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Every time I read these articles, I feel like I made the right decision staying in the Northeast and not chasing the startup culture of the West. Sure I make less money on paper, but my office is five minutes away, my large house is only $1200(including the $6000 in escrow taxes!), only 36.5 hours a week, no on call, totally flexible working hours, I get to travel all over the world, and I live like a king. All that free time saved from virtually zero commute, and no overtime required, adds up to A LOT of time for my personal projects, and vacations. As I get older, I'm definitely valuing that over "being in the industry".

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I work from home, live in SF, travel often, and make more here than anywhere else and put more away even with insane prices. But I also sell software development services, so not really a better place to be.

Even if I didn't, I would never leave because of the weather and activities.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ to each their own.

Not the same situation being discussed, but I'm glad you've found your way there. This is more to do with the hordes that commute daily, and grind it out. Working from home, with your own company, is a completely different story.

Good decision. I am originally from Europe and I am on a Visa here and consider going back home despite the lower pay. I mean I like tech stuff, but I do not like it that much.

Being able to walk to work, getting 4+ weeks off a year guaranteed by law (so people actually use it instead of hearing they have unlimited PTO and then getting chided for taking a week off), the thought of my kids not having crushing student debt, the ability to live a somewhat lower-carbon lifestyle, not being miserably hot every summer, and a substantially reduced likelihood of being killed every time I go for a bike ride are good reasons to be in Europe.

Not everyone has those horrible commutes. It only takes a few successful exits in the millions to afford a house in Palo Alto, or just one in the billions!

May I ask what you do that enables you to travel all over the world? I've been thinking of ways that would let me travel more without quitting my job or switching out of tech entirely so any tips would be appreciated!

A large, "boring", global company. Offices all over the world, let's me pick and choose where I want to visit for corporate IT work. Also affords me the free time to work on my own side businesses, and travel more :)

Where in the northeast are you?

Rochester, NY. Cost of living is super cheap, lots of good food, you've got the great lakes, finger lakes, all kinds of outdoors shit, tons of festivals, and most importantly everything is only 15 minutes away on expressways. Only real issue is winter, but the change of seasons is enjoyable.

And the humidity.

Haha, yes, for a month!

I think you think Rochester is somewhere near (and has similar weather to) NYC. In the 5 years I lived there, there was about a week of nasty-hot/humid weather per summer. A big improvement on NYC or Philadelphia.

Edit: For a better description of the problem with Rochester's weather, see GP's name.

I'm in Minnesota and I would describe it almost the same way. I don't make as much but stuff is so much cheaper and I love the outdoors here

I lived in Rochester for 5 years. I remember 6 months of gray slate skies where the clouds are low to the ground in an almost claustrophobic way. Summers were humid. It not as hot as other areas. Rochester is cheap though and has good schools. It's a good place to raise a family if you can live with the weather, the provincial nature of the town, and its comparative geographical isolation. Also flights in and out used to be quite expensive too.

When I read your first post, I was hoping you were from WNY. I moved here with the intention of leaving after college, but the longer I stay here, the more I do not wish to leave.

Also...is there any chance your company is hiring Network Engineers? :)

Unfortunately not, we're a super lean team. There's about ten tech guys for the entire world of ninety offices. I think everyone comes here for school, and expects to leave. Someday, but first school gets paid off.

I've heard some mention of crime. Was there anything you noticed while there? Were burglaries higher than normal?

Just don't live anywhere near the North side of Rochester, homocides, and violence are high there. Suburbs(where most live), Park Ave, Brighton are all fine.

I'm definitely valuing that over "being in the industry".

You ARE in the industry.

For every programmer in Silicon Valley, there are x of us not in Silicon Valley. And there's probably little correlation between whether or not you're in Silicon Valley and the coolness and value of whatever you're building.

I love visiting but I can't imagine living there.

> I love visiting but I can't imagine living there.

That basically sums up my feelings on the bay area too.

There's no denying the connections in that part of the country. I guess that's what I was eluding to. I'm just finding it's not worth it for most.

> I love visiting but I can't imagine living there.

This sums up how I feel about NYC. I have family there, both my parents were originally from there, and I've had a good time every time I've visited, but I wouldn't want to actually live there. It's a great place for spending a weekend, but it's too noisy, crowded, and expensive to go about my day to day life there.

West != Bay area. :)

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