Ask HN: Where are other tech scenes outside Bay Area
I feel like I’ve missed the boat when it comes to home ownership here in the Bay Area. Furthermore, my wife wants stability in home ownership for our nascent family, and renting is hardly affordable, not to mention lacking in the potential for growth in equity.
The usual option of Austin doesn’t excite me.
Where else are people going that has a Tech scene?
Currently, I’m working as a Director of Engineering, making 300k+, but it doesn’t seem to matter; all I can afford is either under a freeway or under power lines, it seems. I don’t want to overextend across 30 years.
Any suggestions? I’d be happier, I think, somewhere else, with a lower paying job, incredibly, but I’m having a hard time figuring out somewhere with a good mix of weather, jobs, properties, schools.
98 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 171 ms ] threadedit: (in the original post I only posted the 'RTP' acronym.)
What neighborhoods are worth checking out and what companies are interesting.
Saw a lot of NetApp and IBM. Nothing wrong with those just seems like not a lot of companies just a few of ones from first glance.
I moved down here 5 years ago (from Buffalo, NY) but I work remotely for a non-local company.
As far as neighborhoods good, we're happy in Holly Springs, Apex is north of us, and Fuquay-Varina is just to the south. Cary is by far the most desirable area due to it's proximity to RTP. We decided we wanted more house/backyard than we could afford in Cary and so we settled in Holly Springs. If I had to work in RTP I'd hop on the 540 (toll road) and be there in 30 minutes.
Seemed like when I was there it was something about a rocket and cloning US tech and SoundCloud were the two big games in town.
Has there gotten to be a more critical mass of companies there recently?
I recently moved from SF to San Diego about a year ago and just bought a house. It’s not that we couldn’t afford a house in the Bay Area. Just that in SD we could afford a house in a neighborhood we’d actually want to live in.
It’s a different market down here. Lots of biotech and defense contractors. Primarily Java, C++, C# but you can find some ruby and php positions. I haven’t seen any python and very little node.js positions but they are out there. Startup scene is obviously much smaller but if you look hard enough you can find some great companies.
My Cousin just opened a Brewery called the Kensington which I believe is the name of the neighborhood as well.
What neighborhood did you land in?
What’s the percentage difference in Salary you’d expect? Say Mid Level Developer in SF is ~150-200k at this point would it be 100k median or so?
In other cities it seems like you have a single or a few employers and if it didn’t work out with them you’d need to uproot your life and move areas again. Having an ecosystem like that allows a bit more options.
That being said I don’t imagine Chicago to be like that, what tech companies do you like in that area? As that’s what I’m qualified to do.
There might not be as many as the Bay area, but there is more than enough to keep your employment stable until retirement. As a bonus, much fewer of them will be unstable startups.
For instance in Atlanta, you may not make $300K a year, but you can buy a 2500 square foot house for $400K - $600K in one of the most affluent areas in the country (measured by median household income) - John’s Creek. If you go a little further up north to Forsyth - one of the most affluent counties in the US, you can get a 3000 square foot house, brand new build with all of the niceties for less than $350K.
Also the “tech scene” is not all it’s cracked up to be during a recession when non profitable companies are dependent on VC funding. There were plenty of tech jobs in profitable corporate companies during both the 2000 dot com bust and the 2008 recession.
Edit: personal anecdote:
I had just been working three years when the dotcom bust happened. The company I worked for didn’t blink. They gave almost everyone $10K raises that year and 20% bonuses because the local market was still thriving.
2008 was slightly harder, developers could find contract work but a lot of companies weren’t hiring permanent employees. Middle management and project managers were hit hard.
But frankly I doubt you're going to be able to secure a gig at that pay, you'll have to decide if general quality of life is worth the monetary tradeoff. The tech scene itself is much more nascent in Berlin (and way underfunded) but you may be able to parlay your 'Silicon Valley' roots into a sweet senior gig in an innovation lab or as a senior engineer at a bigger corporate that's trying to compete with newcomers which is a big theme in German corporates right now
oh, here the knowledge of German doesn't matter - an individual consumer is a pariah with obligatory 2 years contract. One should certainly avoid English speaking landlords in Berlin though.
Would you care to elaborate on that?
Groceries are basically not a problem, even if you don’t speak a single word of German and don’t want to rely on Google Translate on your phone: almost all of the products in packaging have pictures of the food on the outside, the tills show you the total at the same time the cashier tells you, most of the shops accept contactless payment (even discount chains), and half the cashiers probably want to practice their English on you.
On the other hand: at some point in the next month, I need to officially register that I’m living here to get an ID card. I’m not looking forward to that, because I’m told the people in charge of that really insists on speaking German, even in Berlin where about 20% the population is Ausländer.
I don't quite get the phrasing "insist[s] on speaking German" - of course they are going to do that, German being the official language and only official language (unlike e.g. Switzerland with four, although unsurprisingly, English still doesn't make the list). Also, if they did allow another language, surely it would be Turkish, not English.
My advice would be to take a friend or colleague. Way easier than trying to do stuff with a translator, or misunderstanding something.
> My advice would be to take a friend or colleague.
That’s the plan :)
But if you want to life in Germany for more than a year or two you really should learn the language. Getting to a basic level of German if you're an English speaker is not that hard.
It's tough to find people willing to talk with an adult like they're a toddler.
So, I don't think the question is as flippant as you made it out to be. Someone might have some real advice about how to manage the juggling act of learning a new language and culture as a working adult.
Can vouch for Berlin, too. In Berlin Mitte near Alexanderplatz there are great apartments for approx. $2k/month (around 60m2). It's one of the more expensive areas, but I think it's better for young families who want a calm place.
You will make way less money, though. $5-7k/month should be possible. At SAP you can make $10k/month after some years. But in general it isn't really comparable to US salaries.
For the lang. barrier: Most people speak english and there are many coffee shops where 80% of the employees can only speak english.
Alternatively: I heard that Zurich also pays good, but that the people are not too social and it can be hard to build a social circle there.
Don’t bother trying it before you actually move though, because the website appears to be geo-locked and the American and UK versions aren’t open yet.
> an online-only bank
It's a direct bank as any other, quick internet search will reveal more options in Germany. Their "innovations" in comparison with personal banking even in neighbouring Czechia (e.g. Fio), or Poland (e.g. mBank, Inteligo) are laughable.
I had originally tried getting an account in a Sparkasse branch, but it was much more difficult than N26. No doubt there are other online only banks, but I cannot comment on their quality without using them.
Many internet, phone and other companies employ young people for support tasks who can speak english most of the time, so it shouldn't be a big issue. Especially if you go to offline stores in Berlin to fill out the forms.
[1] https://assets.weforum.org/editor/2vlR8al6iWyoYpVPo25yRwsEap... (#2 for Livability)
[2] https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...
[3] https://www.visitberlin.de/en/lakes
[4] https://www.berlin.de/en/parks-and-gardens/3561883-4407152-p...
There are a lot of companies opening offices out here though!
On the job front, what companies do you think are innovative or majors opening branches are worth looking at?
There are some established big players here, Adobe, and EBay and I think Walmart labs has an office here. I work for Ubiquiti, which is growing out their office here pretty quickly also.
A lot of small/medium sized startups too... Google around for “Silicon Slopes” which is the sort of name the local VCs give the area.
That part is spectacular. We have our choice of clean, nicely appointed parks full of kids 3 minutes walk in either direction, 2 minute drive to get into the canyons, and I have a big garden.
The options for jobs and salaries are nothing like the bay. Software engineers rarely make over 120k here. Plenty of techish companies scattered all around the valley and Park City, but not many I was excited about. I took a job in Kimball Junction (PC), commuting 26 minutes. Here that qualifies as a big commute.
Until recently, SLC was mostly LDS and mountain lovers, and the work culture reflects both groups' regard for to their non-work life. The company I joined is based in SV and almost all of the people in the office are transplants. I think that's because the company's work/life balance expectations are not in line with what most people want around here.
Every once in a while I will entertain solicitations from SV/Seattle recruiters for 2x+ the money and then realize I would be worse off financially than just staying in SLC.
Lehi, Utah as others have mentioned is great too. I moved from there back to AZ to escape the show though.
J/K assuming you meant snow.
Jokes aside what companies do you like in the area?
Remote is interesting for sure. The rise of companies like Buffer and I believe the Wordpress company is 100% remote.
Definitely solves half my issue also looking for somewhere actually nice to live.
Could be worth waiting until HQ2 is announced though. Families won't necessarily be interested moving, but there's enough people around who'll make the jump, which maybe helps with prices? Who knows.
I actually think here is one of the best places to leave. You can find SV level paychecks, no income tax, and housing for half of the price!
If you can bus or commute off-hours it can work.
[1] http://portlandtech.org/
Also what’s your favorite companies of those 4K openings I should look into?
Ergo you are financially better off renting, and investing the money you would have spent on a house.
A fixed rate mortgage will only change slightly with property taxes and insurance.
Even if the value of the house only goes up with inflation, you still get larger returns because you can take advantage of leveraging other people’s money.
Also, a paid off house means that’s one expense you don’t have to worry about after you retire.
1. Oxford-Cambridge-London in the UK
2. Shenzhen-Guangzhou-Hong Kong in China
3. Israel
Tel Aviv is awesome. Still housing is an issue. Getting a residence permit unless you are Jewish or marry is way harder than in many other developed countries. Other than that, a great option.
Anyone live in the Midwest and can chime in on their experiences?
and 300k a year will buy you a large homestead in those areas.
Personally live in Seattle and love it, but I got in before the major boom and it is not nearly as affordable as 5-10 years ago. Still think it is a major upgrade to SF, though.
Also worth mentioning that whatever happens with Brexit will have an affect on Ireland too (probably in a bad way), due to the shared border with the UK.
Ireland will likely take some form of impact from Brexit, especially if tariffs are brought in on trade of goods with the UK. I would still think that the tech scene shouldn't be too impacted and may see more growth if multinational comapanies move after Brexit.
The property market of renting and buying is in an expensive deadlock (relatively to local earnings) everywhere from Lisbon to Krakow, from Reykjavik to Barcelona. I wouldn't expect it to just "drop" by itself anywhere as too many significant entities are betting on it.
There's a vibrant enough tech Meetup scene too, so even if you're just paying the bills with a mundane IT role you can still meet interesting people doing cool things.
We're stuck in a major housing crisis though, so accommodation in or near the city is very expensive and hard to find.
The economy is good, the tech scene is already good and booming. A lot of local startups, bigger and bigger local companies and the typical international tech startups are here.
Salary are lower but the cost of life too and you'll live way better here. Home prices, groceries, restaurants/bars and travels are mostly cheaper. I'd say I spend almost half in Amsterdam than what I was spending in SF, for a pretty similar life style. This sounds true to most of my friends who did the same move.
Everyone speaks english, so you won't have to rush to learn Dutch. There are great english-speaking private schools that you'll be able to afford, or free Dutch schools, to which your kids will adapt very quick if they are still young.
I wouldn’t consider it for someone earning less than about $180k/year, just because of how much licensing and vehicles cost, but the comment I was responding to said >$300k.
I would imagine you have a good network of people in tech so you could probably transition to freelance work and live anywhere. Email me if you want to discuss. Co-work spaces here are anywhere from $100 - $500/mo. Internet is so blazing fast it's ridiculous - 300mbs on ethernet in our apartment. What we had in SF was pathetic.
Condo prices in central Prague are about $4,500usd/m2 - so 500k usd will get you a nice 2 bedroom in a really nice neighborhood. For the same money you can move 20 minutes by train outside the center and get a small house with a yard.
If you are leaning towards Europe the best tech scenes IMO are in Berlin, Amsterdam and Barcelona. Barcelona has really been picking up in the last few years and is probably the cheapest.
Personally I had a lot of good times in Berlin, but it didn't feel like it had the drive of the valley.
Recently moved to Toronto, and loving it here so far. Great scene, smart & friendly people and lots of growth.
Not trying to badmouth Berlin, it's a super cool city. Just didn't hit the mark for me.
https://business.financialpost.com/technology/torontos-tech-...
Thought rents/commute etc could be steep, one can expect decent salary as well.
There is tech beyond SV. My current company is distributed between a second tier city in Croatia and a semi-rural town in NZ. We are in the end-of-life tech, and are taking the Advisor track at Startup School.
Times when you had no tech other than ol' skool corporate IT beyond SV, London, and a few other spots are gone. My current city, Osijek, a second tier city has some amazing tech that is quite prominent globally. Farmeron (AgTech) was founded here and later acquired, https://www.netocratic.com/farmeron-closes-gideon-brother-11... . Infobip (telco infrastructure software) was founded in a semi rural town in Istria region in Croatia.
Don't overlook Eastern Europe. Estonia, Czech, Romania, Poland got amazing tech scenes, and the life is good.
If you work remotely, options are even more abundant.
Don't mind that SV is actually quite vulnerable and gets hit badly by recessions, bursts, etc.
As of the US. New Mexico, Colorado, Washington, are all quite livable.
Not sure on taxation for the US citizens, sorry.
Ottawa is a great place to raise a family, coffee (specifically little victories, happy goat, and black squirrel) and food culture is fantastic, great city for outdoor activities such as biking, rowing, hiking, etc..., very dog friendly city, 2 hours away from Montreal, 4.5 from Toronto.
Not sure about tech salaries but I'm sure with your experience you can negotiate something similar.
If you're looking for a Bay Area vibe I'd say the glebe is as close as you can get.