuff and moving to san francisco from houston. this decision is based on my skill set, mind set, and perception of the area as &quot;the place to be&quot; given my aspirations. the issue is that everything (listed below) about this situation is new to me and, so, am looking for answers.<p>-i know absolutely nothing about san francisco (where to live? how to find a job? etc.)<p>-i need a job (ideally as a developer&#x2F;engineer), my skills would be best utilized in a start-up but will settle for anything just to make this move happen and not have to sleep on the streets for awhile (although, if it is streets or not moving, id take the street)<p>-what kind of salary range should i aim for that would allow me to live somewhere relatively close (can get there without driving) to the relevant community, high and low estimations would be lovely<p>-and anything else you guys feel like adding, everything is&#x2F;will be greatly appreciated<p>oh and it may be useful for context to mention that i am 28 and do not have a wife&#x2F;fam&#x2F;girl friend&#x2F;whatev<p>alright guys, thanks for anything and everything and wish me luck,
philip rea
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pianoben
Here's my perspective - I moved here in 2010 from Missouri, so my newbie info
is a little out-of-date.

As far as working at a startup, don't worry. If you're halfway decent, people
will be falling over themselves to hire you. Of course some skills will stand
you in better stead than others; a GitHub full of Ruby/Python/Javascript is a
lot more attractive in SF than a resume full of C# jobs.

The real worry right now is housing. You state that you'd like a convenient
place to live. Given that a great many startups these days are in San
Francisco, that means paying SF rents, or sacrificing convenience. You can
afford SF rents by taking a roommate and living cheaply for surprisingly
little - I know people doing it on $50-60K, but they have partners who earn
significantly more.

If you want to do it solo, shoot for at least $130K or above. You're in a
fiercely competitive rental market, and as someone without friends or
connections should expect to pay $2-5k/mo just on rent, depending on your
area. If that sounds extravagant, consider the numbers. At the high end of the
range (and that's something like a good-sized one-bedroom apartment in SOMA),
you're potentially spending $60K per year just on housing, in one of the
highest-tax areas of the country.

The good news is that, if you're halfway decent, that's a very achievable
salary. If you're good, you can earn far more, but _generally_ that requires
moving south.

As far as finding friends and jobs, I had good luck hanging out at hacker
spaces like Hacker Dojo in Mountain View, Noisebridge in SF, Sudo Room in
Oakland, and a host of others. You'll find like-minded friends, housing
connections, and jobs there. Programming meetups are a great way to connect
professionally. Dolores Park in the Mission is a glorious place to spend the
spring and summer, and it's always full of people on nice days.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that my company is hiring for Android, iOS,
and JVM/Python backend roles - if that's up your alley, we'd love to talk to
you, my username at Google's fine webmail service.

~~~
jtfrench
^what ben said, though I would tweak the "GitHub full of
Ruby/Python/Javascript".

This is certainly great advice, but I think the most "to the point" way of
communicating your skills is showing projects you've completed. Ideally mobile
apps, which means you should add some Objective-C/Java to that list. These
days good mobile devs are fewer than those who know the common web/javascript
stacks (which are still important).

Overall — just make sure to show your future employer that you can "take it to
the hole" and actually ship/create/finish a project. thats where the money is.
Can you deliver? Or are you just another guy chasing APIs and buzzwords hoping
to wear a hoodie and flip flops and be a snarky programmer?

(haha I'm sure that's not you!)

~~~
philrea
Good advice...

I am new to the development community in most ways and have only recently
learned that GitHub is important in demonstrating experience. (although pretty
obvious when put in that light...)

I have worked on a project that I started, designed, developed and shipped
(well, it was deployed in-house at the company I worked). Actually the whole
thing is kind of a crazy story but I won't bore you with it here. Important
thing is that I hadn't really thought about it and can't say for certain I
would have brought it up, your notes will ensure I do.

And yeah, I definitely need some work in Objective-C, especially if I want to
be considered a programmer in closed-toed shoes and a sports jacket...

Side Note:

Realizing that it may be extremely obvious... what is an API chaser?

