
If you want an A+ career in technology, move to the Bay Area - rajathagasthya
https://medium.com/@gayle/if-you-want-an-a-career-in-technology-move-to-the-bay-area-95e721a5fbdd#.rwkdy85hx
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dave_ops
Having had several offers to relocate to the Bay Area all I can really say is
that almost nobody pays well enough to make it worthwhile. You can make
$150k-200k in Seattle, Portland, Denver, Austin, etc. and work on some really
interesting problems with marketplace leaders (often even for companies based
in the Bay Area). You end up living like a king comparatively. You'd have to
make _at least_ 30-40% more than that in the Bay Area just to maintain a
lateral quality of life.

Having now screened over 300 candidates for openings on my team, the
overwhelming majority of them being people already in the Bay Area, about the
only thing I can say is that with all the easy money sloshing around the
economy there it's just way, waaaaaaay to easy to be a terrible engineer and
still maintain being a highly paid "professional". Most of the people I
screen/interview are advanced-IDE users at best or simply framework operators
(i.e. they have no idea how the things even work that they're claiming to be
experts in).

Sure there are a lot of bright folks too (law of averages and all that), but
it's depressing to see what people are getting paid to do glorified web
scripting or whose entire job function could be replaced with 50-lines of
Bash.

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jvproject
Since the comments thus far are quite inflammatory -- which I find odd,
considering this is a subject almost all of us most have thought about -- I'll
throw in my $0.02.

I am an ex-finance guy (who has programmed computers forever) who recently
quit "the business" and moved to SF to work at a startup. This gives me some
perspective.

I can say a few things for sure. First, there are more tech-related
opportunities here. You just can't deny it -- once you're in it, you see it.
Everybody everywhere is talking about tech... all the time. It's like going to
the bar outside Goldman. Everyone's talking about the stock/bond/FX/whatever
market or the topic du jour.

Similarly, getting a true finance job outside the greater NY area would be
extremely difficult. The main reason for this is because in places like
California, you mostly find either a.) satellite offices of big firms, which
are no good for a young person, or b.) hedge funds on the beach with two guys
and a dog (no room for a young person). So I can say for NY, the point rings
true.

In terms of tech in SF, being in the hub seems to matter -- if you're making
some kind of career move. I can tell you for certain I've been getting more
job hits (from tech firms) living out here. When I lived in NY, the only one
who'd interview me was Google -- first at the NY office, then in Mountain
View, for a position in San Bruno. It was very difficult to make the
horizontal shift directly from Wall Street to tech -- for geographic and
cultural reasons.

But the real "blame" I'd like to place is on automatic screening mechanisms.
All too often I've been screened out of candidacy at smaller companies because
it's just too much effort to fly out a candidate for an interview, put them up
at a hotel with a car, all so you can (maybe) hire them and have to pay
relocation. Not many companies are willing to do that... it's just life.

That said, people who are driven and committed will (I believe) have A+
careers (in a much more liberal sense of the term than used here) regardless
of where they live. But, if a particular goal has your attention -- go where
the fish are biting. There's nothing about that that doesn't make sense to me.

PS - on the flip-side, I once worked for a big bank headquartered in L.A. I
elected not to move there for exactly these reasons -- I don't want to be an
actor, so I stayed in NY. But when I wanted to horizontal into true-pure-tech,
I did make a point to get myself to SF, whatever it took.

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geebee
There is one possible flaw in this - if you have to struggle to pay the rent,
you may not be able to focus on the creative work that would lead to a truly
magnificent career.

The bay area,does have a huge tech industry, and Ms. Laakerman has accurately
described how the scale of tech in the bay area may allow greater
specialization and the career boost it can provide.

However, I think this may miss the kind of creative rndeavor software can be.
Software allows you to pay the bills and live in SF, sort of, but are you the
same kind of programmer you'd be if you didn't have to make choices based on
making rent?

Lower rent doesn't just mean you have the option of working less, hanging out
with friends, spending time with family (though that is a fine way to spend
it). It can also allow you to work just as hard but differently, on a path you
can choose, before people with money even understand what it is let alone if
they should fund it (and when they to the might fight it rather then fund it).

I really do think that for some people, staying away from the sky high cost of
living may be essential to creating the half formed idea that turns into
something incredible.

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cballard
> "he doesn't work too hard"

 _This is desirable._

It's not surprising that this person is a "Founder/CEO" and her definition of
"A+" is "working hard". But she'll give you some worthless stock options!

~~~
gaylemcd
I would not _define_ an "A+ career" as working hard. That doesn't even make
sense. You can very hard in a career without achieving much success at all.

However, if you want to be exceptionally successful, it obviously helps to
work hard. And if you don't particularly care about being exceptionally
successful, it's a lot easier to relax and not work hard. Is that something
you actually disagree with?

Also, you seem to have totally missed the point of that anecdote. Yes, it IS
desirable to him. He has a great life.

You don't necessarily need to try to become super successful. In fact, you
just might be a lot happier if you decided to stop trying to achieve that. But
if you're in tech and you _do_ want that -- truly exceptional success, not
just being quite successful -- you'll be better off in the bay area.

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burritofanatic
I thought about this some, and I would probably agree with this statement. As
an analogy, though it's possible to be a star through YouTube from anywhere in
the country, to get the best gigs, you'll probably have to move to Los
Angeles.

But, I couldn't help but think what Taleb would think about a person going
great lengths just to have an "A+ career" and potentially fragile one with a
single firm. If this person's career is currently B+, yet they have great
control of their day to day lives and quality of it, it'd be foolish to try to
fulfill this goal.

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echlebek
This is a comically myopic viewpoint, bordering on offensive to those of us
who live in the (very large) world outside of Silicon Valley.

There are some really amazing places and people out there. You can have an
excellent life and career without ever travelling to California. Or even the
USA! I don't buy the letter grade rhetoric at all.

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edoceo
Odd that a recruiter writes an article claiming that where she works to
recruit is where the talent should move to as well.

#NotSuspect

~~~
gaylemcd
Still not a recruiter. Never have been. Not even a little bit.

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jacquesm
As if everybody has that option.

