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

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

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

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