You Can’t Look for a Job from a Remote Location – It Doesn’t Work

Two years later, I got laid off due to economic factors. This led to getting a job in the Bay Area. I had multiple phone interviews and a short programming test before getting the job, but I didn't have to fly over to California once.

The author does raise some good points, though. While I obviously don't have any proof, I have always suspected that some job offers were passed over me due to my location at the time, especially while in Puerto Rico (two prospective employers strongly suggested that I get a visa to work in the U.S. - ignoring the fact that Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory, making me a U.S. citizen). So while I would say it's a bit more difficult to go job-hunting in remote locations, it's definitely not impossible.

I specially carved out “young people” from my argument. Most young people are infinitely mobile. Also, I need to carve out mid-level developers. They tend to be fairly mobile. Finally, I should carve out international people. I talk about that in the comments.

So that leaves senior execs: Directors, VP, CEO types. This is the group I’m mostly talking about.

...in other words, this article is specifically targeted at well under 1% of the viewership of HN (I suspect we have many aspiring "CEO types" here, but mostly they are building up companies from scratch, not attempting to get inserted into them once they're up and running), and explicitly excludes the rest of us from this advice.

I was leaving MT and thought it'd be great to move to the Bay Area but figured I couldn't afford it without a job lined up so I decided on Denver. While in the process of moving, a job opportunity came up in the Bay Area (I wasn't looking but it's the exact job I wanted) so I pursued it, not thinking I would get it but for the interview experience. Well, while trying to figure out what area of Denver to settle in I got a job offer. I repacked the U-Haul and headed West. Now I'm here and loving it!

I think it's silly people still say things like "You can't do this, it'll never happen and here's why." It might be unlikely but "never" is a pretty strong word.

What type of position does he think his readers are looking for?

That presumes that you already know where that job is. The rest of us have to do some remote searching and be willing to move when we find it.

However, he still has a good point, which is that you're better off (more likely to get a better job) if you move first. That leave room to succeed without moving first.

I got a job in Boston from Toronto, and then one in New York from Boston. Getting flown out to Silicon Valley or Seattle for the bigger companies is also pretty common. It's even easier when you have a friend working in another city. The best places to work don't care where their candidates come from if they're good and willing to move.

I think the guy who wrote this article meant to say that it's easier to find a local job. But he's seriously out of touch with reality if he believes it's really hard to find a job in another city.

That being said, the bar is always higher (even if unconsciously) for candidates that require visas or relocation. If you're good, however, that's not a worry.

(1) OTOH, Wernel Vogels had certainly been relocated from Cornell to work at Amazon. I'd definitely say he has "the" job. One anecdote doesn't make a counter example, but this example shows that if you're great, you can find a job anywhere.

It was a successful process for the two most often cited reasons: timing and connections.

I was specifically targeted by someone who followed my work (blog/twitter/github)..which means I didn't have to work so hard to sell myself on technical merits to people half-way around the world.

Also, personal changes in my life suddenly made me mobile for the first time since graduating (a decade ago). Had the recruiting happened a few weeks earlier, I would have said no.

In most of Europe asking questions about where someone grew up or family connections to the locality can be considered as discriminatory (against married people, against people who grew up in the "wrong" neighbourhoodm etc.)