I live outside the Bay Area and I get interview offers for good real jobs about 3-4 times a month even though I am not looking. If I were looking for a new job it would be 12-15 recruiters contacting me per month.

What I have observed from listening to recruiters and hiring managers in the bay area is that they are desperate for any talent they can get, which is great if you are a junior or if you simply suck. As a senior developer the work looks for you (like the zombies in World War Z) regardless of the metro.

The problem with being a senior though is whether your teammates operate on your level or whether they are juniors. The problem with being a senior on a newb team is like being a 50 year old man marrying an 18 year old girl. Beauty and first impressions diminish quickly and you are left chasing busy work for immature bullshit.

The other problem with being senior seems to be that most companies interview the same as if you're junior: you have to study for the interview by doing all the leet code problems you can because that's what they ask.

I can usually recognize when that is happening and I turn it around with something like: "Here is how I would do that...". If its critical to code like a junior then I probably won't be a good fit there.

Bottom line up front here is the difference between seniors and juniors:

Seniors want to accomplish the work so they can either move onto the next task or simply zone off into space. The goal is to accomplish all requirements as aggressively as possible with the smallest result possible. Less is more, but more time is less.

Juniors want to play with tools and code style. Frameworks are a huge deal. Seniors don't want to dick with any of this unless it is in place to intentionally police the juniors. Yes, I understand that juniors can be policed by simply having the proper automation in place, but that doesn't make the juniors feel like they are contributing to a cure for cancer.

If you call yourself a senior, you should be able to pass a test designed for a junior.

The idea that the average software engineer job interview is "designed" for anything at all is laughable.

In that case it's not really particularly a problem of senior vs. junior, but one of software jobs in general. My beef is more with the idea that we shouldn't verify whether people that call themselves senior can actually write any code. I've seen candidates with "senior" on their resume who can't even write code at an intern-level proficiency.

When I'm interviewing, I don't mind reversing a linked list doing a binary search. It gives me an indication that the company is actually concerned with whether its employees have some baseline competency. I regard it as a positive signal.

Writing down binary searches and reversing linked lists is one thing, but what people are talking about here are questions of the nature "write down this algorithm that was publication-worthy 30 years ago," or, what I like to call "stupid programmer tricks." Those would include "implement rand10() using rand7()," or "find the closest palindrome to a given integer n."

I absolutely should be tested on when to use a dictionary vs an array vs a tree. But if finding the "acceptable" solution to a problem relies on remembering one particular algorithm from college that I've not had to use in a dozen years, as some LC problems do, then that's reducing a senior level dev interview down to a junior level dev interview. As it stands, all senior level devs have to do a month of Leet Code just to be competitive. The people down voting me can't honestly say they remember every single one of the algorithms that are popular on LC without studying. That's just not being honest.

The kind of "tests" that most interviews use (and leetcode etc) are more riddles than anything else. Either you know the answer already and are able to recall it and pass the interview, or you don't know the answer and you'll fall flat on your face.

Hopefully, the job they are hiring for isn't "master code riddle solver", making the whole process irrelevant whether you're junior or senior. In any case, the interview checks whether you know this problem and its solution or not. That's not a junior/senior distinction.

Generally speaking, yes. But Leet code style problems touch on aspects of CS that a senior doesn't practice day to day as a senior's responsibilities are more system holistic.

Duke Mu of Ch'in said to Po Lo: 'You are now advanced in years. Is there any member of your family whom I could employ to look for horses in your stead?' Po Lo replied: 'A good horse can be picked out by its general build and appearance. But the superlative horse — one that raises no dust and leaves no tracks — is something evanescent and fleeting, elusive as thin air. The talent of my sons lies on a lower plane altogether: they can tell a good horse when they see one, but they cannot tell a superlative horse. I have a friend, however, one Chiu-fang Kao, a hawker of fuel and vegetables, who in things appertaining to horses is nowise my inferior. Pray see him.'

Duke Mu did so, and subsequently despatched him on the quest for a steed. Three months later, he returned with the news that he had found one. 'It is now in Sha-ch'iu,' he added. 'What kind of a horse is it?' asked the Duke. 'Oh, it is a dun-coloured mare,' was the reply. However, on some one being sent to fetch it, the animal turned out to be a coal-black stallion! Much displeased, the Duke sent for Po Lo. 'That friend of yours,' he said, 'whom I commissioned to look for a horse, has made a nice mess of it. Why, he cannot even distinguish a beast's colour or sex! What on earth can he know about horses?'

Po Lo heaved a sigh of satisfaction. 'Has he really got as far as that?' he cried. 'Ah, then he is worth a thousand of me put together. There is no comparison between us. What Kao keeps in view is the spiritual mechanism. In making sure of the essential, he forgets the homely details; intent on the inward qualities, he loses sight of the external. He sees what he wants to see, and not what he does not want to see. He looks at the things he ought to look at, and neglects those that need not be looked at. So clever a judge of horses is Kao, that he has it in him to judge something better than horses.'

When the horse arrived, it turned out indeed to be a superlative horse.

- Liezi

And this is why having code reviews devolve into stylistic nit-picking by supposed "seniors" while structure and glaring bugs go unmentioned is one of the must infuriating things in the world. The color of the horse is all they see.

You can also become very 'senior' in level without exposure or experience that would be comparable to somebody in SF. Its a bummer when you live there, but the whole city lives and breathes tech. You can't get that elsewhere.

I am sure this is probably true. I just got my first Sr. Dev job which resulted in a 50% pay raise and I dont live any where close to a tech hub. Now I have no doubt that I am not as good as most of the people in the SF scene. But I have kids, make a great salary and can afford to live very comfortably and send my kids to private schools.

I think SF is great for people who live and die for the technology. For everyone else just trying to live a good life they can get not quite to SF Sr. level salaries in affordable regions and come out very far ahead. But if I do agree if you are looking for the bleeding edge, SF and NY is where its at.

You don't need that ("SF senior experience") to make an outlier salary though. If that's your cup of tea, awesome, but I don't work because I want to breath tech; I work to make as much money as possible. If you need to hire someone in SF for your business, go for it. The rest of the world hires from outside the Bay Area.

Assuming you view your job as a means to an end (a decent standard of living with a family you actually get to see), why is this a bad thing?

Breathes tech and wildfire smoke

Normally I wouldn't expect consider Chicago a "smaller market" but for software it is.

Moved from SF to Chicago about 18 months ago after working in the Bay Area for 17 years. I can't speak for other cities but Chicago is fine from both a network and comp standpoint. The profile of the type of work that's done here is different, sure, but nothing wrong with that. Depending on your point of view, it could be considered refreshing.

On top of that, comp is moving upward here. I'm not sure the trigger but recruiter reach outs started jumping here (like for a couple a week to 10+ a week) about a year ago and I'm seeing a definite upward trend in salary numbers.

Now, this is Chicago, so there is still a lot of dev shops that aren't modernized but there were a lot of shops in the Bay Area I wouldn't touch either for varying reasons. I don't regret moving away from the Bay Area other than the roads suck here due to having real seasons.

Lots of companies here are enjoying good times overwall. All the finance/trading companies have been doing really well the past year or so. Plus there has been some investment in the crypto industry including coinbase with their huge pockets

Not my experience. I work in the midwest and my co-workers are creating technology that is used by people all around the world, and competing well against tech coming out of the coasts. I love working with them. Sorry your experience has been bad.

I don't know where you moved, but this is pretty condescending.

The idea that there are just a bunch of small-pond professionals in places like Austin/Atlanta/Raleigh is just...not accurate. A ton of the folks I've worked with actually lived in the Bay until they decided they wanted to start a family and moved to a place where that is possible.

I don't think the GP is talking about somewhere like "Austin/Atlanta/Raleigh" I would consider those places big cities. They are probably talking about a city that's 50,000-100,000 people, not a major metro.

Sadly I'm talking about a city in the top 5 VC funded cities.

I'm not saying people other places are bad or lesser, I'm saying the opportunities in SF are that much greater.

I respectfully disagree. Just update your resume on Dice, Monster etc. and you will have recruiters calling 2 - 3 times a day. Now you may not get the specific job in the specific industry you are partial too but you can definitely get a good job. I have no where close to SF experience or probably their top of the mountain skill-sets but I have no problem getting job interviews if I want them. My network pretty much consists of me and whatever nameless recruiters call me.

The last time I wanted a new job I just updated my resume on Monster and had 3 interviews a week later and started a great new job two weeks after that.

Sorry you had a negative experience from your move, hope things turn around for you.

I hate recruiter spam, recruiters who call me are useless because they want me to relocate. It's actually kinda insulting because I want to say to them "sure, I'll just uproot my entire life, sell my house, have my husband quit his job, and leave my entire social circle to move to [city] just to work at your shitty startup." I can understand calling JR engineers for positions that require relocation, but not currently employed senior engineers. Of course I don't say that because it's impolite. They seem to operate on "mindlessly spam everyone with the same message, someone might reply."

There's been one exception to this. A single exception. Of all the recruiters who have contracted me one has been local.

EDIT: To the dead commentator that replied to me:

1) I didn't say people don't want to hire me, I politely decline all recruiter spam with "sorry, I can't relocate." It's just the more I get the more I silently get enraged. I find local jobs and get hired locally just fine without recruiters.

2) Being a senior engineer with as many years experience that I have usually means you are old enough to have put down roots where you are. Very few people make long distance moves for a random job when they are older than 35, unless they are unemployed or changing careers or something like that.

3) No need to use scare quotes around senior.

This can be true, it does appear that most recruiters appear to take a shotgun approach. They also just search for keywords and have generally not even read your complete resume. Occasionally they also don't look at cities, only states and have no idea the distance between where you are and where the job is.

Recruiter: Your resume says you have .net experience, we are looking for a Sr. .Net developer, interested?

Me: My resume says I developed some tools in .Net and that the bulk of my background is in php.

Recruiter: Great, would you like to apply?

Simplified but generally accurate. Either way I have had pretty good luck getting jobs via recruiters but there is a lot of chaff you have to get through. Your mileage may vary but I have been happy so far.

I don't even bother going as far as you, I have a rock bottom set of criteria they must pass before I'll do anything but mark it as spam:

1) Send it to the correct email address. Not my personal one, use what's on my resume.

2) Give some indication you've read my resume, such as mentioning a technology listed on it. Not something I've never included.

3) Something about the job. Anything at all, even just what city it's in.

That I can recall, only once has a recruiter passed. Kinda felt bad at turning down what seemed like the only recruiter who was competent at their job.

Thanks. Its not a shortage of recruiters or available positions:)

While the network bit is valid, it implies that networking in smaller areas can't still have the same impact in cost adjusted terms, meaning that while your lifetime earnings may be 20% lower, if you're living in an area with 20% lower cost of living its a wash.

When combined with a generally snooty attitude about "small pond" people, it seems like you simultaneously feel that you're going to be the smartest guy in the room and yet aren't smart enough to see the MASSIVE potential benefit of that in a smaller pond. If you have even rudimentary soft skills you could end up a VP of a Raleigh or ATL based company while possibly never even making it out of middle management in SF.

I'm sad my comment came off as snooty. Its not meant to be. I'm not the smartest guy in the room by a long shot. I've just seen things that people in smaller ponds haven't. ICs at my last company in the bay make more than very senior people here. All of the cost of living calcs are essentially BS unless you have kids

People in the 'smaller ponds' don't really care about your prestige, we care about your character, which you have shown none. We live in these areas because we can about our families, the people around us and our communities not working on the latest tech in SF to reach some arbitrary goal.

I don't have prestige, I'm not a 10x coder, I'm not special. I'm sure you have reasons for what you do. I don't like SF or the bay and I'm happy you have a great family.

As a counterpoint, I live in flyover country, have a nice house and a job I love, where I work on interesting problems. Whether or not I can compete with Stanford whiz kids is irrelevant, because they never come here.

It's interesting how quickly HN can shift from idealized meritocracy to blunt warnings about the loss of the networking effect.

It’s almost as if there are multiple users on this very website.

Yes, and some of those may appreciate a direct example or just that it's called out.

Have not been there, but I suspect this is very true. Couple that with the authors assumption that those in the flyover area will ever get a raise (he makes the comparison of the person in atlanta eventually making 40k more a year). I live in a flyover area, have 25 years of experience, and have never seen a real raise, much less "oh, in 15 years I will be making 40k more". I would move to a tech center in a heartbeat, just for the networking.

There's also a reason people go to south Atlanta for movies and a dozen different, lesser hub cities for tech.

Movie people from Hollywood don't go to Atlanta. Tech people from SV/NYC don't go to other cities. But there are significant incentives for people from everywhere else to consider different aggregator communities as their base when they are planning out their careers.

I don't have a SV or NYC network to lose. The proposition of moving doesn't automatically give me one. All it gives me is a pay raise, which is more than eaten by higher costs of living.

Tech money people from SV/NYC ought to consider going to these secondary hubs. They can become big fishes in smaller ponds really quickly, and build networks to make use of the talent going to these communities. To some extent this has happened to other industries. Charlotte, NC became a major financial hub after 9/11. Vancouver is Hollywood North. Montréal is as significant, if not more, than the Bay Area for video games.

I can't agree strongly enough. I wonder how many VCs read about Arthur Rock and the Traitorous Eight and are smart enough to realize that Silicon Valley has become today's equivalent of 1950's New York: expensive, dominated by advertising money and networking, and so self-evidently the center of the universe that one shouldn't need to worry about what people are working on in the hinterlands.

New industries will be born somewhere, and it probably won't be in SV.

This type of thing is not cheap or easy for most companies. Who is expanding into these small ponds? Amazon, one of the largest tech companies on earth, and with a years long theatrical processs. Talent going to these communities was already passed over by SV university recruiting. There’s no urgency to get into these puddles when every 22 year old with a CS degree is willing to drop everything and come to you.

The tendency for VCs to favor financial stability over audacity or innovation when making geographical choices is disappointing, agreed.

I am so torn on this. I agree about the network. At the same time, I know how lucky I am when it comes to living arrangements.

I have a hard time recommending that someone who is trying to have a family live here. If they are single, and willing to have roommates - sure.

I am hoping that the California High-Speed Rail project opens up housing arrangements that change the equation.

A 2.4 hour round trip commute to Fresno doesn't sound bad if it is on a train. (https://www.hsr.ca.gov/Newsroom/Multimedia/maps.html)

What is also interesting is that Facebook is willingly paying for reactivating the Dumbarton rail bridge. ( https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Fast-growing-Fa... )

SV might be the place to go for networking, if you want to do a startup or work in one of the FAANGs or FAANG wannabes, but the idea that SV is the only place where people know what they are doing is completely laughable self-congratulating bunk. Actually, I've never seen a place with more cargo-culting than SV.

But of course it is the only place to be if you want to "change the world" with the next Earth-shattering break-through like Theranos or Juicero.

As you pointed out, the cost of living is low, but there are some serious trade offs to consider.

For example:

* There's usually only a few large employers in town, and switching jobs is a very diplomatic and drawn out affair

* Buying a house is cheap, but good luck selling it.

* Your salary is lower which is fine due to living costs, but your equity grants will also be lower. This is a big deal.

* Talent learns from talent, and the pace of life in many lower COL is "this is just a job I get paid for" compared to "this is something I will do for life". Learning opportunities are slim.

It works for some, but buyer beware.

Very fascinating insight. As someone who moved from SF to Santa Monica, I can say that if I only stayed in LA, this would absolutely be the case. You lose quite a bit of network value, which definitely impacts (1) fundraising, (2) hiring, and (3) overall work opportunities.

Improving network for people in non-geographically dense areas seems like a problem waiting for a solution.

And the solution is hampered by the privacy of given companies. I work in biology, and networking opportunities happen multiple times a year in different international conferences. You present your work and look at everyone else’s in your field, effectively networking with the entire field at once, multiple times a year. There doesn’t seem to be an international community like this in computer science, and I don’t know that there will be beyond academic conferences just because of the secrecy of research in tech. There’s a strong anti collaborative sentiment in technology that hampers joint innovation because everyone just wants to get profitable before anyone else. Even in biotech, employees have chances to present their work in conferences.

I’m doing well in a small Midwest “pond” (150k population) and I agree with you. I will say that there are great opportunities in the Midwest if you are an above-average developer, communicate well and understand another domain like equipment manufacturing or logistics. Opportunities are available to me because I developed a combination of skills that stands out. But, in exchange I have to work hard to keep up with the software industry because no one is going to set up any new workflow, language or tool for me. I could go for a month without being challenged on what I know. That’s a risky situation to be in, long term. And yes, if I desired to move back into specializing in back-room software development, I’d be disadvantaged here.

I mean where are talking about? There is a huge difference between Toledo OH and Raleigh or Austin.

So are you making the argument that top-level or important tech work can only happen in SF or NYC?

No, only that your career and development will benefit from staying in those places

I've never worked in SF and it hasn't hindered my career. There are thriving tech markets all over the United States. If your goal is to maximize your income over expenses, DFW is a fantastic place to work, for example.

As far as networks go, my network is spread all over the country. I have former coworkers in Seattle, San Fransisco, Portland, Austin, Dallas, New York. It hardly matters where you live when you've worked with remote teams for half of your career.

I mean... with all due respect, man, you can't argue against what you haven't experienced.

I've worked in tech hubs around the world. I still go back to SF a few times a year and keep connections fresh, because they can make or break things sometimes.

> If your goal is to maximize your income over expenses, DFW is a fantastic place to work, for example.

Must have changed a lot in the couple years since I left, because I was having trouble finding senior jobs that paid over $100k/year.

I haven't had trouble finding salaries above this as a mid level devops engineer. As a senior, I would expect to see 120-140k.

And my cost of living was approximately 30k/year. That's the part I really miss.

In 2016 the only six-figure lead I had (with 14 years of experience) was a really shitty contract gig with Ziosk. I was sitting at $92,500 at a small company. I got a raise to $95,000 just before I left. I would probably be at $105,000 - $110,000 now had I stayed.

When I left Raytheon in 2012 I was making $82,500 + 3%-5% performance sharing. I would probably be about $100,000 now if I had stayed there.

Who around there is paying $140,000 for seniors? If I could have made that I would probably still be there, since I moved to New Jersey for $180,000.

I think this to some extent depends on what kind of software you are interested in working on. From the perspective of someone working as a developer in finance, SF is nowheresville, you want to be in NYC or Chicago, typically. That's my personal anecdata but I'd imagine other smaller markets have their own niche industries.

If what excites you is web-focused startups, then yeah, you're probably not going to be happy in a lot of other places, but that is just one area of software development and I'd argue it doesn't have any exclusive license on interesting problems or top talent.

Web focused dev isn't the only area with interesting problems but that's definitely what gets the most attention is frankly probably the most lucrative path for most people. I work in finance as well, and am kind of too specialized in it to switch now, but I do think I'd have been better off working at the FAANGs for my whole career.

I know a person who is happy with that choice.

Unlike many, he was an actual SF native. He grew up there, and has family there. He is a highly competent software developer. He now works in Melbourne, FL. He has in fact switched jobs several times while remaining in the area.

He lives on 12 acres with a commute of about a half hour. He has sheep and a couple dozen chickens. He can shoot his AR-15 in his yard.

What salary would he need in SF to get all that?

You left SF and made less money?

I find the wages in my area are the same as Cali. SE Michigan FYI.

But I agree about quality of people. Very few are talented, however that is enough to get me through my personal projects.

Why do you say that? As somebody that was briefly looking for a job in SE Michigan, I found the salaries much lower (even with COL taken in account)

Why do I say that?

That is my experience. Current pay 55 an hour, opportunity for 59 an hour.

Bring on the downvotes.