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Ask HN: Moving Out of Silicon Valley because of housing? Where to?
191 points by Apocryphon on March 8, 2016 | hide | past | favorite | 383 comments
Has anyone moved out of SF/SV to work in a different tech city? If so, where?

Currently Seattle, New York, Austin, Portland, and Boston/Cambridge seem to be the hot destinations as secondary tech hubs. But their costs of living are likely climbing as well, especially Seattle and Austin. How about Raleigh, how's their startup scene? Or Chicago, Denver, New Orleans, or Nashville?

Not to mention cities outside of the U.S.




Hijacking this a bit: for you folks who've relocated, how did you handle getting connected to the tech community in your new city, and eventually finding a job there? Did you find something beforehand (if so, how), or just start interviewing once you're on the ground and established?

I've contemplated this before, and make a point to check out jobs in other cities when I'm job hunting, but it's hard to ignore the local recruiters who just send me local jobs out of the blue so I always end up staying where I am. I'm currently in LA, and am somewhat interested in relocating to somewhere with a similar/warmer climate, lower cost of housing, equivalent/better outdoor recreation opportunities, and not-awful startup/software scene. I've considered Denver, SLC, Bend, and Phoenix pretty strongly, but haven't found anything that lines up yet.


I've always dreamed of picking a new city, and then hunting for a job there until I found one. I did this once years ago, and the hardest part was just flying out for interviews (from the old city to the new one) -- and then obviously all the logistics of moving. But you only have to do it once.

If you know at least one person in your new city, it can really clear a lot of the early confusion. (I once thought about posting a Craigslist ad offering a free dinner to anyone who'd also come and talk to me about the city...) And Meetups are a great way to find people who share your interests, whether it's tech or a certain sport or even just going out to movies....


I found a job before I moved. I simply searched for jobs in Bend and was lucky enough to find an advertised job on indeed.com that matched my skills. The benefit of finding a job beforehand is you may receive a relocation package to help with the move. I think your current living situation is only a hindrance if you're unable to travel for an interview.


Guys at teleport.org are solving exactly that problem by pooling tens and tens of data sources for living costs, transportation, crime, recreation etc. Check them out.


I am biased but I liked Chicago. You can get a good house for a decent price. If you want to raise a family though, inside the city schools suck - you have to play a lottery or try to test into a good school or pay for private.

That said you won't find startup jobs like SF, a lot of the top paying jobs like NYC are in finance.


Grew up and lived in Chicago most of my life. Moved to the Bay Area in 2013.

Key things to note about Chicago: - The weather is all extremes (extreme cold, extreme hot, extreme humidity) barring a few nice weeks during spring and fall

- The government is beyond horrible (just check this stat on the conviction/jail rate for our mayors[1])

- From what friends who still live there tell me, the crime has only been getting worse, even in nicer neighborhoods

- Traffic is miserable and while there is decent public transit, it all goes to hell during a sports game (try taking the Red Line home during a Cubs game...I'd have to let five trains pass before I could squish myself into a car that was literally packed to the door)

- House prices may be a bit cheaper than the Bay Area, but pay sucks in general. Wages seem to have not climbed much at all in recent years

- Fully agree about the schools. I was fortunate enough to go to Latin, but the lottery is really scary in terms of what you could end up with school-wise

While I have lots of family and friends there, and will always have a place in my heart for Chicago, I didn't realize how much it drained me emotionally and physically to live there until I moved to the Peninsula. Now I'm not constantly watching over my shoulder when I walk around my neighborhood, and I can be outside for most of the year. That last part was huge as I realized that sun is really critical for me to be happy and I wasn't getting enough in Chicago. While my overall Cost of Living is much MUCH higher out here, I'm ultimately happier, and that is what matters. Plus, if I ever were to move back somewhere cheaper, having a high salary is a great point to start negotiating from even if you need to go down a little.

[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/30/illinois-governors-...


>- From what friends who still live there tell me, the crime has only been getting worse, even in nicer neighborhoods >- Traffic is miserable and while there is decent public transit, it all goes to hell during a sports game (try taking the Red Line home during a Cubs game...I'd have to let five trains pass before I could squish myself into a car that was literally packed to the door)

Solution don't live along the redline.

The services offered by some of the CPS schools far exceed what you'd get elsewhere.


> "Solution don't live along the redline"

That's an easy statement to make that conveniently ignores the fact that the Redline is one of the major transit lines in the city because it goes to where there are a ton of jobs. I was fortunate in that I could also take the Brown line at some points when I lived there, and there are plentiful bus options, but the reality is that when there's a Cubs game, good luck commuting home if you live on the North Side, regardless of where you work.


Hmm, meh, I feel like you can say a lot of pretty similar things about San Francisco and the Bay Area too. Let me defend Chicago with some counterpoints!

- Weather: Sure, SF Bay Area wins here in terms of what you might think of as regularly experienced weather, but it is not without its extremes. Let's recall that most of California, including surrounding SF Bay Area, has been in an extreme drought for the past several years [1], threatening local agriculture and water supply. Also, SF is famous for extremely devastating earthquakes that happen every so often [2] (though, you may not categorize seismic activity as weather, but still a natural occurrence sort of thing).

- Government: SF has its fair share of recent government corruption [3, 4] as well as historical seediness/lawlessness [5], not unlike some of Chicago's history.

- Traffic: Personally, I think the Bay Area has worse traffic than Chicago. The data in this report [6] seems to agree, ranking SF/Oakland as #3 worst in the country and San Jose as #5, whereas Chicago is #8 on the list. And, really, waiting on a few trains to pass for a sports game or special event is not unique to Chicago. Try taking the BART across the bay for a Giants game, Super Bowl 50, Bay to Breakers, Pride Parade, etc. I mean, every city's transportation system hits its limit with big events/gatherings. So what? It's part of living in a city that you learn to accept.

- Wages: Can't debate it. Chicago software engineers, making average of $76k/yr [9], do get paid less than SF, at $110k/yr [10]. But, also consider that income tax in Illinois is a flat 3.75% [11], whereas California's income tax for that bracket is 9.3% [12]. 5.5% more tax in CA is not small. (Federal income tax will also be lower in Chicago with the lower salary, but I haven't looked up those numbers.) And, let's consider cost of living more in general. This handy website [13] says that "A salary of $76,000 in Chicago, Illinois should increase to $178,313 in San Francisco, California", which is mainly due to housing being 428% more expensive in SF than in Chicago. That says a lot! You might interpret that as the $110k/yr average salary in SF actually gets you less quality of living than the $76k/yr in Chicago (according to this website). Or something like that. Don't know, but my housing quality in SF is twice as much for half the space as compared to what I had in Chicago. (What am I doing here?!)

- Crime: According to this (presumably reputable) data [7, 8] Chicago has been steadily improving in terms of crime over the past more than a decade. SF has been kind of steady, and, according to that data, is actually worse per capita than Chicago. I didn't expect that at first. Chicago is a much bigger city and than SF, so that kind of helps to dilute crime among the population, I suppose. Anyway, my anecdotal evidence from friends tell me that it is improving. We must have different kinds of Chicago friends. Or maybe we should trust data instead?

- Schools: SF public schools have a lottery system too [14]. I will grant, though, that CPS does have a lot of ongoing battles with the city and state for funding, like recent closings and strikes. That stuff sucks because it's usually the poorest schools that suffer the most. Ultimately, this is a bigger societal problem than us engineers debating about where the best place for us to live is on a web forum. (Probability of existential crisis increasing...)

Okay. Got that off my chest. I love Chicago. I hope you and others do too still. I may move back soon. Writing this stuff down has, well, made me think twice about wtf I'm doing out here on the West Coast...

1. http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/Home/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx?... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Loma_Prieta_earthquake 3. http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2016/01/22/3-former-fundraisers-for... 4. http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/I-am-guilty-final-S-F-co... 5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbary_Coast,_San_Francisco 6. http://247wallst.com/special-report/2015/08/28/10-cities-wit... 7. http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Chicago-Illinois.html 8. http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-San-Francisco-Californi... 9. https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/chicago-software-engineer... 10. https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/san-francisco-software-en... 11. http://www.bankrate.com/finance/taxes/state-taxes-illinois.a... 12. http://www.bankrate.com/finance/taxes/state-taxes-california... 13. http://www.bestplaces.net/cost-of-living/chicago-il/san-fran... 14. http://www.sfusd.edu/en/enroll-in-sfusd-schools/how-to-apply...


Appreciate you bringing data to the discussion.

Worth clarifying is that I live in the Peninsula, and there's a ton of factors for why my circumstances might differ from yours. Crime out here is way lower than in SF for example. Ultimately there's pros and cons a plenty to both places, and ones priorities ultimately dictate the weighting of them.

For me, weather and culture was huge, as was the crime. The crime piece likely could have been solved if I moved to a nicer suburb, but ultimately that was lower on the list.

Like I said--Chicago will always have a place in my heart, but I've found that I'm ultimately much happier living in the Bay Area, despite the higher cost of living. I just wish I'd realized it sooner so I could have moved out here and bought five years ago.


Pricing for housing is definitely cheaper in Chicago but the pay sucks. It's not uncommon for lead-engineers to make < 6-figures. Tech is definitely not a priority in that city which may or may not be a bad thing.


Getting 6 figs is not hard in Chicago. Getting 200k is hard.


Definitely agree here. I moved back to Chicago from SF to be near family now that I have a little one.

I was lucky enough to keep my job working remotely for an awesome company in SF, but I can tell even from the LinkedIn spam how different the job market is here.


There is a vibrant startup culture in NYC. Finance jobs may pay more but probably not worth it due to culture and longer hours, more issues/rules around security, etc.


I mean Chicago has tons and tons of startups, and a "startup culture". For example http://www.1871.com/. But finding startups that money similar to normal companies? Not super easy.

NYC startups even if they paid more, COL is 3x what Chicago is and not that far from SF... so seems a bad place to go if your goal is to "buy a house"


Well in my personal experience the salary of senior devs in very early-stage startups i've been involved with in NYC get around get about 150K + options (text processing, machine learning, AI-stuff). With 2 incomes and some savings put aside, certainly its affordable, much more so than SF from what i've seen. The dev salary here may be higher because they need to complete with wall street firms, and there are overall less very senior devs in NYC compared to SF.


150k is renting a small apartment in NYC though.


Maybe if you live in Manhattan. If you live out in Bayridge, you can get a 750+ sqft 1-bedroom apartment for $1450/mo. It takes me roughly 35 minutes getting to Soho on the R/N train from 86th st [which is near the end of the R train]


Maybe everyone leaving should just agree to locate somewhere that isn't some major city.

We can all go there & start a new tech scene. How about Wyoming? Or Montana? Utah?

What I mean is we should go somewhere beautiful. Somewhere we can take walks outdoors in between coding sprints.

Why walks? It's been scientifically shown that walking helps you remember things better. Also sitting too long shortens your lifespan.

Just some thoughts.


Utah already has a tech scene - not as happening as SV or even Denver, but there is one, in Orem and Salt Lake.

You've got ski resorts 45 minutes from town - or hiking, fishing, and mountain biking in the summer. The quality of snow makes most other ski places look pretty bad, too. (They call it the greatest snow on earth for a reason.) You've got pretty sane living expenses, including housing, at least compared to SV/SF. And you've got... uh...

Well, you've got a rather dominant religious culture, especially in the Orem area. (Most everywhere has coffee available in the lunch/break room. That existed in Orem, too, but in Orem, it felt like religious tolerance.) Forget smoking a joint; you can have trouble finding a stiff drink.

Oh, and if you like rain, this may not be your place. 15-20 inches a year, counting the water equivalent of snow in the winter.


What do techies do in Utah for after-work social gatherings, Mormon Bridge? I should know since I come from Utah valley myself, but I got out to Seattle as soon as I could and there weren't many peers into programming for a living while I was in school there. I don't drink but my current company has a huge alcohol culture, kegs-in-the-office, weekly-happy-hours sort of thing, and as far as I can tell this is pretty normal everywhere in San Francisco and Seattle (such that I'm not even sure if we're that extreme). I enjoy sit-down dinners with coworkers but if I were back in Utah I have a feeling that heading up the canyon and cooking some meat over a fire with some light wandering wouldn't be out of the question...


Join me in Myrtle Beach, SC! Cost of Living is ridiculously low, right by the ocean, big city amenities, due to the short summer tourist season. Great weather, inexpensive flights to Northeastern Cities. I outline some of this on the (now out of date) http://WhyNotTheBeach.com site.


That sounds great. I pick Bend, Oregon.


As you point out, there's a lot of options; you've only really even scratched the surface. Some guidance on your interests (both professional and recreational/social), skills, and desires would be helpful.

I sometimes wonder, do people think that the rule is that you have to post an Ask HN, then you're not allowed to interact? Go ahead, interact!

For that matter, if you've got a similar question but you're not the OP, post your own answers to my questions and see what develops.


Thanks for the consideration! Right now I'm mostly curious than actually planning on moving anytime soon, so I was asking for general recommendations. I'm in mobile development and I'm a single twenty-something male. I think generally any city with a mature enough software industry that has need for app developers would be acceptable. For the sort of "hacker environment", it's good if there are meetups/local dev scenes.

But in general, I think the criteria are:

1) Affordable cost of living 2) Access to variety of software jobs (big corporate vs. small startups both present) 3) Reasonable commute 4) Vibrant city life (nightlife, food/music/arts scene) OR easy access to outdoor activities

I think 2) and 4) are the reasons why most people flock to S.F. and stay, despite the lack of 1) and 3).


Salt Lake City has 1, 2, and 3. 4, not so much.


SLC is 45 minutes away from some of the best ski resorts on the planet: Alta, Snowbird, Deer Valley, Park City... If you like skiing, it counts as outdoors!!


> I sometimes wonder, do people think that the rule is that you have to post an Ask HN, then you're not allowed to interact? Go ahead, interact!

It's only been an hour; OP could just be taking a lunch break.


Indeed. It just seems to be the pattern, both here and on Reddit... I'm actually surprised when the poster engages, because it's that rare.


It's also possible that there wasn't much to respond to. People are just listing recommendations; I think yours was the only comment I'd read so far that really warranted a follow-up.


Pittsburgh. Housing prices are ~20% below the national average and we have a growing technology sector with CMU and offices for Google, Apple, and Uber employees. Some startups here, like Duolingo. This is technically the rust belt, but you can still find "big city" amenities with a small town feel.


I second Pittsburgh. I moved from Cambridge to Pittsburgh 10 years ago after my first child was born. I have had no trouble finding interesting projects to work on at decent pay. I live in a great neighborhood (Point Breeze) and my 3 kids go to a good school.

Cambridge was great when I was single, but after I got married and had a kid, it didn't look that great. Once I started looking for a place to raise a family, the only affordable options had killer commutes. Pittsburgh is great for families. I highly recommend it.


Been in Milwaukee for the past year and I have to say -- Milwaukee is underrated. We came from Boston to do an accelerator, gener8tor, in Madison (also a great city worth looking at) and ended up here.

* Cost of living is low and quality of life is high. * People know how to have a good time and there's always something to do (sports are huge - Packers, Brewers, Bucks, college sports, etc). * Summer is AMAZING. There's an incredible number of festivals going on (with summerfest at the forefront). * Commutes are super short. * Lake Michigan is awesome. * Chicago is only 75 minutes away by train or car. * The startup scene is on the rise.

The downsides are:

* Cold winters (comparable to Boston with less snow but colder winds). * While not necessary, a car is desirable. * The tech scene is relatively small. (But growing!)


If coming here as a software developer, something to keep in mind is that a majority of the dev jobs here are .NET.


There are a lot of startups in Salt Lake, UT. Billboards everywhere looking for devs. I really am surprised it never gets mentioned on posts like this. Salt lake area cost if living is about the same as Austin I believe l, but based on the fact that it isn't as well known that it is truly a tech hub, cost probably won't rise nearly as quickly as the other places. It has recently been called *Silicon Slopes" by Google (when they installed Google fiber), if that's not enough proof idk what is. Also Utah might be the first state to have Google fiber in two different cities. (Provo, and talk of Salt lake)


Google Fiber is already under construction in Salt Lake. +1 for Utah--not just Salt Lake, but Ogden and Provo as well. An awesome startup scene, and very low cost of living. Plus SLC is the only city within a few hours of some of the best skiing, hiking, and red rock in the country.


Make sure to skip Denver. Nothing but stoners and Peyton fans. Terrible place to live.


This is pretty garbage advice. There are a lot of tech companies especially just south of downtown Denver, and a reasonable start up scene in Boulder. I get 20-30% of the quantity of recruiter emails from Denver / Boulder / Ft Collins companies compared to what I used to get in the Bay Area. It's a lot less, to be sure, but still sustainable for a good career. Good meet ups too. There are pockets of stoners especially since legalization, but less so than the Bay Area most of the time.


He's kidding... You must not live in CO? It's the line out here. Anti-town building, too many people are moving here already because it's so great, so spread the word that it's buried in snow, full of potheads and hippies. These are not the towns your looking for. Move along, move along.


Us Denverites seem to be the only ones in this thread to have figured this out. Lived here for 5 years and I tow the party line, please don't move here.


What are the best areas to live in these days if you want a smallish downtown in walking distance and a decent commute to the most job options?

I hear Boulder home prices rival the Bay (while pay does not), but not sure about the surrounding areas.


Boulder city home prices are ridiculous however the surrounding area (Louisville, Broomfield, etc) is more reasonable especially when compared to the Bay Area. However home prices along US-36 (main corridor between Boulder and Denver) are starting to increase rapidly.

In my experience, software engineering pay is plenty if you factor in the cheaper cost of living compared to Bay Area.


...I think the parent was being facetious. It's pretty common to "trash" the city you love so no one else moves there.


Panama City Panama. Zero tax on foreign income. If you continue contracting for US companies all of your income will be foreign.

It makes a huge difference. I paid over 40% in tax in SF. Tons of tech people are doing it as they can more easily work remote and are already competing on a global stage. I've joined a share house of foreign tech workers who all doing the same thing for the same reasons. It is in one of the luxury apartment complexes.

* Note: Americans will still own the IRS money if they earn more than $100K. It's still worth doing. I'm not an American.


How's the internet? I'm really interested in working remotely from Central America but worry that it'd be challenging to find reliable fast connections—at least in places that aren't downtown centers.


My plan is to live in a downtown center. Panama has pretty good internet.


Last time I lived abroad (and you need to live for more than a year) it was basically an $80k deduction. So at $100k you're taxed at $20k. Small clarification but it made a big difference.


this has been 'fixed'. Now, if you make 100k, you're taxed in the 100k bracket but only on 20k (approx)


All of it up to 100k is exempt, it's called the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion and it goes up every year w/ inflation. https://www.irs.gov/Individuals/International-Taxpayers/Fore...


Salt Lake City. Tons of jobs with expanding companies, both big old ones and hungry new ones. Beautiful scenery, low cost of living, pleasant people.

I just moved here 4 months ago and it's great. If you like hiking, national parks, outdoorsy stuff, Utah is almost unmatched for beauty and nice climate.


I'm moving to Austin in 3 weeks! We just moved here 7 months ago, but for a family it's just not a good quality of life, unless you are already rich :/


Salt Lake City. We have a ton of tech money being dumped into our state, and we just don't have enough engineers to fill seats. Low cost of living, lots of outdoor activities. I work < 20 mins away from world class ski resorts.


Myrtle Beach, SC.

Unlikely place.

Cost of Living is ridiculously low, right by the ocean, big city amenities, due to the short summer tourist season. Great weather, inexpensive flights to Northeastern Cities. I outline some of this on the (now out of date) http://WhyNotTheBeach.com site.

There's no tech scene to speak of. So you have to be a remote worker to get the value. I maintain a list of remote job opportunities: http://LX.tc/positions

Interestingly it's growing organically due to people having their parents retire here. And then either needing to move here to take care of them, or just discovering the city when coming to visit.


Boise has some good, small tech firms. Great area for quality of life.


Is it still a Micron-dominated monoculture? That one company had way too much influence when I lived there.


When did you live here? It's changed quite a bit over the last 5-7 years. There's a real startup scene here now.


I moved to SF in 2007, so yes it's entirely possible the culture has changed. I'm genuinely interested in how it's change though.


Since 2007:

* We've cultivated a startup-friendly business community. I remember 2007 - the only tech "community" we had was when HP or Micron had engineering dept mixers. It was kind of sad.

* There's been some VC activity in Boise - I know of a handful of startups that have gotten angel funding or their series A from local investors. It's nowhere near the scale of what's in Silicon Valley, but it doesn't need to be. Everything is cheaper here.

* We have a real coworking space now. I think the Watercooler was around in 2007, but I never really thought of that as a coworking space. It was more of a office space rental that was somewhat targeted at startups, but kind of still had the same mindset as any other office space. idk. Anyway, we have Trailhead now, which is a really great environment for startups, remote workers, or freelancers. Really cheap too - it's like $30/mo.

* There's a large number of technology specific meetups now. Angular, Python, PHP, .NET just to name a few.

* I can't remember if Boise Code Camp was a thing in 2007, but it is now. It's an annual tech camp run by BSU and handful of other orgs in Boise. The quality of the sessions has been pretty high the past couple years.

To me, it feels like a much different environment for startups and tech businesses in general, but I'm not entirely sure how to quantify that beyond the points that I mentioned above.


Shhhh. We're still operating in stealth mode. Don't want a huge influx of people yet :P


It seems to be picking up for sure. I'm hoping that continues since I'm headed there.


I've spent some time in Denver and I could easily see moving there full time from the SF Bay Area. That said, I like camping and hiking in my spare time which Denver has in abundance, and it has Sparkfun just outside of Boulder for your tech toys urges.

Denver is more of a burgers and beer town from a culinary perspective, but it has lots of young people and downtown is very walkable. Also, unlike the bay area, they have a pretty functional transit system. You could totally live there without a car.


Must disagree on the culinary scene. We have everything you could want, from hole-in-the-wall ethnic to fine dining, though we are most definitely a beer town.


Fair enough, I had a heck of a time finding decent indian food in downtown other than at a single food truck that parked over by Wazee and 15th. And while Illegal Pete's made some decent burritos, having lived in the Bay Area for so many years, they were not competitive.

That said, the characterization comes from mostly riding the 16th street free shuttle and exploring by dropping into restaurants all around downtown, and often their "big thing" or specialty was a burger of some sort. Could be survivor bias though.


I've been fighting to stay in Chicago and it's been difficult to get the next job when you're between jobs quickly (lots of recruiters that are really good at wasting your time here), and it's even harder to find advertised salary ranges where you want them to be (tech salaries are really depressed here compared to elsewhere).

I've been trying to stay here because it took me forever (as an introvert) to build a strong social circle and those people support me a lot in my creative endeavors, so I'm disinclined to leave and have to start all over again elsewhere.

The food here is excellent, though. With the exception of seafood (which tastes fine, but not nearly as fresh as on the Bay), just about every cuisine you can think of has a quality representative or two nearby (even in the suburbs, where I live).

The suburbs also has plenty of forest preserves to explore, if you're into hiking and trees (which I am also).

Housing prices are reasonable, depending on where you look. You can get a good home for ~$200k-230k in the suburbs if you keep an eye on the market and you're quick to make an offer.


What kind of work are you looking for?

As far as recruiters. There are some recruiting groups that are absolutely garbage. (There is even one named after the redline stop that the Cubs play at which is really shit) You'll just have to weed out the bad ones to find the good ones.


I know not all recruiters are bad, but I'm mainly venting frustration at the last two times I had to look for work, which had several months of unemployment as recruiters kept calling me all day every day about various potential jobs, and then interviews almost getting set up but then cancelled for changing requirements or other crap, or I'd get an interview and do well but the company would take forever to set up a second interview (and the recruiter knew they worked that way), or they kept trying to get me to relocate on my dime which I couldn't afford and didn't really want to relocate anyway.

I did get my current job through a recruiter, and he was very professional, polite, communicative, so not all experiences have been bad, just a ton of my time got wasted when I really badly needed a job and my finances were getting screwed pretty badly.

If I were looking I'd be interested in getting back into mobile development in a senior role, preferably with opportunities to work from home periodically, especially if it's downtown. I've been learning React Native in my spare time in preparation for when I'm ready to get back into the mobile scene.

My current job is just right up the street, the boss is nice, and pays decent so my main concerns are it's not mobile development and it's not looking like I'm likely to get promoted to a senior role here anytime soon because there are many talented people on the team who have been here longer and would probably get promoted before me.


Here's an HBR article talking about New Orleans push to become a relevant hub and the difficulties of stealing mindshare from "the big three":

https://hbr.org/2016/03/what-makes-new-orleans-a-startup-cit...


They're not trying very hard to steal mindshare with only a half dozen jobs (three of which are actually dev jobs) listed on Craigslist. Seattle has page after page of software jobs on CL. I'd totally consider a move to NOLA, but I'm not packing my bags just yet.

I mean, seriously, is the article just BS? Even my old stomping grounds of Indianapolis (a.k.a., "Naptown", a.k.a, "you'll be writing code for an insurance company") has twelve pages of software jobs, and NOLA has six jobs total? Did I look in the wrong spot (http://neworleans.craigslist.org/search/sof)? Is my single data point a poor representation of the market?


It's not like its a ton better, but there's at least a few dozen openings here: https://worknola.com/job-search/field_job_function/it-softwa...

Craigslist is barely useful here - even most apartments for rent on there have been rented out weeks or months ago.


Two issues at play here: 1) NOLA companies don't list on CL 2) NOLA companies haven't learned to all post their jobs

Honestly, if the interest is really there, the jobs are here.


NOLA is oil, food, and booze. No tech options unless you're in Chem/Process Engg.



They don't go into details on available jobs but I would speculate that these graduates are working in either in hospitality/food service, which recovered after katrina, or petroleum, which increased dramatically with the expansion of the shale and fracking technologies in the US.


2015 article comparing programmer salaries in various major cities adjusted for taxes and cost of living: http://tgeonetta.com/cost-of-living-vs-salary-best-cities-fo.... Austin comes out on top.


I'm from the US, down here in Melbourne, via Shanghai, via Boston, via NY. Had no idea what a vibrant tech scene they had on my way down. Envato, Fastmail, and Atlassian give the city some cachet. I contract primarily with US agencies, and if that's the case you just need to set the tone early on with regard to availability. Neat city though.


Redbubble, 99designs, BugHerd and Flippa are some other international products/companies that come to mind.


Ah, no shit. Had no idea BugHerd was down here too. I use them.


I've been living in New Orleans for the last year, and I'd have to say it's been great. NOLA is a blossoming place, with lots of startups and a rapidly growing tech scene. The culture is incredible, full of its own unique charms, delicious food, and vibrant music.

I don't know, maybe it's not for everyone, but I love it!


I live in Raleigh and the startup scene is growing both downtown and especially in Durham next door. There is also a large corporate presence here too in a variety of industries so the job market is pretty solid.

If you want to work in an obscure stack, Raleigh isn't the best place to find jobs. Right now things are Java, C#, C++, Ruby on Rails, Python, & JavaScript. About 7 years ago I had trouble finding Python jobs. There are a few (think 2-3 companies) Scala jobs, a few Go jobs, etc but your company pool is much much smaller. It seems like SFO has much more opportunities for less mainstream stacks.

I think because of cost of living you can make 120k and that goes much much farther than 180k in SFO.


Any mobile?


my vote goes to denver! affordable, laid back, socially liberal, safe, no huge social gap like in SF, very friendly people, great outdoors, growing tech startup ecosystem


You haven't figured it out yet but as a Denverite, you're supposed to tell people not to move here. It's so awesome here we don't like to share.


lol indeed. ;) i'm an ex denverite who keeps going back at least once a year


New York isn't that expensive if you're willing to commute 45 min to work. It's only really bad if you want to live in a trendy apartment in a trendy neighborhood, otherwise it's very affordable.


If you have enough money to start working remotely there are a few places that I want to move to.

  - Alaska: Pay you to stay, land is cheap, I like the cold.
  - PA: Land is cheap, I like the cold, next to Philadelphia
  - Poland: Everything is cheap:  1 zł is 0.25 USD, great food and amazing nightlife. 
  - India: 1 USD ~= 70 rupies, amazing food and culture
Every one of these places has its pros and cons, but they have all relatively nominal crime rates as well as some really cool food and people.

Edit: Forgot to mention Italy, but then you have to deal with the EU and VAT.


Hello from Krakow, Poland

- The life here is pretty cheap compared to the Western Europe standards - food is great (have i said that it's also cheap?) - lots of lowcost airlines, i.e. plane to Brussels less than for 100$ - no need to own a car, walk from home to work takes 20 minutes (i live in the downtown) - cheap services - homogenous society


Poland is UE&VAT.


But Poland's local economy is so cheap that I don't even count that as a factor. There are few comfortable places to live where you can buy bread for .30 USD a loaf, and Poland is one of them.

I'm also Russian and a lot of Polish food looks familiar to me. That's why it's a in my top three.


Polish cuisine feels great for my Russian stomach, though sometimes it's too spicy. But definitely much better than in SF =)


Biased, but try Bulgaria. IMHO currently only Bucharest can (somewhat) compete as a SW/startup hub in the region. HW is generally weak throughout the Balkans, though.


I've been working in Bucharest for a while, this place is toxic if you plan a start a family or long-lasting relations.

I can recommend it to anyone who's single, Balkan girls look great. Unfortunately, I'm married with kids =(


Why do you find it toxic for starting a family or long-lasting relationships? :/


I really like the idea of moving somewhere outside the US with better work-life balance norms, such as the fabled 6 weeks of vacation mandated by Germany. Has anyone done this?


Most of Europe and Australia give you a month plus of vacation but you do need to factor in less pay than the US.


I've been living in Mountain View for several years, but we're moving back to Boston in a month.

We can get a house 3x as large for 2/3 the cost and have a much better quality of life.


"and have a much better quality of life"

If you like snow.


Much better quality of [everything but weather]


So what are your criteria? Do you have a job you'll be working remotely from? Looking for a new job?

I would chose in order of preference - Quality of life factors (life is about living, not about working) - Cost to income ratio - How interesting the place is - Local job market - How accessible the place is (airline hubs rule, travel the world)

I'm happy to answer any questions regarding Miami, or @afontaine can as well. However I don't know if Miami is a good fit (I'm clearly biased)


I've worked remotely for Silicon Valley companies from Victoria, Canada, and it's great, even though the startup scene is just in its infancy. Same time zone, housing isn't insane like the valley or like Vancouver, beautiful climate, good university, etc. The largest drawback is that once you're ready to do your own startup, VCs are all "Victoria? WTF? You can't build a real company there...", so you're stuck bootstrapping...


Visited Victoria last year for the first time and I loved it.


Columbus, OH is pretty great. The Dublin Entrepreneurial Center has cheap office space and access to the Metro Data Center on the same floor. There are a couple nice co-working spots too like 400 West Rich.

We have a burgeoning food scene that gets better every year. Cost of living is pretty cheap, we have an NHL team (not to mention NCAA powerhouse OSU), new apartments are going up seemingly everywhere, and Amazon's building a data center here.


OSU has a pretty good engineering school. Lot's of fortune 500 companies. If you want to disrupt insurance it's Cols, OH or Des Moines, Iowa (both have large insurance presences). Lot's of Tech Jobs, some start up activity but the state is pretty risk adverse.

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/business/2015/09/13/...


Denver/Boulder (Colorado) has a really strong technology and startup environment. There are some well-known technology companies based here.

In fact, Denver recently ranked as the #1 Best Places to Live[1]

[1] http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_29585428/denver-no-1-u-s-n...


Or Phoenix, where I have lived for years after selling my SV home in 2010 because of traffic and living costs. We have an amazing tech community in Phoenix that has come together to work on cybersecurity, bioindustry, health care, edtech and SaaS. The weather is great, housing is inexpensive, and we've got Blue Apron, Uber, and all the stuff you need.


Move to Cleveland Ohio. Rent might as well be free.

Not a lot of good work or recreation, but you could buy a house for the same cost as a year's rent in SF.


From San Francisco to Berlin. Housing is affordable and the startup scene is growing really quickly. Food is great and beer is outstanding. Full of young people and interesting events. The tech community is growing pretty quickly.

Only two things that are really bad: - payment network - internet network


I moved from SF to LA, and then to NYC. All great places, but all very pricey.

If I was looking to keep costs down, I'd take a serious look at New Orleans. Obviously purchasing a house there might be riskier (since much of the city is below sea level), but they've got a burgeoning tech scene, lots of media companies, and the culture+food can't be beat.


What one can find is that if you are in another state bordering a big city you often can get huge savings at least in the USA..

An example, work in Chicago but reside in NW Indiana..guess what a house costs in NW Indiana? $250k and with rentals at $900 I am sure you can figure out that in a few years the house is paid for in cash and no mortgage to speak of...


Consider Michigan: both Detroit and Grand Rapids are affordable, tech-friendly, and pleasant to be in.


+1 for Detroit. Low cost of living, downtown life is happening and lot's of startup and co-working spaces doing well.


Yes, Detroit is awesome, please move there


I live in New Orleans and really div there tech scene. The cost of living is great. The best thing is probably the culture. It's not like any other place I've ever lived and you'll never lack for festivals or parades.


Alpharetta, Ga (or Atlanta in general). It's great. Home prices are not terrible, taxes are not bad, great schools & people are friendly. Only real problem is traffic - staggered commutes and working from home can mitigate that.


Although everyone mentioned the cities covered in this resource, i'm sure vice'll create more soon: http://www.vice.com/cityguides

maybe useful


I'm fond of the Dallas area, especially the suburb Richardson.

Lots of tech jobs here, and the cost of living is very low (if you're paying more than $0.75 per square foot here, you're paying too much).


I haven't seen anyone specifically comment on Nashville so I figure I'll chime in and give you my $.02.

I did my undergrad at Vanderbilt in Nashville, moved to Mountain View for two years to work at Google and moved back a year ago after realizing living in California didn't work for me.

Pros: - No state income tax in Tennessee - Tons of stuff to do. There's way more than just Honky Tonks and country music. Professional football and hockey teams and a decent minor league baseball team. People go to the symphony and see shows at TPAC regularly. The Frist usually has interesting art exhibits, as does Cheekwood (also a botanical garden). If you prefer to be outdoors, there are plenty of places to hike, climb, kayak, etc. It might not be quite as striking as Yosemite or Marin, but the nature here is still quite beautiful. - Housing is cheap (relatively). A lot of people (short and long timers) have taken to complaining about housing prices recently, and to be fair they have gone up quite a bit from where they were. It's not as cheap as Chattanooga or other smaller cities but it's still _very_ affordable compared to California. I recently closed on a house just using money I saved from working in CA for my down payment. - Growing tech scene. It's really night and day even from when I graduated 3 years ago. Tons of meet ups and the community is really awesome. A growing number of companies - and the companies here tend to be more focused on actually growing a business instead of just hitting a valuation. - Food. Awesome restaurant scene. Obviously more BBQ and Southern focused though. - Friendly. People in Nashville are very friendly. I think this is immediately noticeable, but I enjoy having conversations with random people I run into. - Centrally located. They've added direct flights to the Bay Area recently, and you're a day's drive from a good chunk of the eastern half of the country (you can get to Chicago, Oklahoma City, New Orleans, Orlando, or Buffalo within a day's drive).

Cons: - Davidson County schools aren't great. Lots of people with kids live in other counties and commute in to get better schools. - Traffic. This isn't as bad as other major metro areas, but depending on where you live it can be significant. - Not very walkable. There are a few areas that are walkable (12 South, Hillsboro, places in East Nashville) but you need a car. Public transit is pretty bad.

Neutral: - More conservative state politics. Nashville is fairly liberal, but there's definitely still a conservative bent at the state level. I put this in neutral because I don't think it's all bad (remember, no state income tax) but you may end up getting upset about state legislation. - Weather. Really hot summers. Winters aren't too bad. Occasional snow, and it can actually get chilly. Lots of rain (compared to CA). I don't think this is bad because I actually enjoy having seasons. - Big healthcare focus (both small and large companies).

tl;dr - Nashville is awesome, and I'm really happy I moved back. It's not as easy as the Bay Area to job hop, but I'm not worried about finding work when I do decide to make a jump.


As someone who was born and raised in Tennessee, I wholeheartedly agree with the above. I myself was raised about an hour south of Nashville, and currently am a relatively new developer, but the dev culture here is very vibrant, especially in the Hillsboro area, or The Gulch.

To comment on some things from the above:

Yes the weather is wonky here, one minute it might be snowing, the next it'll feel like spring/summer. (Like it has the past couple of weeks here.)

Traffic? Not terrible by any means, just have to give yourself extra time if you're having to go anywhere during rush hour (7-8am / 5-6pm).

Job market? We've got some great startups popping up, but mostly medical from what I can tell, most of my development work has been for something involving medical or a startup.

Environment? Tennessee is absolutely beautiful, we got everything from Mountains in East TN, the delta and Mississippi River in West TN, we have caves, lakes, rivers galore, beautiful state parks, and a pleasant parkway called the Natchez Trace running from the bottom of Nashville all the way to Tupelo, MS. The only thing missing for us is a beach, which is normally why a lot of Tennesseans go to Alabama or Florida, typically, for that.

TL;DR: Nashville and Tennessee are indeed awesome! I highly recommend people come and visit and check a few things out, cost of living here is extremely cheap compared to Silicon Valley / San Fran, and a lot of other major cities are far away, as horv mentioned above.

10/10, would live here indefinitely if able.


I've never lived in silicon valley, but I moved to Nashville (actually Franklin) from SW Florida a few years ago and agree with everything you say here. Tech scene is very active---we have Nashville Coding School, a growing number of startups, Hack Tennessee (formerly Hack Nashville), and more user groups and meetups than you can shake a stick at.

As far as schools go you definitely want to stay away from Davidson Country, but Williamson County is about 20 minutes south of downtown Nashville and has fantastic schools.


Stay in California, you made your bed now lay in it.


Come to Montana. We have SoFi, Oracle, Vubiquity, Submittable, many other tech companies, and a great outdoor culture if you're into that.


What part(s) of Montana?


Bozeman Montana is a up and coming tech hub with a pretty awesome tech scene. Also, if your looking to raise money, we have a ton of wealthy people who are looking to invest in the tech scene. Obviously not as much in the way of mentorship, but you can get that remotely.


Repping Pittsburgh and Vegas! The Burgh has Uber ATC, Oculus Research, and Google now, not to mention CMU.


Anyone up north in Santa Rosa, Rohnert Park, or Petaluma? What's it like up there? Any jobs?


I bought a house on Russian River when I realized I'd never be able to afford SF. I spent a lot of time in those towns while coming up to work on the house. I found the culture shock too hard to deal with and ended up renting the house out. Sebastopol is a gorgeous town with its own personality (not something I could say for Santa Rosa). But it's still quite expensive to get a house there and I don't know what the job situation is like.


Glad nobody recommended Indianapolis. Indy sucks.


Come to the Palo Alto of the east coast: Raleigh


Check out Kingston, NY. You'd be surprised.


Don't come to London :)

Berlin is a very nice choice!


moved out of east sf bay to vancouver bc. still astronomical prices on everything.


youve all already ruined seattle




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