Comment by Lewisham | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Lewisham | Hacker News Reader

I used to work for Dyson as an intern some 15 years ago now. Obviously, the company will have to be different than I was there, but one thing that did strike me is that Malmesbury is really out there. [1] No main train line, at least a 40 minute drive from the nearest interesting city (Bristol). I can't imagine them attracting the best talent, particularly if they want to duke it out with sexier companies in sexier places in the IoT segment.

They couldn't pay me enough to go back there, and I think anyone worth their time won't either. It's a mistake to build their technology building there and not near London or at least a major city like Bristol/Manchester/Edinburgh. I don't think they realize that really good programmers are worth 10 bad ones (and at least when I was there, they really didn't have the best ones to put it mildly).

[1] https://goo.gl/maps/A7A1v

I invite people to have a look at the street view at the map location you've given. It seems like a perfectly wonderful place! If I were to move back to the UK I would pick a place like that over London any day.

I don't think programming ability is actually related to love of large city centres :-P Certainly it is much easier to hire in large cities, but I'm sure you can lure the ones who prefer small towns out of London if you offer them a competitive salary. Whether Dyson is interested in doing that or not, I have no idea.

Yeah, that actually looks nice.

Some of the best programmers I know work from places like that. There's a lot to be said for getting away from big cities.

For young people, this is probably the case. I remember being offered an internship out quite far out of town on a couple of occasions, and it was really hard to imagine taking the job. I had no car, and buses out in the boonies are few and far between.

My 22 year old self needed something resembling a large city, and naturally you have the pull of London when you're in the UK. There's the fact that you want to meet people and go out drinking, and you also don't want to cook every night. Professionally, you also need to consider that your first job might not be what you thought, and so having options nearby is essential.

For someone older, maybe with kids, it could work. Anywhere that's large enough to provide a sensible daily routine would work, though you'd need to consider how the spouse will find a job.

It's the kind of consideration that seems to cause London to get bigger and bigger.

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