
Why I Love Being A Programmer in Louisville - emiller829
http://erniemiller.org/2012/12/15/why-i-love-being-a-programmer-in-louisville-or-why-i-wont-relocate-to-work-for-your-startup/
======
edw519
The single biggest problem with working remotely is that you have to be
excellent at a lot of things that don't matter when you're on site. And since
your energy is a zero sum game, being excellent at these things steals energy
from building.

You need to expend time and energy on:

\- preparing precise specs instead of explaining and interacting

\- interpretting imprecise specs instead of questioning and interacting

\- writing precise emails

\- interpretting imprecise emails

\- guessing body language and tonality from written communication

\- dealing with conference calls and web-based meetings

\- building relationships without benefit of breaks and meals

\- understanding the human terrain without benefit of gossip and the water
cooler

\- being noticed and recognized for who you really are by new people

\- being included when you're "out of sight, out of mind"

You kinda get the idea. If you can be excellent at these things, great.
Otherwise, be prepared to see your work suffer.

~~~
DigitalJack
Having been 100% remote for the last 5 years, I feel I can comment here.

I'm a little puzzled by the first few items in your list... I work at a pretty
big company, so maybe that is why. Specs are a way of life where I work. I
would hope that everyone would be good or learn to become good at writing
useful precise specs.

Accurate and concise emails goes without saying.

I would agree with the body language from written communication if you never
spoke with anyone on the phone, but that would be pretty unusual I think.

Web-based meetings, virtual whiteboards, are fantastic. I'd much rather do web
based than sit in a conference room.

I don't really have work relationships anymore, but it's not a loss. More of
an exchange for relationships outside of work.

The water cooler comment I agree with. I don't have the "pulse" of the human
terrain anymore. It bothered me when I was losing it, but I don't mind
anymore.

I used to worry about the "being included" part, due to the out-of-sight, out-
of-mind effect. I have to be more of an advocate for myself than perhaps I
otherwise would. However, my work speaks for itself, and people want me on
their projects. I keep in touch with various project leads and let them know
what my availability looks like. I don't feel like I'm missing out.

All that said, I worked at my company for close to 10 years before going
remote. That was a big help. I personally knew everyone I was working with for
the first couple years. Turnover has changed that.

Working remotely requires discipline, perhaps more-so than working in an
office. For many people, the commute to work and being in a different
environment helps them shift state of mind into a "work" mode. That is harder
to manufacture working remotely.

You need to be more available when you work remotely. When someone calls you
in an office and you don't answer, they think "oh, maybe they were taking a
break or in the restroom". When someone calls you and you work remotely and
don't answer, you worry that they will think, "Is this guy really working?"

For the first couple years I worked remotely, I made sure to answer the phone
whether I was on lunch or break or whatever. Now that my reputation as an
effective remote worker have been established, I don't worry about it so much,
but I do still think about it.

~~~
mbell
> Specs are a way of life where I work. I would hope that everyone would be
> good or learn to become good at writing useful precise specs.

I was honestly hoping this was a joke, but I don't think it was. By the time
someone writes an accurate spec, the business need has already changed. Spec's
don't work.

~~~
mbell
I find it interesting that I've gotten downvoted for this comment. Building an
MVP and then iterating seems to be the modus operandi of the HN community.
Building a detailed spec is the anti-thesis of this movement. How does this
correlate?

~~~
munger
I didn't down vote you, but my experience with writing specs has been
positive.

Maybe you are talking about running your own start-up where it might not be
successful yet? And you're trying to find your market fit? Then sure, maybe
just writing new code and changing the product on a whim is what is best
without writing up a spec.

Now consider a software consultancy with enterprise customers. The enterprise
usually wants time and cost estimates, which usually means agreeing on
precisely what you will be delivering in advance. You WANT to write a spec, to
prevent scope creep and limit your liability, and they want you to tell them
how long and how much (and a spec helps estimate those things). It's win-win.

Most enterprise customers can't wrap their CFO's head around true agile with
iterations and open-ended times and costs. They want as much of a guarantee as
you can give them for what/how long/how much.

Not saying one way is better or worse - but maybe it's a case of the right
tool for the job?

------
marknutter
There will always be dogma associated with the belief that in-person
interaction is more valuable than remote interaction, much like the same dogma
people some people have about preferring physical books to e-book readers.
People aren't able to truly quantify the benefit of working on-site, but they
will flail their hands vigorously in an attempt to qualify it.

On the other hand, it's very easy to quantify the benefit of remote workers.
You increase your potential labor force if you remove geographic restrictions,
which cuts costs and improves productivity. I personally was able to quantify
the benefit of working remotely in terms of distractions. I work remotely on a
medium sized team and I occasionally travel to the headquarters to work on-
site. My productivity always drops when I'm on-site because of the constant
interruptions and meetings, both initiated by others and myself.

~~~
macavity23
It _is_ hard to quantify, but having done the remote working thing for a while
myself, there is a lot of communication that one misses.

Skype, Facetime, G+ Hangouts etc all help, but there is still a significant
qualitative difference to being in the same physical room as a bunch of smart
people - both in terms of coming up with better ideas and solutions, and of
avoiding miscommunication and misunderstandings.

No doubt as our comms tech gets better that gap will decrease (it's a lot
narrower than ten years ago), but it's definitely there.

~~~
calinet6
You have to resolve to work at communicating at or approaching the level you
would in a real office. It takes more effort, but I think it can be
effectively balanced against the other advantages of working remotely.

~~~
jfb
Fundamentally, all the remote technologies in the world put together don't
even approach the bandwidth of in-person communication. You're right, it can
work -- but you have to be constantly vigilant.

~~~
calinet6
Yep, absolutely. We're experimenting with Minecraft. Improvements in culture
and productivity are yet to be analyzed...

------
jasonkester
Well said.

It's not that your city isn't fun and exciting. It's that your office is in a
building in that city, whereas my office is anyplace I feel like being at the
moment.

Now I might feel like being in your city for a while. Possibly even in your
cool office. But for half the year I'll probably be someplace completely
different. Because I can.

The author hit the nail on the head when he explained why this gig is so
great: we can do it from _anywhere_.

The good companies have figured this out and are encouraging their people to
do just that. Since that's now a viable option, it's tough to understand why
people are still working for companies that don't give that option.

~~~
Nursie
I don't believe that it's as cut and dried as you say, or that the more
traditional benefits of in-person collaboration and technical relationships
are so easy to dismiss.

You may be able to do the job from anywhere, I'm not challenging that because
I don't know you, but not everyone can, and not everyone is best suited to do
that.

~~~
randomdata
I agree with you that everyone is different and has different employment
needs. I've worked remotely for the last decade or so and cannot imagine
working from an office.

With that, if you make remote working the default, people can structure
themselves as they see fit. If you need to be around others, then you can
group with others in the company who feel the same way. Those who want to be
off doing their own thing can do that. If people are free to work where they
want to work, they'll optimize for what works best.

------
untog
The OP is not willing to move to work for your startup. That's fine. You may
not hire him because of that. That's also fine. Another company may be more
than happy to hire him. Great.

There isn't a right and wrong answer here, IMO. In my experience, working in
the same location and working in different locations _are_ very different
working experiences. For some companies and employees, one will work. For
others, it will not. I will be very hesitant to ever enter into a remote
working situation again- I did not like it at all. But that's just me.

All that is required is for you to make sure you work for a company that
matches you- don't get angry if a company/prospective employee doesn't match
what you want. That's where the article's complaints about recruiters ring
true- they don't know/care. But they don't know/care about _anything_ other
than the buzzwords on your resume, so this shouldn't be anything new.

(Ironically, just this morning I got a LinkedIn spam message from "CultureFit
Staffing". Anything but, folks...)

------
MatthewPhillips
There are a few HNers who live in Louisville, myself included (want to grab a
beer some time Ernie?). 1 major downside: probably 85+% of local programming
jobs are .NET. Maybe another 10% are Java, 4% are Ruby, and the remaining 1%
is hard to come by.

Working remote is awesome, I hope to do it again some day (Clojure or
JavaScript for me, if anyone is hiring) but its very important that everyone
is on the same table about expectations. You get into the habit of working
long hours for a couple of reasons: first because you are home anyways and
might not have anything else to do (not a terrible reason), and secondly
because you want to show the company that you're working hard -- something
that isn't an issue when working locally.

I've turned down a couple of good opportunities because I didn't want to
relocate. Of all of the reasons to relocate to a new city, I think doing so
for work is possibly the work reason. It's too easy to fall into a trap where
work becomes your life.

~~~
emiller829
@MatthewPhillips drop me an e-mail at ernie@erniemiller.org. Definitely up to
hang out... and I might know of a job for ya. ;)

~~~
ConstantineXVI
Myself, @jfedor[0], and a few like-minded others are usually at the Grale on
Fridays around 4-ish. Consider yourselves (+ any other locals in the thread)
invited.

[0] <http://twitter.com/jfedor>

~~~
dajohnson89
I'll keep this in mind. I'll be staying on the east end, but would be happy to
put back a beer on Bardstown Road. :)

~~~
emiller829
I'm in the east end, as well. If you ever want to meet up for lunch or
something out this way, let me know.

------
pwthornton
This post missed one of the biggest reasons to not relocate for a startup:

A lot of smaller startups lack long-term capital. You could be relocating for
a job that isn't there in seven months. Relocating to join an established
company that will honor your multi-year contract? That's one thing. But
relocating for a company that may not be in great financial shape (and may
have never even made profit) is another thing entirely. Uprooting your entire
family for what could be a massive risk is a lot to ask, especially when
employees can remote work to see if the job is a good fit for a year or two.
Startups really should be offering more remote employment if they want to be
able to attract more established talent.

I would also quibble with his cost of living calculations. He doesn't say
whether or not these short trips involve walking or driving a car. Based on my
knowledge of Louisville and the tenor of his post, many of them may in fact be
car trips, which are much more expensive than walking or public transportation
trips -- both financially and physically. If you live in a truly walkable
area, you don't need a gym membership. Exercise is called living your daily
life.

Old cost of living indexes just factored in housing and some other data,
leaving out transportation. When you factor in transportation, often a
households second highest cost (and highest in rural areas), many of these
areas become much cheaper. We live in the DC area right on the Red Line and
only need one car because of it. All of our trips this past weekend -- going
to parties, to the movies, to stores, to get pizza -- either involved walking
or public transportation. While my housing is assuredly more expensive than
someone living in Louisville, my families transportation costs are incredibly
low.

So when we talk about cost of living, we have to factor in everything. I'd
still bet that Louisville is cheaper than NYC, but it's a lot closer when you
apply an apples-to-apples comparison. This is particularly true when you
compare housing in the same metro. Much of that exurban housing is suddenly a
lot more expensive when you factor in transportation.

~~~
w1ntermute
> If you live in a truly walkable area, you don't need a gym membership.
> Exercise is called living your daily life.

This is bullshit. Walking is not sufficient exercise. You need to elevate your
heart rate in order to get true cardiovascular exercise.

~~~
pwthornton
The cultures of the world that live the longest do not do organized exercise:
<http://blog.ted.com/2010/01/06/how_to_live_to/>

Going to the gym is largely an Americanism. Not exactly a culture I'd want to
emulate for healthiness.

Consistent movement is much more healthy than sporadic bouts of high
intensity. Walking everywhere is just about the healthiest thing you can do.

~~~
w1ntermute
> The cultures of the world that live the longest do not do organized
> exercise: <http://blog.ted.com/2010/01/06/how_to_live_to/>

Were we ever talking about living longer? Exercise is important because
improves blood flow to the brain, and therefore brain function. It can make
you happier and better rested.

Longevity is impacted by a lot of other lifestyle factors, many of which have
nothing to do with exercise.

So basically you're conflating those other cultures' incidental lack of
cardiovascular exercise with the fact that they live longer (which is due to
completely unrelated factors), and then making the specious claim that
exercising leads to shorter life spans.

> Going to the gym is largely an Americanism. Not exactly a culture I'd want
> to emulate for healthiness.

Going to the gym isn't an "Americanism", it's something done by a certain
percentage of Americans who are significantly healthier than the American
population at large.

The fact that you're even suggesting that intense exercise at the gym is _bad_
for your health is just appalling.

> Consistent movement is much more healthy than sporadic bouts of high
> intensity. Walking everywhere is just about the healthiest thing you can do.

I never said that you shouldn't walk around, it has its benefits too. My point
is that "walking around" is not "exercise".

------
VLM
This topic is like discussing watching television or religion. If you think a
well written and logical essay will change the opinion of an addict, you have
another thing coming. Some of the more ridiculous rationalizations are pretty
hilarious to read. You really can do almost anything abusive to a human being,
and at least a fraction of the victims will thank you and take their
oppressor's side.

I also live in a non-tech center area, where my tech job household income is
approximately 4.5 times the median wage. Needless to say the odds of my
getting $472K per year in Mountain View are extremely low. Laughably I had a
conversation with HR at a well known employer in the area and their pay rate
was something absolutely ridiculous compared to the $472K I'd need to live an
equivalent lifestyle in CA, barely 10% more. I have no interest in a massive
terrifying downgrade in the standard of living for myself and my family. I
have no interest in moving from "CEO neighborhood" to "cardboard box under the
overpass". Sorry HR.

(edit: whoops I crossed household and individual income. Doesn't change the
overall outcome, I need 100% to 200% pay raise to move and live an equivalent
lifestyle and they offer 10% to 20%... its not going to happen)

~~~
base698
My main reason for wanting to relocate to CA outside of work was the access to
Napa, Tahoe, and Yosemite. Being able to do all three in a weekend if you
started after work on Friday. I have no interest in rotting in a large house
to pretend I'm a CEO.

------
subway
As one of those "Highlands Hipsters", I couldn't agree with you more. I've
relocated a couple times for jobs in TX and CA, but found myself missing
Louisville enough that I was spending a significant portion of my income
flying back here. Before leaving SF I was absolutely terrified I wouldn't be
able to find a local job doing the kind of work I enjoy, and it turns out even
though I was right about being able to find something local that really
interested me it didn't really matter -- within a month of beginning my job
search I had 3 competing offers for remote work. This experience has helped me
realize that far more companies are open to remote employees than recruiters
would initially have you believe, particularly if you're willing to make a 2-3
day trip to one of the coasts every month.

------
armored_mammal
I like having co-workers and actually going in to the office, but you'd have
to start talking MASSIVE salary increase to get me to go NY or SF with the
cost of living so high, commutes so awful, and onerous laws so numerous.

Concur with author 100%. There are lots of nice cities in the US that are way
cheaper and more livable than the big 2, and moving from one of them to
effectively make less, commute more, and have less personal time, even after
taking a hit on the cost of living adjustment is pretty questionable.

If I were to move to SF I don't see how I could afford a place that was both
close to work and had a garage where I could tinker unless I felt like
commuting 2 hours each way. But I'm also spoiled by a real estate market where
you can a decent house for under 200k, sometimes close to 100k, where I'm
living now.

------
jconley
I've worked remotely off and on for the last 10 years. I'd say at least half
the time I have been out of the office. I have managed remote teams in Mexico,
Ukraine, India, Arizona, Switzerland and even randomly dispersed
developers/artists all over the world. Remote teams can work very well.

What doesn't work very well is having a few remote people and a large mass of
people in an office all working together on the same project. There is
significant high bandwidth communication that happens when people are together
physically. This leaves remote workers out to pasture. Things get missed.
Tension builds.

The same effect occurs when you have multiple offices working on the same
projects. I've been in the middle of this first hand as well. You can quickly
end up with teams doing a lot of internal communication without talking to the
teams in other offices. Rivalries will build. It will probably become an "Us
vs Them" situation as animosity over small things snowballs.

This can be combated largely by explicit written communication. Use chat
rooms. Use good issue tracking. Use internal social networking.

~~~
billpaetzke
I'm not following. What is the good use case for remote working? The remote
workers need to be on an isolated project?

~~~
jconley
If the project requires a team it works best when the whole team is remote
and/or extremely conscious of using written communication. That is, if you
want the remote person to feel like they are a part of the team. If you have
outsource contractors it doesn't really matter. You just tell them what to do
in meticulous detail anyway. But, if you want a contributing team member that
buys into the company, make sure they are included in all communication. The
easiest way for this to happen naturally is if everyone is remote.

------
silverbax88
I agree with the bulk of the article, with one exception:

"Don’t take (or keep) a job because you like the people. If you’re a decent
person, you’ll find people you like (and who like you) at any job you take."

This is patently NOT true. The people you work with, in my experience, matter
far more than any other factor.

~~~
emiller829
There's an important piece of that quote that's missing here, which is that
those people are likely to change. If you're at a position because you like
the people, you're probably making a mistake. You can have a personal
relationship with those people regardless of where they end up going, and if
you truly do like them, you should want them to go if that's the right choice
for them.

~~~
silverbax88
The staff of all workplaces change over time. That doesn't disprove my point
at all. I have worked at some companies where I really enjoyed the people I
worked with, but then one day looked around and realized most of them were
gone, and soon after, I was, as well.

According to the article, if I like the job, I should just stay and new people
would come in that I like. But that isn't true. The 'people I like' leaving is
a harbinger that the company culture is changing.

------
bmelton
Great, thoughtful article. As someone whose office is in Mountain View, but
lives and works from home in Annapolis, MD (the entirely opposite coast,) I
definitely relate.

The compromise that I've made is that in spending a few days in Mountain View
every 6 weeks or so. It's not terribly inconvenient for me, allows me to pad
my frequent flyer miles, and I generally enjoy California. I think that the
cost of living between California and Maryland are a lot closer than
Louisville would be, so I've always got my eye open to possibly relocating
somewhere even cheaper than here -- my home town is Memphis, TN, which is damn
near free to live in comparatively, but I really like Annapolis, its proximity
to DC and Baltimore, and the knowledge that almost everything is within a
couple of hours.

The biggest trouble I have is that I really like the bigger cities. I love the
time I spend in and around San Francisco, and on occasion I'll spend time in
NY, which I also enjoy. I can't ever tell though if it's just because I'm
effectively a tourist, or how much I would enjoy it as a permanent residence.
Ultimately, I think I'm plenty happy anywhere with a temperate climate and the
ability to work from home, so I'm occasionally torn on job offers I receive to
work in sexier locales. Grats to Ernie for having found his ideal place. The
spot I'd move to to maximize dollar value (Memphis) is too hot to be perfectly
happy, and all the places I've found with better climates tend to be more
expensive -- so perhaps I'm still searching for my idyllic setting, or perhaps
it's just a matter of the grass being greener.

~~~
Spooky23
I have a bunch of family/friends who are from NYC. My family left when I was
about 10 years old.

New York City is a great place to live... until it isn't. I define living in
NYC as actually living in NYC. What tends to happen is that you get married
and have kids.

At that point, the random things that happen when you live in a city shift
from "quirky" to scary. Maybe its your car getting broken into. Or the
incessant noise of "Mr Softie" in the summer or fire trucks year round. Or
your kid's bike getting stolen. Or paying $7 to go over a bridge. Or being
packed in a tight subway car. Or your kid walking to school. Or when your kid
gets older, taking the bus and subway to school.

While you're going through that, half of your friends have moved to the
suburbs. Your kid's cousins in Long Island go to schools with olympic pools
that hand out iPads. They have a big backyard and idyllic quiet. So
eventually, most people relent and find themselves with a 90 minute commute to
a cul de sac somewhere.

~~~
bearmf
Oh how scary: kids walking or taking subway to school! WTF is scary about
this? NYC is the safest big city in US. And who is "Mr Softie"?

~~~
Spooky23
Parents freak when their 14 year old runs into some pervert on the train.

As for mr softie:
[http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=bDXL90KXPHQ&desktop_uri=%...](http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=bDXL90KXPHQ&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DbDXL90KXPHQ)

~~~
snogglethorpe
Parents freak when the wind blows.

Well, at least modern American parents do....

------
calinet6
Based on several experiences doing startups with remote people versus local, I
would now be extremely hesitant to hire someone who would not relocate or work
locally.

Companies—especially small ones—are defined by their culture, and I really
think culture is best developed and maintained in person. We recently had
three of our team members move away for various reasons, and they're now
working remotely. It has been a shake-up. I won't say it's a bad thing,
because I truly want them to be happy, and I'm truly willing help them make it
work, but it has been a surprising culture shift for our entire company. At
this point, I think we'll make it work, but the day-to-day work experience for
all our employees has changed dramatically and that's not something to take
lightly.

Find a place you truly want to live (which definitely doesn't have to be in
the Bay Area) and find a company that you want to work for locally. Go into
the office every day. Talk with people about more than work. Connect and
develop relationships. Work toward a true culture that exemplifies what the
company stands for both internally and externally, and make it meaningful to
everyone involved.

That's what makes me happy, and that's what I'm optimizing for. Am I in the
absolute number one place that I want to be in, period? Maybe not. If I had my
say I'd be living and working on the east side of the Sierra Nevada within 1
hour each of Mammoth mountain and the Yosemite highlands—and that may be my
eventual destination.

But right now, location is far less important to me than the people I spend
each day with, the people with whom I work, and the company culture that I'm
helping to generate and preserve. That's what moves me forward each day, and I
truly believe that will make my company more successful and sustainable.

I understand you though. I went through a time in my life where I was more
attached to places than people. Turns out I was in the right place all along,
but I just hadn't run into the right people. That changed for me, and now I
truly believe that location is a small price to pay. It's complicated—it is of
course better to have a great employee working remotely than a poor one in the
office, but I think it's even better—perhaps exponentially so and especially
to a startup—to have that great employee in the same room.

*Edit: I'd like to add, that part of this is the "who moved my cheese" problem, of going from a 100% local company to a significantly dispersed company. We are adapting as a whole and each week we improve our process and culture. The challenge has become "how do we maintain a culture and coherence remotely?" I think in time we will be successful at that, and continue to be a strong group, but it's still a challenge, and one that you'll have to weigh against other challenges if you so choose.

~~~
LogicX
As one of calinet6's said co-workers who recently relocated from Boston to
Myrtle Beach, SC - I feel obligated to reply.

Like the OP - I also grew up in the middle of nowhere, PA.

I previously worked remotely for companies during college, and I've been
surprised by how much I'm enjoying the co-worker experience here -- just a
different one. Nearly every day I go to CoworkMYR (www.coworkmyr.com), and
we're excited about building a tech culture here, and touting the benefits of
lower cost of living, and all MB has to offer.

I agree with OP and calinet6: People have a lot to do with your happiness.
I've met more neighbors, made new friends, and had more in-depth interactions
with them in 4 weeks here than in 6 years in Boston. That blows me away. I
think its part environment, and part busy: Most people in Boston are there to
get education, get started with careers, etc: They're extremely focused on
that, and not so much on friends, relationships, etc.

Another huge benefit of leveraging the cost of living towards happiness is
that we've realized my wife doesn't need to work full-time. She's pursuing
other interests, she just got a job teaching. Her happiness has increased so
much! (Her metric for this was that I've caught her giggling in her sleep
numerous times here, as opposed to worrying sleep talk in Boston).

TL; DR: I agree with OP on the values of working for a good company remotely
and having more control and flexibility over your time and life. I invite
calinet6 to come visit and give it a try ;)

~~~
calinet6
Thanks man :) We will definitely visit and I'm looking forward to seeing the
coworking spot and checking out life down there.

You know I'm a huge believer in coworking, and I think it's for similar
reasons—you meet people and generate ideas and relationships that are also
valuable. I just think it's also a great thing to be coworking with your own
coworkers, or at least that it shouldn't be discounted as unimportant in the
general case.

For us, it's a shift that we're really working at, and we're getting better at
it by the week. Just because I say I would be hesitant to start a company with
remote workers or bring people on remotely doesn't mean it's not applicable to
the current situation, or at a later stage. Even with a different company I'm
sure it would be a more difficult and more complex decision than I anticipate.

I still think it would be great to all be working in the same room, but at the
same time, it's great to have everyone happy and living the life they want to
live, and it's a small price to pay. That is truly of unmeasurable importance
and I couldn't be happier for you for following your dreams.

------
netcan
It's funny that this article is even necessary.

Not wanting to move for a job is the default for 99% of the world.

~~~
rudasn
You are right, but humans have spread throughout the planet because they
_needed_ a job (or, put simply, food), and not because they _wanted_ a job.

What the author is saying is that in this day and age, in this profession,
_having_ to move is a bit silly and _wanting_ to move is cool.

------
codex_irl
I have been working remotely for 3 years now, full time & would find it very
hard to go back to commuting full time.

I can get more work done, experience less distractions - to be honest I don't
really give a dam what a companies culture is like to a large extent, tell me
what you need done & when you need it done by, if I think its achievable then
I'll make it happen. I don't want to play xboxes, get free lunches or any of
that nonsense - I want time with my family & lots of money for future security
- that & working from a location of my choosing is all that really matters to
me, in return I'll work my ass off, remain loyal & ensure my employer is
getting value for their $

------
charliepark
I really enjoyed this, especially the line "Life’s too short to spend so much
of it in between the places you truly want to be." So, so true.

~~~
scottmagdalein
Ditto that line.

------
dreamdu5t
Any tech company that doesn't want to hire remote workers will simply lose out
on a pool of great talent that others will be smart enough to utilize.

Employers will avoid remote workers at their own loss.

------
donretag
I completely understand where the author is coming from and then some.

I am also on the receiving end of many of those same emails. However, I
actually live in California, in beautiful Monterey. Every single Silicon
Valley recruiter does not think it is a big deal for me to move two hours
away. I am so close, why not? If I wanted to live in Silicon Valley, I would
live in Silicon Valley.

BTW, I do not believe in working remote. Working locally has numerous benefits
for both the employer and employee.

------
emiller829
Hello, inexplicable title change. I picked the latter part for the purpose of
it being relevant to more than Louisville. Ah well.

~~~
charliepark
Yeah, I don't know why the editor at HN felt it was better to change it to the
pre-parenthetical title, but the second part was so much better. A pretty
shlubby (and completely unnecessary) move. How does that help anyone?

I was the first person to vote / comment on it, and I doubt I would have even
looked twice at it if I had pigeonholed it as "a post about Louisville." I'm
glad it got to the #1 spot for as long as it did with the originally-submitted
title.

I guess the lesson here is give blog posts principal titles that are more
attention-grabby, so HN editors won't edit them on you.

------
desireco42
It works for 37 signals. It shows you that companies that treat their devs as
people (like 37 signals) instead of resources or head count can develop
superior software and somehow have their people happy without the need to make
fake enthusiasm.

I would say startups are probably most likely to be able to take advantage of
this.

BTW, this post makes me want to move to Louisville and join Ernie :) (not
really, Chicago is really nice).

------
Hawkee
I absolutely agree with this. I recently moved across the country to a city
where there is very little tech work, but this move wasn't for work. I moved
to support my local church, and not as a pastor or worker, but as another
member. I can't imagine a better reason to move. Because of this I wouldn't
consider moving even 2hrs north to DC for triple the income. Through this
experience I've realized how little value money really has in terms of true
peace in my heart. Living month to month, contract to contract even gives me a
richer experience of life that I wouldn't trade for the world. Working 9-5
making 100k+/year would certainly be easy, but I don't live for money.

------
scottmagdalein
Thanks for this Ernie. I've been considering a job far from home because I
like the people and the organization. The job role is a step down from where I
am in my "career path" and leaving all of my family, separating my son from
his extended family, are real issues for me.

Optimizing for happiness, put in the context of actual real-world happiness,
is a strong point. I'll keep praying about it...

------
wtvanhest
After living in Florida (Orlando, Naples), CA (Santa Clara), Boston and DC, I
like to apply "The Efficient Frontier" to locations I choose.

Essentially the efficient frontier is a finance concept that says that
combinations of assets can be graphed and form a line called "The Efficient
Frontier" where only portfolios of assets on that line should be considered.

Sorry for the link to wiki, but this is a really short article.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficient_frontier>

When I consider where I live, I want to optimize to make sure I am on that
frontier. Instead of risk and return on the axises, I think of a multivariant
optimization, but essentially what I am saying is that many cities do not make
it on the efficient frontier when looking logically.

For example, is there anyway that Louisville has as rich of a history as NYC,
or DC, Boston or even SF?

Does Louisville have better night life than any other big city (DC, NYC, SF,
Boston?)

Does Louisville have better skyline than any other big city (DC, NYC, SF,
Boston?)

Does Louisville have better live performances than any other big city (DC,
NYC, SF, Boston?)

Does Louisville have better museums than any other big city (DC, NYC, SF,
Boston?)

Does Louisville have a better hipster scene than any other big city (DC, NYC,
SF, Boston?). Its probably better than Boston's, but I don't care whether
hipsters are part of the culture or not.

And the OP's biggest point, that he likes to drive to rural areas in 15
minutes. Its more like 20 minutes from SF, but some of the best mountain
biking, trails etc. is right there. Boston has the same thing 20 minutes away.
IMO DC and NYC are harder to get to rurual areas.

Liking Louisville is completely understandable if you just like being familar
and don't want to move and have to make new friends etc. but it should be 100%
understandable why a recruiter cannot imagine someone wanting to stay when
viewing the opportunity as an outsider.

[ADDED] I reread what I wrote and it seems like I'm bashing Louisville, more
my intention was to put out the efficient frontier concept for selecting a
location.

[To unalone and the OP] Sorry for coming off as pompous. It does read a little
that way, but I used the OP's criteria, not my own. The OP could have made a
much better arugument by specifying what he likes about the criteria, but he
didn't do that so I just asked the questions rather than making an assertion
about them. Notice that I didn't specify whether DC does have better nightlife
than Louisville? I instead just asked the question which the reader can answer
on their own.

~~~
onedognight
You conveniently left off cost of living.

    
    
      Does Louisville have a better cost of living than any other big city (DC, NYC, SF, Boston)?
    

As of 2006-2010, median price of a house in Louisville is $48,300. The median
sales price for homes in San Francisco CA for Sep 12 to Nov 12 was $750,000.

So, lets say a factor of 15.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Well housing costs are just one part of cost of living but sure, it costs less
to live elsewhere. Generally salaries in the SF Bay Area are higher in part of
offset that cost. Wikipedia [1] claims Louisville has a median salary of
$36,484.

So a question; "If you wish to work at a remote location, are you willing to
take a salary that is commensurate with the median salary at that remote
location?"

I find people are somewhat split on that question.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisville,_Kentucky>

~~~
m0nastic
I've never actually encountered an employer who set job offer salaries to
reflect where remote candidates live. People point that out as a benefit to
companies hiring remote employees (it'll save them money!), but does that
actually happen?

At my previous job, after acquiring a company that had a mostly-remote
workforce, everyone eventually moved away from our home area (DC) to cheaper
parts of the country. No one took a pay cut to reflect the fact that they now
were living somewhere cheaper (and everyone new we hired was in the same range
regardless of where they lived).

Also, having lived and worked in Boston, the Bay Area, and now the Beltway, I
was surprised to find that salaries weren't any lower or higher in any of
those places, despite the costs of living being all over the place. It's
possible that my particular corner of the industry (infosec) is just less
geographically-dependent.

~~~
ihaveajob
Not to nitpick, but Intel does have a 10% salary supplement for California
employees, to offset the cost of living (or at least the difference in
taxation) wrt OR, AZ and NM employees.

~~~
m0nastic
You're not nitpicking at all, that's a good counter example of what I'm
talking about!

------
binarymax
Glad you said this and glad it was voted to the top. Sometimes, while lost in
the feedback loop of HN and startup news in general, its easy to lose sight of
the fact that our world exists in a layer that shouldn't tie one down to a
physical location.

I've been living in a small coastal town now for 4 years, not close to much of
anything related to my field, yet I am working and happier than I could ever
be in some metropolis.

------
jumby
Well, this morning was spent shredding powder in the mountains. This afternoon
I am coding. Why wouldn't everyone _demand_ to live where they want? Revolt
and make these companies wake up & realize that remote workers produce equal
or better than those who are local. There is 0 benefit for local devs and I
have been doing this for 5+ years. Sure, a recent college grad might be worth
to have local, but folks with legitimate experience and who contribute, who
cares any more?

As for salary? I demand Bay Area pay wherever I live. I also demand to watch
my daughter grow up and not suffer through any more BS commutes on 85/101.

------
mattdeboard
Louisville's general awesomeness makes me embarrassed for Indianapolis. It
really blows us out of the water. I wouldn't expect someone to relo out of
Louisville either.

~~~
empthought
I worked with a guy who had worked in Zurich, NYC, London, and eventually
decided to move back to Louisville from Columbus.

As far as Indianapolis goes, at least it's not Cleveland or Buffalo...

------
thisisdallas
I definitely agree with the OP. If I could work remotely I would in a
heartbeat. Be that as it may, I do understand how a lot of companies/startups
would be hesitant to offer a remote worker a full time job plus benefits. In
all honesty, if I owned a company, I would most likely prefer on location
workers than remote workers.

Also, I didn't see anything in the post about the great local coffeeshop scene
in Louisville :)

------
digitalengineer
I agree, but don't a lot of new opportunities arise from the people you meet
(by change, via friends or whatever) IRL?

~~~
emiller829
I'd have addressed this in the article, but it was getting too long already.
Short answer is that many of the best opportunities I've received have arisen
as results of relationships formed on the Internet, first, and maybe over a
few beers at a conference.

Cultivate relationships in whatever form they take.

~~~
digitalengineer
Thanks for the reply. I was asking because a study done by 'Freelance
confidential' asked Freelancers _"Where do you find work?"_ "Referrals" scored
39%. Portfolio website scored 19%. Didn't think about it but I suppose
referrals via the web work just as well. 71% of all freelancers complete most
of their work at home btw.

~~~
emiller829
Online referrals definitely work. My last two jobs have stemmed directly from
interactions with people on a single IRC channel. :)

------
electic
I am not terribly sure why this needs to be an article. If you don't want to
work somewhere or for someone, be respectful. Kindly pass. Being declarative,
boastful, and at times a bit cocky is not a good quality to broadcast to all
employers.

------
ianstallings
Hey to each his own. Not everyone has the same circumstances and I can
completely relate. I moved to NYC to get involved in the startup scene but
only after my daughter had graduated high school and I was free to do my own
thing. It's not for everyone that's for sure. I can't even get some people to
visit NYC let alone live here. So I get it. But to see it how I see it let me
give you this analogy - I see NYC as a gold mine. It's not all bad but it's
not all good. The money that can be made here is astronomical. But it comes
with sacrifice. Some people are not willing or simply can't sacrifice their
current lifestyle to move here.

~~~
snogglethorpe
> _The money that can be made here is astronomical. But it comes with
> sacrifice. Some people are not willing or simply can't sacrifice their
> current lifestyle to move here._

Keep in mind that for many people it's exactly _the lifestyle_ which makes NYC
attractive... certainly it's not for everyone (some people just want a big
lawn and lots of parking at the mall)—but it is for many people.

[I don't want to move back to the U.S., but if I do, NYC is one of the very
few places I can imagine living....]

------
justanother
Lower Florida Keys here, haven't had a job within 300 miles of my home since
2003. Although I've lived in a few large cities with decent job markets, I
settled here for reasons of personal choice and sanity. Like the author of
this piece, I'm utterly unwilling to move (I'd sooner change professions; I'll
be a USCG licensed boat captain soon). I understand the tradeoffs involved,
and I work in a partnership of like-minded individuals around the country. The
partnership gives us healthcare and retirement benefits, while the senior
partner in LA has physical access to a large job market to keep us stocked
with contracts, if we need more work.

Yes, there are tradeoffs. I probably won't advance in your company or have a
prestigious resume, even though I've been working on Internet technologies
since the early 1990s. I don't want to be a founder or first employee, I want
to be your first contractor. You can even meet me, too; I've been known to fly
out to conferences and company meetings.

For my part, I use the partnership's Redmine ticket system religiously, and
the customer can see the solid results I deliver by working for the agreed-
upon amount of hours (or more!) per day/week/month, and if the customer
doesn't like the results (experience suggests most do, but some are better
suited to cheap stuff from India), then they do not renew the contract.

Besides my zipcode, I get an interesting choice of working situations. I've
been on conference calls while I had two divers in the water getting lobster.
A week ago, my office was on the tailgate of the truck as my wife and I worked
blue crab fishing holes. I may even be on the sailboat moored near a coral
patch reef, a few miles out to sea (there is LTE up to 5nm out to sea
generally, around here). I don't tell all clients about this; Some are cool
with it, others would prefer to think I sit in an office all day. It doesn't
matter, because in the end I'm serious about productivity, regardless of my
surroundings (and this is why you won't generally find me trying to work from
the countless bars down here, experience suggests it's bad for productivity,
to put it mildly).

It isn't for every company, and it isn't for every developer. But it certainly
works very well for some companies and some developers.

------
fasouto
100% agree, I moved from Switzerland back to Spain for similar reasons. Now
I'm freelancing for a couple of companies in NYC and my quality of life and
productivity improve a lot, the only drawback it's the 6 hours of difference.

~~~
yarrel
How do you manage that time difference?

~~~
fasouto
We do a skype meeting once per week, for 1 hour or two. The day of the meeting
I had to stay at work until 8-9 pm, so this day I come to work late in the
morning.

Email+issue tracker for the rest of the communication. Asynchronous
communication help me to stay focused.

It works really well for both of us.

------
32bitkid
Good article but I would quibble on the point about "time ≠ money". To me, one
has a finite amout of time, that must be "spent" no matter what you do, the
goal is to maximize the "trade" value for your time. With my job, I trade my
time for money – which I can then turn around and trade money for someone
else's time. With my hobbies, I trade my time for for skills/knowledge. When
I'm relaxing, I'm trading for my own sanity. You can't really "waste" time;
instead of you simply trade it for something of little or no value.

In that sense, money _is_ time... and time can be represented as money.

------
cciesquare
Sorry but this comes off as really pompous. Essentially what you're saying is
that I am so good, you will be hired on your terms.

If you had gone in with the mind set, "I want to work locally, and relocating
isn't something that works for me." I can respect that, but when you say I
wont locate for YOU, comes off as saying, hey I make the decisions not you. Or
an attention grabbing title for a post.

For a full time employee, remote work is like a long distance relationship,
more often than not, they just do not work. Heck contract remote work is
already difficult as is.

~~~
hdctambien
Perhaps if you read it as "Why I Won't RELOCATE to Work for Your Startup" it
doesn't come off quite as pompous.

Is it any less pompous to say: "I would like to hire you, but you have to
leave where you live and everyone you know and come to me?"

------
bjhoops1
Kudos on the "frind a way to make workouts work into your schedule" - I used
to work at a company that serviced the health club industry, so we all got a
free membership to one of our customer's gyms just down the road. All the
developers would go work out over lunch (and contrary to stereotypes, a lot of
them were jacked). That routine was fantastic and is the thing I miss most
about that job. It also made everyone more productive in the afternoon.

------
pavanky
> The cost of living in Louisville is 7.6% below national average. The cost of
> living in NYC is 123.8% above national average. In other words, I’d need to
> earn over twice as much money to maintain the same quality of life in NYC.

This is false. You only need to make twice as much as you are spending. I
don't think anyone making something like $100k in Louisville would be spending
all their money and then would need to make $220k in New York.

~~~
scottshea
Actually I would argue that over twice as much is not enough. Having made a
similar comparison living in Phoenix the cost of 'extras' in the New York
metro area is much higher. If I wanted to invest, send my daughter to a
private school or go out to eat is dramatically higher.

And, what the heck do you think happens to the extra money? It goes away? The
difference between 100k and the cost of living in Louisville is hopefully
invested back in his own family. Even if it is wasted he is still using it.

~~~
pavanky
I would assume cost of living would include things like sending your children
to school and so on, or going out on a fun weekend. If it does not, then I am
sorely mistaken as what "cost of living" is.

As for investing money back, I'd assume you would have some kind of an
investment account (for future, retirement or even your child's college fund)
that would provide the same returns no matter where you are.

------
bjhoops1
God, this is so annoying! Literally 100% of the recruiter emails I get are for
locations far from my home of Kansas City.

------
lerouxb
But... how do you deal with living in a deeply red state? ;)

~~~
jgarmon
The state is deeply red, but Jefferson County (where Louisville's MSA is
centered) is decidedly blue.

------
grannyg00se
I'm not so sure about the claim of working anywhere in the world. Decent
internet connectivity is not that widespread.

------
andreipop
Where did you find stats on average cost of living above national average?

------
jcdavison
Awesome article.

------
mikec3k
There's no way I'd live anywhere outside of the bay area. I love being in a
city and not having to worry about the policies of a red state government.

~~~
jarek
So, you're not a fan of Seattle, Portland, NYC, or moving outside the U.S.,
then?

------
ehosca
bourbon... that's all i need to know ...

------
michaelochurch
I like this idea a lot, but here's the issue that I find. For most projects, I
get to a point where I actually care (sometimes that happens _way_ too fast)
about the health of the project, which means that I want to be in a decision-
making role-- not necessarily "management" but some sort of creative or
technical leadership. Getting that seems to require in-person contact. It
requires trust so it rarely happens when people haven't shared physical space.

What you're paying when you suffer Manhattan or Bay Area rent is the career
benefit (?) that it confers to live in such a place. You may be overpaying;
you probably are. I don't think anyone has good data on this, which is why the
extortionist mega-landlords who set prices (by limiting supply through NIMBY
regulations) can get away with so much. No one has a good handle on what it's
actually worth to live and work in a star city. I think a lot of people pile
into star cities because they're driven by FUD and FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out).

I don't know what "the right answer" is but I can see the appeal of living in
these high-rent areas. It really sucks, though, because we're in an uncanny
valley where people are just mobile enough to stratify by ambition (with a lot
of noise in the mix; I am not saying that people who don't live in expensive
places aren't ambitious, but the correlation exists) in their 20s, but not
enough to render location obsolete.

~~~
dxbydt
Ok, so I piled into star city purely because of FOMO. What are you going to do
? FOMO is real. You sit in Charlotte and say "I want to write cutting edge
machine learning code in Scala", you get back emails from Managing Directors
who make 400K saying "you've misspelt Scale as Scala" ( true, I swear ). The
level of ignorance outside of SF/SV is staggering. Its ok if you want to do
generic bread and butter crud apps in ruby/js/whatever, but if you want meaty
sizeable R&D type work, you are not going to find it in Kentucky and the
midwest outside of some very small pockets. FOMO is very real.

~~~
michaelochurch
What makes you think that non-PhDs (except for the politically skilled) are
more eligible for "meaty sizeable R&D type work" in Silicon Valley?

You may be right. I have no idea. I'm not in SF/SV. I will say that I'm not
convinced that VC-istan has any real edge over the rest of the business world.
It's just better at marketing itself.

FOMO is real but it's not only about geography. There are just very few
companies that will pay for anything interesting. It's not like every 22-year-
old in Silicon Valley gets to work on cutting-edge machine learning
algorithms.

Ultimately, it's hard to get decent work. I don't know if moving to an
otherwise overpriced location has decent ROI. I just don't have the data to
answer that question.

~~~
jumby
"I'm not convinced that VC-istan has any real edge over the rest of the
business world. It's just better at marketing itself."

It's going to be funny when everyone starts figuring that out!

~~~
michaelochurch
2013: Flight to Substance?

