

Ask HN: 25 year old web hacker considering in person San Francisco job hunt - greyhat

Hi HN,<p>I'm playing around with the idea of traveling to SF to try to find a job at a tech startup, and I have several questions.<p>Does the job market in SF live up to the hype?<p>How receptive are SF startups to people either dropping by or calling to setup meetings in town?<p>Is a week enough time to make the trip worthwhile, get a feel for the area, and meet with a lot of companies?<p>If I go the AirBNB route, what neighborhood should I try and stay in for best walk-ability to the startup heavy areas?  (Alternatively, anyone want to rent their couch to me for a week? =)<p>Thanks for reading! Also, any other tips or links you want to throw in would be much appreciated. Things like http://paulstamatiou.com/atlanta-to-san-francisco-moving-cross-country and http://al3x.net/2009/10/04/so-youre-moving-to-san-francisco.html
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Levi
I just recently had to find a job. I started looking on Monday and accepted a
job by Wednesday afternoon.

If you are interested in working with a recruiter let me know and I can put
you in touch with the person that helped me. I won't name drop but if you
would like me to put you in touch I will be more than happy to.

Questions: \- What technology stack(s) are you comfortable with? \- What type
of development are you interested in the most?

Suggestions: \- Do not just take a job for the sake of moving out here. A
means to an end is simply not enough in the bay. You need a life too and that
costs $$. Make sure you take a job that will fulfill you financially and
professionally. (I moved out here 2 years ago).

\- Get in touch with a recruiting agency about 1 week before you arrive. They
will fill up your schedule with interviews.

\- Stay anywhere you can that is cheap and near Caltrain. You'll probably have
to travel all over the peninsula for interviews so a central location does not
apply.

\- Check Meetup.com and other user groups of interest (if you are into Node,
find the node user group meeting in the bay and be there). Fill your evenings
with networking events so you can meet people. Once people hear your story
they will take a vested interest in your success and they will _help_ you find
interviews and network. This I cannot stress enough. Use your personality and
make people want you to move out here. A lot of people are transplants and
will go out of the way to help a fellow transplant out.

Other than that - good luck. I think 1 week is enough for preliminary
interviews but I would plan for 2 weeks if you can. With 2 weeks I am
confident you will find an offer.

Regards

~~~
greyhat
I would quite like to talk to your recruiter, my email is brianfarr@gmail.com.
Thanks for responding!

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ndcrandall
So I stayed visited a friend last summer in San Jose. I decided that during
that week, while he worked, that I would go out and see for myself how
"dropping by" startups would work out. I was surprised by the reactions of
some of the companies. Here is what happened when I did this, but remember
this was not in San Francisco, but south (IE Mountain View, San Jose, etc.).

Established startups that were > 20 employees were very hard to talk to. They
had recruiters working for them to find and hire people. Those recruiters were
pretty much booked and didn't have any openings in their schedules. I was
often referred to their website to apply and then wait to be contacted.

The smaller startups, those who had only a few cubicles / people, took my
contact information and were going to pass it along. They didn't have
recruiters (they are expensive) so they did their own recruiting. They also
had places to apply online in which they referred me to.

In all I found it very difficult to just stop in and grab someone's attention.
I will be moving out there at the end of this summer and hope to work on my
startup. If that goes sour then I will definitely do things differently to
find a job, more along the lines of what devs1010 suggested. I found more
opportunities just talking to people with similar interests than just showing
up in person to random startups.

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acoyfellow
I have nothing to contribute to this thread, but am anxious to see the outcome
of it.

I am a 25 year old just finishing up college, and am jumping right into the
startup world the moment I graduate.. from Philly.

I'm curious to see how well received your Ask HN becomes, because everything I
know about Silicon Valley just though the web. I'd enjoy hearing about your
journey how you make it out there!

~~~
greyhat
Thanks, I will definitely try to updated with the results and everything I
learned, so other east coasters like me can have the chance, if they want it.
Good luck!

------
devs1010
As someone who moved back to the Bay Area recently, I spent a lot of time
applying online, I mostly went out my way to avoid 3rd party recruiters as I'm
grown sick of dealing with them. I wasn't out here to go in person like you
are suggesting but I found that being persistent, going to company websites
directly and applying was lining me up a steady stream of phone interviews.
From there, its a matter of getting their interest and then they may pay for
you to come out (the company that hired me covered my air fare). If you go the
3rd party recruiter route, you are most likely going to be spending a lot of
time talking on the phone to these people having "fluff" conversations as they
really don't know anything about programming and they are just grasping at
straws trying to place you somewhere to get a commission. If you can find one
that seems decent, then go with them, however be prepared to have to filter
out some of these recruiters as many may be a complete waste of your time.

------
jerickson
SOMA is the best spot to stay. Also, email me! Yammer is hiring and we'd love
to have you come in for lunch while you're in town.

Jeffrey Erickson UX/UI Designer @ Yammer Jerickson@yammer-inc.com

~~~
greyhat
Thanks, and I emailed you!

