
The Case for Working in Silicon Valley and Living in the Rust Belt - pbhowmic
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-19/the-case-for-working-in-silicon-valley-and-living-in-the-rust-belt
======
whack
Be careful what you wish for. In a world where physical proximity no longer
matters, American programmers earning 6 figures, will have to compete against
programmers from South America/Europe/Asia, all of whom earn significantly
less than 6 figures.

There currently exists a massive salary gap between equally qualified
programmers, living in different regions of the world. Eliminating the
physical-proximity perks, will produce a massive regression to the mean.

~~~
ryandrake
In other words, if your job can be done from home or from Arkansas, it can be
done from India.

~~~
jeffbush
I'd note that tech pundits and journalists have been saying for 20 years that
many US jobs would move to India and other countries, but offshoring, while
common, hasn't really made a dent in the US tech sector. It's interesting to
think about why.

~~~
mhotchen
I set up an offshore team of four in India some years back. Two of the
developers ended up being lackluster and let go, but two of them continued on
as they were fairly decent. Even so the cultural difference was significant
and it was difficult to manage them. I don't think it was their fault, they
just had a very different views on what they considered was a completed task,
how they went about asking for further requirements, etc. Whilst it was worth
having them, there was a surprising and hidden overhead in cost for the
cultural impact, as well as timezone issues.

Later in my career I worked with a team from Hong Kong as well, the cultural
gap was less significant and they were able to work well with the management
style given. We still had timezone issues (moreso since I'm from the UK which
is further from HK than from India), but because they interpreted tickets in
the same way and had similar views on what the definition of done was things
were far more harmonious.

Communication is a huge factor in remote teams, and whilst there are lots of
tools to aid it, communication styles across cultures can be very different
which can cause a lot of friction.

~~~
whack
I'm guessing that none of the workers you're referring to are IIT graduates. I
agree that American developers face little competition from the middle/lower
end of developers in India. But the top developers in India (eg, the IIT grads
and Google-India devs), in terms of raw talent and job performance, would
easily out-compete the average American developer, while still being happy
with a lower salary. This is where the physical-proximity-perks that American
developers currently enjoy, really make a big difference.

~~~
mhotchen
Yeah these definitely weren't top tier developers. Even so I was happy with
the quality of the code on the two we retained, it was everything that goes
around it that I struggled with. For example they wouldn't ask questions or
admit that they're struggling with something. I saw a lot of this in the
interviews as well, you would ask a question like "do you know what X is" and
they would say yes, but then sit in silence. So you probe "well what is it?"
and they would go "I'm not completely sure" or just try to make something up.

I definitely agree with you though. We interviewed one person that was
exceptionally good: very experienced, good comms, ticked all the boxes. His
salary expectation was around a junior dev salary in the UK, which
unfortunately was too high for management who had set a budget per developer,
rather than thinking it was worth hiring him and one other instead of four
lukewarm devs.

------
jeffbush
I had to chuckle a little that this mentions Grand Rapids. I grew up there and
moved to Silicon Valley 18 years ago. I hated it there: brutal long winters
(Google "lake effect"), hot humid summers, mosquitos, and a socially
conservative monoculture. I definitely understand people's frustration with
the real estate situation around here, but there's more to an area than just
jobs and houses.

~~~
goda90
Some people enjoy the snow, green everywhere, no water restrictions, and less
traffic. Sure mosquitos suck, but so does having everything be more expensive.
There definitely is more to it than jobs and houses, so I chose to return home
to the Midwest to get paid a little less(though not much in terms of cost of
living) than I would at a Silicon Valley firm.

~~~
jeffbush
Yeah, there are millions of people who live in the midwest who obviously
disagree with me. :)

------
jaggederest
If you draw a circle 50 miles in diameter around LA, SF, NYC, Boston, and DC:
basically anywhere outside of those circles in the mainland US is pretty
reasonable. It's not just the rust belt, really. You can live in Miami,
Seattle or Chicago and do just fine.

~~~
ghaff
For that matter, I live about 40 miles outside of Boston/Cambridge and housing
prices are pretty reasonable. Yeah, the commute in is a pain if you work in
the city (although there's decent commuter rail service). But if you don't
have to work in the city (I don't), there's reasonable housing within a
distance that lets you go into the city for an evening.

I think some of those other locations (SF in particular) probably have a
bigger radius but a lot of the angst about housing prices turns out to apply
to very specific urban locales. And new grads were complaining about the price
of crappy Manhattan apartments at least since the 80s.

~~~
marchenko
Commuting outside of areas well-served by public transportation is a huge
detriment to quality-of-life. Those extra hours really add up, especially
during the shorter days of winter. The advantage of moving to a second or
third city is that you can still enjoy the amenities of an urban or semi-urban
setting at a lower price point. It doesn't even have to be in the Rust Belt
(although personally I like Pittsburgh, Columbus, and Cleveland a great deal)
- Raleigh and Charlotte are still affordable for people who like that area and
climate. And there are any number of small towns in VT, NH, CO, UT, upstate
NY, or central MA for the outdoorsy who don't need an urban setting

~~~
ghaff
That assumes you like cities. I don't dislike cities in general but I also
like my rural property. I honestly don't see a particular advantage to small
towns. What I like about cities is things like theater, good restaurants, and
related culture which typically take significant scale.

Not sure what extra hours you're talking about. I have a modest (25 min or so)
commute when I go into the (suburban/exurban) office and frequently work
remotely. I can't say I miss depending on public transit though I use it when
I am in a city.

~~~
hyperpape
You don't have to go far from some of the mid-sized cities to get a relatively
rural experience. I'm 7 miles (15 minutes) from Red Hat's building in Raleigh,
and 1 mile from a corn field. My house is definitely suburban, not rural, and
with the way growth in my town is going, that corn field will be gone in a few
years, but there's plenty of rural land just a little further out.

~~~
Amygaz
I wouldn't place Raleigh in the same league as NY, LA, SF, WDC, Chicago and
Boston. These have 5-fold or more the population density than Raleigh.

But the distance metric would stick: if you can leave ~7 miles (15 min)
outside Raleigh and afford a good land, it compares with Boston area (5-fold
pop. density), with 35 miles outside for a house on 1 acre land, and about 75
minutes commute during rush hour (would drop to 35 minutes outside rush hour).

~~~
eitally
But I don't think most people get 5x the benefit from living in Boston vs
Raleigh. That said, I strongly suspect the greater Raleigh-Durham area is
going to dwarf Boston in population in another 15-20 years. It's been growing
like gangbusters, honestly since about 1980, and although property has become
quite a bit more expensive, it's still nothing like the historically dense
urban centers. For example, I'm in the process of selling my 4300sqft house in
a beautiful neighborhood in Cary for $525k so I can move to San Jose (into a
1700sqft hovel I paid $1.35m for). If an expected salary for an experienced
tech worker in the RDU area is in the $125-150k range (say, 10+ years exp),
and is in the $175-220k range in the SFBA, that money goes MUCH further in a
second tier metro like Raleigh-Durham.

------
jeffbush
While I've successfully managed distributed teams (and there are a number of
companies that do it heavily), working remotely is not a panacea. There is
definitely something to be said for face-to-face communications. People miss
out on a lot of hallway conversations when they aren't in the same place.
There are a lot of other tribal dynamics that come into play when you separate
people, even when they're at opposite ends of the same building.

Even a company like Google with global presence and an amazing proprietary
internal video chat system generally discourages remote working and often
defrags teams (reorganizes them so they are all in the same geography). And
while it may be possible to get your current employer to let you move out of
state, many employers are going to be reluctant to hire someone who is already
remote and is an unknown quantity in terms of output. This potentially limits
job mobility, one of the perks of living in a tech hub.

------
toomanythings4
In 1992, a friend got a job in the valley and I visited him when I was out
there visiting the HQ for my company. He asked me to go with him to check out
a condo he was thinking of buying. Remember that these are 1992 prices.

The two-bedroom place we looked at was just like one of my first apartments.
When the agent said it was $250K, I almost fell on the floor. My wife and I
had just bought our first house, which was about three times bigger as this
condo with a large front and back yard in a nice middle class neighborhood,
for $80K in St. Louis.

A few years ago, I saw him again. He has never owned a house but he now lives
in a much nicer condo for $1.25 million. However, that condo just looks like a
much nicer, updated version of that same apartment. He could have lived
cheaper at an upscale, full service hotel in my town.

~~~
lordCarbonFiber
And the difference is you're stuck living in a "nice middle class
neighborhood" with a ton of space you probably don't need. For many people
moving to cities the value of the area is worth many times the value of the
space.

I wouldn't trade my nyc studio for a McMansion back in bumfuck SC no matter
how much you offered me; and I think there must be a large population that
shares that sentiment.

~~~
douche
That's really the tradeoff. Some people like trees and grass and a modicum of
peace and quiet and privacy. Other people like to live in the caves of steel,
with a seething mass of humanity flowing all around.

I think you can guess where I stand on the matter. You couldn't pay me enough
money to relocate to Manhattan or San Francisco.

~~~
hx87
> Other people like to live in the caves of steel, with a seething mass of
> humanity flowing all around.

Funnily enough, that's what every suburban Walmart feels like.

------
drewg123
I escaped a year ago & live just outside of Richmond VA now. We relocated back
to the east coast to be near family, and because of my wife's career. I have
to travel to the bay area at least quarterly, but it has worked out to be 6 to
7 times per year.

Given no other constraints, I'd never pick Richmond, as air travel from here
to SJC/SFO is not great. I'd much rather live an easy commute from a major
airport with direct flights to SJC or SFO. As it is, I can drive 2 (or 4 with
traffic) hours to IAD and fly direct with a decent schedule, or I can fly from
RIC and change planes with a fairly lousy schedule.

The cost of living is so much lower between real estate costs and state taxes
that the economics are much better. The day I changed my address from Mountain
View to Richmond in WorkDay was like getting a raise. Even if I was a
consultant and had to pay for my own travel, the economics would still work
out to be quite a better.

~~~
vvanders
Yup, similar story here. We moved for family + get out of the city. Cost of
Living was something we knew was going to be lower but man, is it lower.

It takes some adjustment and I'm sure that remote work isn't for everyone but
if you can find a team that it works for it really feels a bit like the
future.

------
jphillipsio
I live in Michigan and work for a company in SV. I love it in general but feel
like it's pretty unlikely that I'd be able to find similar situation if I were
to lose my job. It's not the best position to be in.

~~~
orware
Exactly this.

I live in Southern California, but not in San Diego or LA where the prevalence
of some sort of other tech work might be somewhat possible. Instead I live in
Imperial County (bottom right of California).

Here, all of the decent paying IT work is in the County, State, Federal jobs
available in the area, but this doesn't really represent
Programming/Development work very well since those are even fewer amongst
these organizations.

There are no real private software companies and while I'd like to start
something on my own and go full time down the road, there's still tons of gaps
in how that would look, and potential financial risk.

So where I'm at right now locally is really the best place I could be in.

But...I worked at eBay in San Jose for a time and I had two coworkers, one who
aws a UX guy who worked out of Austin and came into the office about once a
month in San Jose, and the other was a developer who didn't want to leave
Australia so they flew him in every now and again too.

I really wished at the time that they could offer something similar to me,
allowing me to stay down here in Imperial County (mainly to be close to
family) but still get to come up to the Bay Area and work in the office every
now and again (a nice mix of both worlds).

On the one hand, I haven't gotten any job offers from any companies lately,
but additionally I would have the same concern as jphillipsio...if for
whatever reason the company that hired me and allowed me to work remotely
decided to let me go...how easy would it be to get another remote job with
another SV company? If that didn't pan out, what would be the likelihood of me
getting anything remotely similar locally?

Lot of things people have to worry about in these situations. Stability isn't
always important...but it definitely becomes a big factor once you have a
family or other responsibilities you can't just easily stop providing for.

~~~
ryandrake
These are great points. I'd move back to small-town Florida in a heart beat.
Lower cost of living, no state income tax, 1/10th of my commute time, sun year
round, more land/house/space--there is a lot to love! Too much 'opportunity
risk', though. If I got a job at the town's single tech company, or even that
unicorn remote job, what happens when I lose it? I'll tell you what happens: I
have to uproot my family and move again. Too much of a risk. So I bite my lip
and continue to live in the Bay Area (and the rat race that comes with it).

------
epoxyhockey
Many companies will want to adjust your salary downward if you are moving from
the Bay Area to a lower cost of living location. This article seems to gloss
over that fact.

------
amyjess
The main reason I'd consider remote is that it's possible circumstances would
force me to move out of Texas next year. If that happens, I'll be in a
situation where I'd need to find both housing and a job in another city ASAP.
I simply don't have the vacation time to waste travelling across the country
to interview, and I have serious issues with flying anyway. It'd be much
easier if I could get a job working remotely (without having to travel to
interview) and _then_ move to the town of my choice (which will almost
certainly be a suburb of either LA or Chicago).

------
FLUX-YOU
Personally I wouldn't be comfortable if I had to persuade them to let me work
remotely to take a mortgage when the company has access to so much local
talent. Maybe I'm reading that wrong, but if it wasn't an issue for them,
there wouldn't be any persuasion: "Hey, can I work remote from now on?",
"Sure!"

~~~
simmons
I seem to be one of these "work for the valley from outside the valley" types,
and I, too, would be nervous taking out a mortgage in an area where I might be
relying on that one job. I resisted the temptation to move to some remote
mountain hamlet, and instead sought some insurance by buying a home in my
favorite non-SV tech area. (Although its been 13 years since I've done any
work for a local company.)

Yet, I know people who do invest in the only-remote lifestyle, despite the
stress when they are in between jobs. They must have nerves of steel.

------
raverbashing
So, people who build services for the internet finally found out it exists?
And that if you work with github/slack/jira/several other services you already
can work remotely?

Really?!

~~~
sotojuan
It's ironic that so many people build services to "connect" people over long
distances and find it amazing to find out you can work over long distances.

~~~
TarpitCarnivore
Ironic is applying for a job at a company building one of those services and
being told they don't offer remote positions.

------
zappo2938
Don't try and establish yourself in the tech industry outside of a tech hub.

~~~
ghaff
Do you seriously believe that glib statement? That if you don't move to the
Bay area or a reasonable image of it you might as well become a fast food
worker or whatever? Yes, there are certain advantages to industry job density
but I actually find it rather bad advice to frame a career in tech as
inherently depending upon living in a half-dozen or so cities--that can't
begin to accommodate everyone.

~~~
zappo2938
Yes, I strongly believe that if a person is starting in tech and not
established with a reputation, they should move to a tech hub. It seems like a
lot of people are going to downvote my opinion, however, I am sure that each
and every person who does downvote this opinion lived in or near a tech hub
when they started.

~~~
ghaff
I suppose it partly depends on how broadly you define "tech hub." If that
includes 20-30 places worldwide, I'm not going to violently disagree. If it
means Bay Area + Portland + Seattle + ...? Then I will. Especially because
"tech" isn't limited to web/social/mobile.

~~~
zappo2938
If you want to work on a yacht, you have to move to Fort Lauderdale until you
are established. There is no way around it. You can be a doctor anywhere, but
if you are going to do medical research you have to be in New Orleans, New
York Boston, DC / Maryland, or Chicago, maybe the Cleveland Clinic. If you are
Marine Biologist you are living in Woods Hole, Monterey, or La Jolla. If you
are doing aerospace engineering you are going to be living in Virginia,
Southern California, or Washington.

It is stupid to think that someone who wants to do 'web/social/mobile' can get
a decent start outside of a place without lots of other people doing it. I
don't think that there is anyone on Hacker News who can say they succeeded
getting their start in the industry outside of a 'software' tech hub.

If someone wants to be a serious software engineer they are going to have to
commit to living in SF, DC, Boston, Austin, or Portland at some point in the
beginning. It is disingenuous to tell people who are starting it is otherwise.
Part of the commitment of being a software engineer is living in a place with
lots of other software engineers for a little while.

It is not fair to anyone starting out to say they don't have to move to where
there is a lot of activity. It is so unfair.

~~~
amyjess
> If someone wants to be a serious software engineer they are going to have to
> commit to living in SF, DC, Boston, Austin, or Portland at some point in the
> beginning.

Well, given that I've never lived outside of Dallas and my career is well
established, your claim is patently false.

> someone who wants to do 'web/social/mobile'

That is an awfully narrow definition of software engineering. I've never
worked with web, social, or mobile, and I have quite a bit of experience as a
software engineer under my belt. I've done platform software work for a
telecom, platform software work for a robotics company, and NLP programming
for a defense contractor in the past, and I currently work on network
monitoring software for another telecom.

