Ask HN: What would attract you to a job in flyover country?

"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?

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.

"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.)

Why not hire remote?

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

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.

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).

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.

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

Remote work.

Remote work.

Remote work.

Remote work.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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".

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)).

For me, there's nothing you could do to get me to move to the middle of nowhere. I love the city (currently in NYC) and would rather kill myself then move to some relatively deadbeat rural town.

If the work were remote, then of course I'd be open to it.

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.