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Ask HN: What would attract you to a job in flyover country?
39 points by midwestcoder on July 18, 2014 | hide | past | favorite | 78 comments
I've been working as a consultant for a large company in the midwestern US that does a lot of software development, both for internal use and for external services used by the company's clients.

The company can't seem to attract experienced software developers to move, only new grads (but people do stick around long after they become experienced), so they use a lot of consultants to fill out their teams.

In the past six months, I have done projects using Python/Django, AngularJS, D3, RoR, Hadoop/HBase, and other current technologies, so this definitely isn't a case where the technology stack is boring. Compensation and benefits are reasonable as well, considering the low cost of living.

So, HNers, what would entice you to consider working for a company outside of the red-hot tech hubs?



"Compensation and benefits are reasonable as well, considering the low cost of living."

Why not ignore the the local cost of living and compensate at SV market rate levels? That way there is a tangible and obvious pro to the move: the delta between "tech-hub" cost of living and "flyover" cost of living.

If you scale compensation down to be relatively in-line with local cost of living you aren't really offering anyone a pro in the face of many cons (harder to find another job if this one doesn't work out, the general inertia of moving halfway across the country, likely less interesting social/cultural options, likely screwier rules when it comes to non-competes (than what you get in CA), etc.)


I've just (as in 20 minutes ago) accepted an offer with a supply chain data analytics company in northwestern Arkansas (right in the middle of the Ozarks).

They are paying WELL above cost of living for the position.

I think the recruiting for these locations needs to be targeted based on a demographic profile. Fresh grads will take anything, unless they are highly recruited due to some stand-out factor like school, side-project.

Experienced people are another story. Here's what sold me on the Ozarks vs. offers in Austin, San Fran, etc:

QUALITY OF LIFE QUALITY OF LIFE QUALITY OF LIFE. I'm a married guy with two kids. I've done the densely populated urban area thing in DC. Walk to work, take the train anywhere, live in a high-rise. Guess what? There are a lot of folks my age doing the same thing in our industry, and they are probably getting sick of it like I am. But I don't want to live in a suburb and fight traffic to get to work. This is where you can come in. Big yard, house, short commute.

These folks made a point of selling a country-living lifestyle with a 10 minute drive to the office (and very flexible telecommuting options). A lot of people want nothing to do with that lifestyle, but the people who do will gravitate towards it.

Another issue you have is the dual-income family. My wife is a full-time mom, so for us this issue didn't exist. Perhaps the affordability of an area allows this for those who want this and don't currently have it. A lot of moms AND dads I know would love to be a stay at home parent if they could. Flyover country allows for this if you pay well above cost of living.

Since I'll be getting a similar salary when I move, I'll be able to save way more for one day starting my own business.....

These are all selling points, and you should highlight them in your ads. It's not about an ad where 99% of the people who see it think "ok, cool." It's about an ad where 3% of the people who see it go "Oh my fucking god I want to do that."


A million times this. I'm in a similar situation. My wife and I just aren't that interested in relocating to a higher cost of living area and trading our nice yard and larger house for something small and expensive. With two kids we have very different priorities than younger folks with fewer attachments. We currently live outside a major Northeast city, so we get some of the benefits of a metro area but not the full brunt of the high cost of living or super-dense housing. We pay for it with a long train ride (for me) and both of us working.

We would relocate to a less densely populated area if it meant she could be a mostly stay at home mom while roughly maintaining our existing home size, yard size, type of neighborhood, etc... We have built-in childcare being close to family, but that would be made moot by a relocation that allowed her to be a stay at home mom.

Alternatively, a total work from home position that eliminates my commute, allows us to stay put, and pays top dollar would be attractive as well. It would allow us to not have to worry about who will be home when the kids get home from school for example.


Living "just outside a major Northeast city" is not remotely the same thing as living in "flyover country". Chances are if you're in software that "major Northeast city" has plenty of offerings for you should your current job disappear, your particular town benefits immensely from the proximity of the (likely more cultured) metro area nearby, and so on. I'm going to guess your pay is also larger, even adjusted for cost of living, than many (most) in the "flyover country" mentioned.


Wasn't comparing my situation to flyover country. I was arguing that for me, it's a turnoff to get any closer to a city than I already am, and we would actively be interested in an area much less populated if it offered quality of life benefits.


This can't be up-voted enough.

I turned down a very good paying (relatively) job in a midwestern town near family because it was 50% of what I could earn in the bay area, while being more than 50% of the cost of living. Compounding that problem was that the majority of other roles in the area were no-growth developer roles, and there were also few of them.

Sometimes I think companies don't realize that potential employees engage in the same kinds of cost/benefit analysis for themselves that the companies engage in.

As an addendum: frankly I consider the software pay in the Bay Area to be below the cost of living for anybody but: a) singles; b) couples with little or no debt. Sure it's good pay, but compared to the cost of housing it's not that good. My experience is that it's typically worse elsewhere, and especially in lower cost of living areas.


This is what I was going to say, myself.

If you want top talent you have to pay for it. Period. Even if the job is unpleasant, money can solve the problem. "Reasonable rates considering local cost of living" doesn't sound at all enticing.

The problem is compounded by the fact that you can work remotely for a SV company and get a comparatively high rate. If someone were talented and "stuck" in a flyover state, why would they work for this company compared to working remotely for a SV company?


This is exactly what I've seen in some companies near where I live--they refuse to hire at market rates, and if they resort to "but but but cost of living" I assume they're trying to sell me something.

It's so fucking obvious--pay the same amount, have a better culture, and that should be it. Alas, some folks are a bit slow. :(


Paying the same amount would be challenging if they're not doing the same amount of business. Google can pay an average software engineer $100k because they do a lot of business. Should a company that only makes $100k in a single year pay their developers the same? Tech companies in SF tend to be pretty big/well funded organizations.


This is true, but at the same time a company making $100k in a single year probably doesn't need to hire "the best of the best" (even if they think they do, because everyone thinks they do) and can actually get by with local college grads until such a time as they hit a scale where they need outside help, by which point they can hopefully pay for it.


at least they are descent enough to consider cost of living.

In a corner of Canada where I live, they refuse to adjust to the highest cost of living, highest cost of real estate, and still find a way to pay under the market rate because "remember, you are living in the most beautiful part of Canada, and warmest too, that's the cost"

such bullshit.


Vancouver?


Found your problem.

Compensation and benefits are reasonable as well, considering the low cost of living.

I've had offers with that qualifier. They always come in 40% below market. Even if cost of living and salary is a 1:1 trade. I'll always trade up and not down.

Here is why: The primary differences in cost of living is housing. Cars, computers and software cost the same regardless. Additionally housing costs more in places where people want to live and less where they don't want to live. Sure I can buy a mansion in Minot, but I can't buy a beach. There are more subtle issues with this too. The costs of conferences, training, and tools doesn't change. There are also network effects. Potential employees check up on a businesses reputation as well. In my area I know who to avoid and have contacts in dozens of other tech focused businesses. Odds are I don't know anyone who's been within 100miles of you. What happens if things don't work out? Are you the only tech employer in town?

Bluntly you're asking me to give up my existing network of people and employers for lower pay, less future growth opportunities, and all you can offer is a cheap house in a place where I may not want to live. It's not a good deal, so people don't take it.

What would attract me to a job in the midwest?

Paying market rates would be #1. Being upfront that training/conference travel opportunities will be funded. A few other tech companies within reasonable distance so I'm not in a bind if I need to move on.


It really depends on where in "flyover country" you're talking about.

Are you considering Tulsa, or Akron, or Sioux City? That's a tough call, since the markets there are pretty thin. Taking a full-time job in a thin market for tech saps your negotiating leverage, because your employer knows they don't have much credible competition.

On the other hand, are you considering Chicago, or, MSP? Those are --- contrary to popular belief --- gigantic cities, larger than San Francisco. There are advantages to working in (say) Chicago over SF. You won't get your next startup funded there, but you'll have an easier time getting a bootstrapped company off the ground. There are tradeoffs, but we'd have to talk about what's important to you to hash them out.

Personally: I've enjoyed my last couple visits to San Francisco (surprisingly; I moved away from San Francisco hating them place). But I wouldn't want to live there.


"The company can't seem to attract experienced software developers to move"

... at the price you're willing to pay, I assume.

"Compensation and benefits are reasonable as well, considering the low cost of living"

This seems to confirm my assumption. The benefit of having lower costs would be so I can save more, but if the pay is less then what is the benefit?


That's my biggest problem living in the midwest. I never want to move to SF or NY or places with massively high cost of living (because of the cost of living), but the pay seems to scale directly in line with cost of living anyway. If I have 20% discretionary income no matter where I am living, why would I not move to someplace more exciting?

Although I don't know if I would be able to stomach a cut from $250k/yr in SF to $70k/yr in Iowa, even if cost of living decreased to match.


>a cut from $250k/yr in SF to $70k/yr in Iowa, even if cost of living decreased to match.

A BMW costs about the same, be it SF or Iowa. Retirement to Florida (or to France, or to Costa Rica) costs the same, be it SF or Iowa. ...

In addition, being laid off in Iowa and being laid off in SF means 2 completely different situations - catastrophe vs. a chance at exploring new (and better) opportunities ...

Edit: to give due to Iowa - a young male driving a BMW there would probably get at least some attention while in SF one probably needs Tesla at least :)


A BMW costs the same, but it doesn't matter if you're making $200k or $50k if you're not actually pocketing the difference. If you're only pocketing $1k each month in either place, the BMW costs the same and still takes the same amount of time to save up for.

And about your being laid off in the Midwest... sometimes I think people believe that every Midwest city has to shut down their main street whenever the cows need to cross...


> If you're only pocketing $1k each month in either place, the BMW costs the same and still takes the same amount of time to save up for.

I spend about $2100/mo for two people living in Manhattan (83rd & 1st). I'm a frugal person (cook my own food, only spend $1k/year on tech and use what I have for 4 years or so, etc) so the increased base translates into $10k+ in my pocket every year. I know other people aren't in the same situation and I do spend more than I would living elsewhere but as-is the increased base works heavily in my favor even after the extra NYC metro taxes.


I went to school in Iowa, so I recognize that the midwest is a great place, but the reality is that for those people at Microsoft in Redmond about to get laid off, they will just go over to Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc. In Des Moines or Cedar Rapids if you are good you'll be able to name your gig, but there are simply fewer gigs to go around and the compensation can't compete.


Most of the job cuts in Microsoft will come from its Nokia unit in Finland[1] where, to use your own words, there are fewer gigs to go around. Compounding the problems is that Finland is in the middle of a long recession and unemployment is about 10.7 percent[2].

[1] http://online.wsj.com/articles/microsoft-layoffs-hit-nokias-...

[2] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-17/microsoft-job-cuts-...


> sometimes I think people believe that every Midwest city has to shut down their main street whenever the cows need to cross...

As someone who's lived in the Midwest my whole life, and is here right now, that's not an unfair assumption in any way.


I've not once seen a cow walking in the Chicago Loop or downtown Indianapolis.


There is something to be said about the farm raised hotties.


As a resident of flyover country I look at it the opposite way - why would I move to the coast for higher pay only to have it soaked up in living expenses? Even with that I'd probably be downgrading my housing, and there are other aspects of my lifestyle that I'd miss. And do you really think the pay disparity is that extreme?


We moved to a rural area (nearest large city is a 4 hour drive) four years ago and I'd agree with the other commenters that housing is the only cost that decreased any - and even that is almost irrelevant as people fleeing cities have increased house prices and/or market manipulation has worked to keep housing costs relatively high. Sure you can buy a double-wide or a serious fixer-upper here that you'd never find in the city, but if you want a typical 3 bedroom middle class house you aren't getting much of a discount.

The truth is, I feel more compelled to increase my income and saving now because of the lack of opportunities in the local economy. My income is entirely from non-local customers and if my sales pipeline ever dried up I'd have no option but to move. This is basically at the heart of why I don't move to the midwest (where my wife would prefer to be) because it would be the same thing - you'd be the big fish in a small pond.


If, at the end of the day, your discretionary income is the same, does it matter? You make more money, you pay more in expenses, and when all is said and done you still have $1000/mo to spend on whatever you want or put in savings. So your higher pay being soaked up in living expenses nets you exactly the same as the lower pay with less living expenses.

It doesn't matter if the pay disparity is as high as I mentioned. What matters is what you take home after your bills are paid. And it's exactly the same in my research. Which is why I moved to another part of the midwest when I moved, and not to SF or NY.


As someone who worked in a flyover state for 5 years and then moved to SF (then NY)... YES! The comment about the 20% discretionary income and resulting impact is also true.


I live and work in the Midwest, and this is the situation I see a lot. We actually saw a local company move to a nearby city (two hours away) in order to find more talent, though they bumped up the salary to get that talent. I believe if they would have offered that higher salary here, they would have been fine (we actually have a university in our town).

The hard part is, instead of asking, "What is the value of my work?" you have to ask "What is the value of my work here?" It's a very odd question to ask if you work for a company that is in national or global markets.


You need to pay way more than the coasts.

There are career benefits to being in a location with other tech companies. Not just finding a new job, but simply going to meetups and coffee shops and meeting people who are in a similar line of work. When you say "people do stick around" I wonder if this is part of the reason. I'd need extra money to make up for the money I'm losing by being far away from the action. Sending me to conferences might make up for this.

There are cultural benefits to being in an actual city. Ballet, theater, live music, etc. I'm sure there are wonderful small town artists but a big city will have more cultural activities by virtue of having more people. Extra money and extra vacation time (like 6-7 weeks a year) for a trip to NYC occasionally could convince me. Of course there are cities in the middle of the country, Chicago and Minneapolis for example, in which case disregard this point.

There would still be quality of life issues. I like sushi and have never had good sushi in the midwest. I like being able to read a book on pubic transit instead of driving myself to work. I like walkable neighborhoods. I like sailing. I like living in a place where it hardly ever snows, yet I can drive for a bit to a huge mountain and go snowboarding. I'd need a lot of money to give up some of these things, not sure you can even a price on it.

I'd suggest trying to hire remote workers.


I lived in Omaha for a year and would definitely consider moving back for a great job, however, there's one big problem and that is: even though you're in a beautiful rural part of the country with lots going for it, you're still in the big city, i.e., the one place in that state that has the fewest of the advantages of being in a small state. You don't have the low cost of living, you don't have the strong sense of community, don't know your neighbors, can't leave the car unlocked, and it's still difficult and expensive to get away from it all. So you may have people come to work for you thinking they'll get to enjoy life in the slow lane, and then find out that they've given up all they loved about the big city but haven't experienced the promises of the country.


I'm mostly in agreement with this if you choose to live in said city, but I would argue that traffic will be better even in one of the "big" cities of the Midwest (I currently live the greater D.C./Baltimore metro area and am amazed at what people in the Twin Cities metro area consider to be bad traffic). As a result, it would be much less time-consuming to commute into the city from the countryside in the Midwest than it would be to make a commute of similar distance in SV/NY/DC/etc.


Moving outside a tech hub has distinct disadvantages, besides entertainment. You have less job prospects, thus vastly increase your risk and limit future growth. In addition you are less likely to branch off with colleagues and investors.

For me, the things that would sell me are 1) significant pay above net cost of living compared to tech hub 2) flexible work time policies 3) no attempt to own what I do on the side (CA has clear rules on this) 4) control over job direction and technologies 5) and lastly, maybe your company really is awesome.


Add no non-compete to the list, CA is also clear on that, and for a very long time.

It's the single unique thing about the state, and I'm convinced it has a lot to do with Silicon Valley's long term success, especially during the decline and fall of Route 128 (roughly the '80s and the PC era, which I watched first hand).


It's the "Compensation and benefits are reasonable as well, the low cost of living." part. When you pay someone reasonably relative to their immediate environment what you're really saying is: Hi new hire, we expect you to live here forever because you can't save money to leave to a more expensive city and we value less than your peers in larger markets.

What you fail to realize that in order to attract talent to "flyover country" you need to compensate them for being in "flyover country".


Nobody wants to pay.

Outside of tech hubs, companies don't seem to value software devs. I guarantee that if your company was paying rates competitive to the major cities - not "considering the low cost of living", but actually competing on the dollar - there would be more interest. You have to pay programmers enough to mitigate the risk that there just aren't as many jobs in those areas and there aren't as many opportunities for professional development. Instead, everyone wants to look at the cost of living in SF/NYC, and claim that it's such a better deal to move to $midwest_city, even for less money. No. The environment matters. Pay up to compensate.

Check Meetup.com. Are there large, active groups meeting regularly for a variety of languages and technologies in your area? Think about what devs have to give up when they leave a city with a thriving programmer community to come to your company.


more money than on the coasts. Simple answer but people don't like "paying more."

Do you have SV/NYC/etc esque perks? Uncounted vacation, free food, etc etc?(which would all be cheaper to offer in the midwest for your company).

If you want the best people you should compensate in line with the "best"(by comp) employers OR differentiate yourself substantially.

I would totally work for "midwest market" for 25hr a week or so with full benefits. Big pay cut, big cost cut, lots more free time(but companies don't like that either).


FYI 'unlimited' vacation is not a perk, its an accounting trick that more often than not IS NOT in employee's interest.


Yup, not only do you take less vacation you don't get paid out when you leave.


At FarmLogs (YC w12) we have been able to hire some really amazing people in the "flyover" country. We moved to Ann Arbor from Mountain View to be closer to our customers.

Ann Arbor is an attractive city. People realize that when they come and visit. Much like startup hubs, Ann Arbor has a high density of really smart people (partly because of UofM), and does have its own advantages over the Bay Area.

Ultimately, people don't join us (or not join us) because of location. We hire people that want to be a part of our mission to bring great technology to agriculture. When people get to see what we are working on, who we are, and how much progress we've made, they get really excited. At that point location doesn't matter as much. We are relocating people from all over including the Bay area.


As someone searching for a job, it's hard to say. There are only a few big cities not on the coast that stand out: Twin Cities, Chicago, Austin, maybe Denver, maybe Ann Arbor. If you're not in one of those areas, you could be in any of a few dozen cities, so how am I going to find you? Plus there's just a trend where people rarely move from big town to a small town. Most people want to stay where they are or move 'up' to a better, often more crowded, area.

Compensation can be lower, no problem, as long as quality of life isn't dropping off.


I love Ann Arbor and miss living there, but Ann Arbor is the textbook case of a locale with a thin market for tech labor. Wanting to live in Ann Arbor more or less eliminates your negotiating leverage with employers.


So... you're saying I should hire in Ann Arbor?


Sure!


I live in rural Massachusetts, way too far for a Boston commute. I found that if I really got to know the local market, I could find great local developers -- I actually prefer that to NYC (where I started), where you can find devs, but it's hard to compete with the other companies there.

Our strategy was to make our place the absolute best place to work and pay appropriately -- perhaps not all the way to SF market, but at the high-end of our market. Word gets around. We were also aggressive with the local colleges.


Before I moved to a tech hub I lived in a flyover state. Whenever I interviewed at companies there, the developers would be so down. They seemed almost depressed like they had nowhere to go. Invariably the management was unsophisticated and not very experienced. Their thinking about software Dev management was decades behind. Do you want to know what development was like in the 70s or 80s when programming was a blue collar job? Go work in one of those states.

At one point I realized the entire state and region had nothing for me and left. I still get job leads from that place from 80s era companies and I know following them means booting up dos from a floppy or doing COBOL work while being told what to do by a part time manager, part time truck driver. What is far worse though is the fear of being sucked into this microcosm of 'this is how we do it here'. There are no up to date companies out there, only companies that have found a local maxima of expertise that, though they don't know it, is five to ten years behind at best. You tend to get stuck being lectured by the so-called experts on some 10 year old technology that is state of the art in their minds.


I work in the sticks out in Texas.

I remain freelance because I haven't found a company that will pay me my freelance rates while remaining remote and still having the power to throttle down as I'd prefer to do. I can make as much as my buddy who is a plumber working a quarter of the hours and not having to own a truck full of tools or get under houses.

Just a guess, but I'd think most of the folks who like to live out in the sticks like to live in "their" sticks... I've lived in Texas my whole life. And it doesn't take a lot of remote work to make the nut, especially if you're being compensated at good market rates.

Between those two facts, I'd suspect that the issue is that most folks who live in "flyover country" aren't inclined to move and don't have to.

You might have better luck training locals or grabbing folks who want to live in your area. Or, like a lot of folks do, hiring remote.


Just a guess, but I'd think most of the folks who like to live out in the sticks like to live in "their" sticks

Agreed.


I agree with most of the feedback already posted in this thread: compensation "considering the low cost of living" is not necessarily good compensation, and remote work may be the ticket. To other HNers, I would say that I just moved from Silicon Valley to the Midwest and I'm so much happier with all the open space and corn fields. In SV I used to feel trapped and tense all the time. Everyone talked about money. To the OP, I would say I work remotely for an industry-leading software company, with a Silicon Valley salary, and basically my own schedule. Don't see your goal as trying to get people to move to the Midwest, see it as trying to compete with Silicon Valley companies for talent. There are fewer jobs out here, so I have to look much harder to network and ensure job security. I wouldn't give up my current arrangement any time soon.


Why not hire remote?


Yup. Hire remote and pay tech hub rates. It's that simple. You'll also get much more loyal, dedicated employees. Currently in this situation and it's really the best job I've had out of dozens.


Same here ... I'm working full time with a distributed team, and it's beyond fantastic for me. I go a few times a week to a co-working place to get my fill of geeky watercooler talk and lunch with people. My collaboration is done primarily over chat (hipchat, but can easily be irc, slack, etc.), and we have a video conference once a week for the team to sync up ... not to mention git, etc.

I totally get that there's lots of enterprises that just aren't set up, culturally, to work with a distributed team ... but you know what, maybe that's how you (OP) can differentiate yourself from your competitors; by hiring the best talent, regardless of where they are physically located. It works, there's tons of companies that are moving to this model and getting great work done.


what did you mean by tech hub rates?


Companies usually scale pay based on the cost of living in the city where the worker lives. Tech hubs tend to be high cost of living areas. A $115k job in NYC becomes a $90k job in Omaha based on the premise that it costs 25% more to live in NYC.

This accurately reflects the buying power in the two different cities but base pay also generally translates percentage-wise into other benefits like 401k matching and your negotiating position for salary at your next job.


Pay them like they live in SF regardless of where they live.


Pay market rates equal to that in SF / Silicon Valley as it's the most expensive area in the country currently.


This. I live in NYC and work remotely for a company in London. I'd be just as happy to do it for a US company.


It sounds like they want to only pay coastal prices.


Just pay more. I'd even work in the middle of Alberta, CA if I were paid 2x Silicon Valley median salary.


TL; DR: The company: its people and its mission. Everything else is secondary.

I recently moved from San Francisco Bay Area to join Farmlogs in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Here is how I thought about it:

I derive majority of my happiness from what I do, not necessarily from the money that I have in my bank account or the social ameneties that are provided by the city that I live in. This is not to say that it will not be nice to have more money in my bank account or to live in a big city like New York or San Francisco, but my self-realization that I am most happy when I am satisfied at work.

I feel that you first need to pick the company you want to work for. I chose FarmLogs. It just happened to be in Ann Arbor. It would have been nice for me if it was in San Francisco but it wasn’t. Now I was not going to let that opportunity go just because it was not in San Francisco. For me, doing meaningful work has more importance than living in a specific city.

People have mentioned a lot of cons about working in the midwest but here are some of the pros:

1. Lower cost of living: I am not kidding when I say that I save much more in Ann Arbor in dollar amount as compared to when I was living in SF. I have been able to purchase my own house as compared to spending a fortune on rent in SF.

2. Better Negotiation: You can negotiate a better deal from your employer just because they are in midwest and want to hire you.

3. Experience of living in a new place: I, personally, have never lived in a place where it snows and I am looking forward to that experience. I don’t know if I will like it or not. If I don’t, I will know snow is not for me and will go back but I have to try.

So in short, I feel one should pick a company they want to work for. Everything else seems secondary. You will spend most of your time at work, and at least for me, if I am not happy at work, I am not happy in life.

In addition, I can go back to SF anytime if I wanted to.

Thats what I have to say about that.


For me, low cost of living means low quality of living. There are more things to do in more expensive cities and quality of almost everything is higher, from restaurants to doctors to schools.

Many people brought up the compensation which is fair, but for me, even if a company in mid-west offers 30% increase in my earnings I would pass.

For people like me that are minority, diversity is very important. It makes living much easier when you are surrounded with all different kind of people. By visiting some cities in Montana and Idaho I understood how good Silicon Valley and NYC are. People keep staring at us in restaurants just because we were talking a foreign language. I know it's all because of their curiosity and they don't hate us necessarily but it is not comfortable.


The people, the culture, the projects, the money. Probably in that order.

If I could work with a superstar team, where I am guaranteed hands-down to be the dumbest person in the room, where I can practice leading edge software development, contribute to fantastic projects (some of which were decided by me), and get paid very well, then sign me up.

With the amazing power of the internet, even remote jobs aren't really that remote. I would say benefits like sending employees to conferences, making sure they have good equipment and comfortable surroundings, allowing change in the organization, and making sure that the entire team is always seeking to improve are good ways to attract talent. Money is also good.


The first problem that comes to mind is that I'd have a lower salary on my resume, and would likely take a hit when I worked again in a high-salary state like California.

The second problem is that I'd also be taking a hit on real estate, if I ever planned on moving back to CA. This is speculative, I know, but it's how I think: I'd most likely buy a house, and, when I sold it it would be most likely worth less than if I'd just bought in CA to begin with. So I'd be taking a hit there as well.

I'd also think it would have a lot to do with the industry you're in... If I wrote software that controlled, say, oil refineries, than then I might be more willing to work in Texas.


As a senior dev in the Midwest, there's a lot of jobs available to you for good pay, so having something else that differentiates you is a good idea, but it all starts with the pay. There's plenty of good talent already in the midwest.


Ever since the Phoenicians invented money, there has only ever been one answer to that question :-) Basically, remote work at "tech hub" prices (that's what all your competitors are offering), or laughably oversized salaries (even by already-inflated tech-hub rates) if your client insists on having a local dev team. There's a reason it's called flyover country, and to entice me to work there (as someone who escaped from 'flyover country' to the East Coast and then again to the West Coast) is not going be cheap by anyone's standards.


I work for one of the big tech companies in the bay area, and I already plan on eventually moving to a much smaller metro eventually. Mainly it's because buying a house here is crazy expensive, and also because I'd like to be closer to nature (e.g. a 20 min bike ride to a river or forest or something like that). For me, just being in a desirable small city would be the big thing (good schools, good walkability/bikability, close to naturey stuff, not too far from a major metro (< 2 hours by car)).


I've always thought that it would be neat if a tech company bought a few square miles of empty land somewhere in Wyoming and build the mother of all tech campuses. Build on-campus housing and incentivize housing developers to build nearby, wire up beefy internets, incentivize other tech startups to set up shop nearby, and basically form a small tech gravitational well from nothing in a stupendously beautiful area. Maybe it's a pipe dream, but I for one would be extremely interested.


Living in a mid-to-high cost of living area while I'm working now affords the following advantage:

I'm building equity in a house that I can keep when I retire because I love it here, or sell it and move anywhere I want.

If I move to Oklahoma and decide I don't like it, and you're paying me in accordance with the reasonable cost of living, I'm stuck.

So, no thanks. Either pay market rate regardless of location or you're not going to entice people invested in a high cost of living area away.


Remote work.


I saw some of your old comments on a past passive income thread and because of the recent similar posting with links to the old thread I was able to read about your real estate post. I had some questions if you wouldn't mind.


Sure. I took my email address out of my profile because I was getting more email than I could thoughtfully respond to. I just added it back for now.


I'm not sure that I could be enticed to work outside of California, and the reason is because of the many friends I've made at university. Almost the majority of them stay in California and it would take far more than extra compensation to entice me away from that.


I work in Missouri, and wouldn't leave here for basically the same reason. Too many friends here from college, and my family's close.


I went to school in Iowa, my wife is from Iowa, and in many ways it would be a great place for us to live. Biggest problem I have is one that simply can't be overcome: no skiing, no mountains, no forests. What Vancouver / Seattle / Portland and the Bay Area have going for them is concentrations of real tech (not just corporate IT gigs) with great geography and weather. Plus, superior compensation. Sorry, Minneapolis and Chicago have no appeal.

Playing the long-game why do you care about location when you can hire good remote talent anywhere - they are happy to stay where they want to be, you get access to the talent you want without sourcing and relocation costs.


The bottom line is there's a price on it. Almost certainly in salary terms, but to a marginal degree perhaps other parts of the package.


Large companies can trick them into moving. Get them at a `cool` incubator in a major city and then ship them out to the farm.


So you're a consultant too? What made you decide not to work there permanently?


What is "flyover country"? There's a world of difference between a place like Chicago or Minneapolis (an underrated gem) and some exurb in the Deep South. Does Chicago count as "flyover country"? You can definitely get the kinds of people they're looking for to move to, say, Chicago or Minneapolis. A suburb 40 miles from Chicago, on the other hand, is pretty much a doomed location.

Being in a city (even a mid-sized city like Madison) matters more than the general geographic area. Chicago itself is rock-solid, an office park near the airport is not going to work.

* Obviously, if you're not paying a full relocation package (which includes a month or two of temporary housing, all moving costs, and a spousal placement agency) then you're not playing to win, and you won't.

* Same pay as on the coasts. Excepting Chicago and Minneapolis, you may even want to make that 110 to 120 percent in order to offset decrease of spousal pay.

* 3-5 conferences per year, fully paid. Announce it upfront as a perk.

* Establish a culture of giving back to the open-source world. Get the names of some star employees out there. People will then apply in order to work with them.

* At least 4 weeks of vacation. Minneapolis is beautiful, and its winters aren't as bad as people make them out to be, but getting out of there for a week or two in February really helps.

* Enough interesting work, and enough diversity of interesting work, that the job looks like a probable 3-5+ year fit. If it's run by McKinseys, you're dead in the water. Great engineers want to work in engineer-driven companies. Cross-country moves are too stressful to do one without an assurance that there'll be interesting work to do many years out.

* Culture of talent development and internal promotion. This needs to be verbalized in recruiting. "We're in <X>, so we invest in talent. We can't take smart people for granted." Now it's a selling point.

* Remote work. Smart people want to work with other smart people, and while you'll have some rock-solid people who are willing to move, you won't get "critical mass" unless you allow remote work.




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