I can think of less risky ways to squeeze $10k out of a new employer.
My cynical view on it is that it's more of a marketing ploy. Lots of non-Bay Area folk will be reading this and might make a decision to apply. I don't think they're trying to trap people. They're already a remote company. It's not like they're a major company employing 5,000 SWEs in the Bay Area and offering to relocate them to Northern Michigan where they're setting up a new office, but there won't be other companies around. While you might have more options in San Francisco than Seattle, I think the amount of leverage that more companies give you in your career is probably logarithmically increasing. That is to say, Seattle would have more than enough other companies around that the company couldn't forego raises and equity grants because you don't have other options.
And I think it would be a good thing for our industry to spread out a bit more. Some people have families in certain areas they wish to be close to, some people enjoy the local culture and amenities of certain areas more than others. Having people feel "forced" to live in locations that aren't their cup of tea for economic opportunity isn't really helping anything. The people who do want to live there face increased housing prices and congestion. The people who would rather live somewhere else make a choice for their career that doesn't match what they'd choose for their life. Tying economic opportunity to location isn't a wonderful thing.
A $10k signing bonus in exchange for putting yourself in a more vulnerable position will not change those (unfortunate) facts.
This is true, there are other tech hubs in the United States, but they are facing many of the problems that the Bay Area is facing now, with a tightening housing market, increasing cost of living, and long commutes. Places outside of those tech hubs generally have a terrible IT industry, and generally only accept people with a bachelor's degree plus 2+ years experience to get into even a junior role.
This is technically true but elides tons of context. "Thriving software scene" does not touch on the quality of the "scene" in question. Places that have software industries with similar perks (e.g. flex time, flexible or absent dress standards, etc.) generally have the same housing and CoL issues that the Bay Area has, relative to the salaries they pay. Places without these perks also have a much higher ratio of employers who tend to offer significantly lower salaries and benefits and have jobs that are of a poorer quality (job titles like "programmer/analyst"). They also generally don't have a sufficiently large employer base to allow the movement we see in SF, Chicago, Austin, etc. Job security in these places is a thing and almost always not in the employees' favor.
Some of the other comments in this thread are a bit insulting, actually--painting outside-the-valley as some kind of hopeless, jobless wasteland.
But it is possible (obviously) for software developers to earn a salary doing a job there.
(It's also -- knowing the Zapier history of being aggressive on the employee-friendliness front, and having interacted with them in their earlier days -- somewhat uncharitable as a default position.)
Limiting your job search to 100% remote is a great way to unexpectedly find yourself earning eastern European wages while paying midwestern U.S. living costs. Or, worse, being forced to change geography when the work dries up.
We all know "that guy" who moved his family cross-country, put the kids into new schools etc only to come back to the city a couple years later, when the "perfect" remote gig ended, or the single employer in Nowhere, KS eliminated their local technology group.
How does that claim not apply equally to moving to a city with a large employee pool like the Bay Area?
There is no guarantee that your competitors on a global market will face the same cost structure. Quite to the contrary -- they are very likely to have lower costs of living.
The caricatures of Middle America really never top, do they? Good developers in St. Louis, where I'm from, make six figures.
The GDP per capita in Romania (to pick a totally random example (it's literally just the first place I thought to check)) is $9,499. In Missouri it's $42,984.
There's this weird perception that the Midwest is like a third-world country, a perception that's plainly ignorant.
If you're only after a $10k bonus, you're right, there are more effective ways to get that.
I was worried it'd be tough to move jobs or careers and that getting new jobs would be harder.
It hasn't been. I've been steadily moving up and into new positions at new companies every 2 years just like I was in the Bay Area. My salary is 2.7x higher than it was when I left the Bay Area, and I now have a 5,000 sqft home in a great city that I paid about 1/10th as much for as I would have in the Bay Area.
Earlier in my career I'd send 150+ applications. The last move I only looked at three positions and got offers from all three.
I'm now somewhere else entirely, and while I don't want to say, I'll just say you'd find it surprising, because I certainly did. We like it, though, and there is a strong science-based economy with big growth in cloud and data, low crime, a highly educated population, and an amazing metro area.
Where we are, house prices have doubled since 2008. We are also trying to think out of the box in terms of where to live. Cheers!
The original salary must have been low, no hate.
Different strokes for different folks. If you're working at a company that already pays well and you're not in the Bay Area, then your options for switching are either exciting but very risky startups (< $1 billion) or small satellite offices of big corps that have limited team options and little political influence (bad for advancement in senior positions). These would typically be lateral movements at best.
My new salary is just much higher, I've had several major steps up. I've found salaries in major metro areas to be pretty much the same as a competitive offer in the Bay Area.
> Different strokes for different folks. If you're working at a company that already pays well and you're not in the Bay Area, then your options for switching are either exciting but very risky startups (< $1 billion) or small satellite offices of big corps that have limited team options and little political influence (bad for advancement in senior positions). These would typically be lateral movements at best.
The Bay Area isn't the only place with a tech sector, and there are plenty of companies whose main offices aren't in the Bay Area. Washington DC, Chicago, Austin, Denver, all have tremendous tech industries. I've even had job offers at great places that are further out there.
My "one that got away" was a job offer in Portland I still think about. It was a great opportunity and a fantastic city, but I ultimately went elsewhere primarily based on the desire to bring some of my projects with me.
It should not surprise anyone that wages in other top-tier cities match the Bay Area.
Good tech companies know they have to make nationally competitive offers.
You wouldn't guess it if I gave you 20 questions is my bet. When I got the offer for an interview the wife and I almost passed entirely on the opportunity (I didn't apply for it they recruited me) because we thought "We don't want to live there" and I had a solid offer in Seattle and Portland, where we thought we wanted to move.
I flew out anyway as a courtesy to the VP who reached out to me because we had a long history and he told me I needed to come see what they had to offer.
Flew my wife out the next day, she was super skeptical "I'm not going to like it!" (She is also in tech). She fell in love. We bought her dream house a month later. Still in our honeymoon period with this new city, but we have never been in love with a city like this before.
It shouldn't take long to confuse your salary in these circumstances with the salaries of people working for and around you. Your immediate reference is probably that VP who is also VP :D
I'd take that bet. ;)
There's only 50 states and we probably can rule out the 15-20 coastal ones and Hawaii and Alaska. If the maize in your name has any relation to your job, we can quickly use five guesses on Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Illinois, Indiana.
Guessing about your wonderful city aside, one concern I and many here would have about relocating are the job opportunities. In smaller areas, you may be living in company towns, and if you ever want to change jobs, it would involve moving across the state. Of course if you're being paid a handsome amount, you're in a position to negotiate a generous relocation package.
If it's in his comment history I figure it's fair game to state it here.
https://hired.com/blog/candidates/where-engineer-salaries-pa...
Let's just talk numbers for a moment, were you earning at least $200k?
I find it very difficult to believe any other metros, especially small cities, could afford to pay a non-senior engineer over $200k in total comp.
Right now I'm head of R&D.
I can tell you starting engineers on my team make about 10% more than their Bay Area counterparts. That's a deliberate decision backed by our Board.
I can respect that.
It sounds like you actually were promoted a couple of times since relocating and now you're in a leadership/director position. I'm not surprised your salary increased.
But honestly, I find it hard to believe you can match a senior level salary here in the Bay Area at a larger company.
A standard offer for someone that is not really "gifted" is $160-$190k base + $100-$150k/yr RSUs.
You're really able to pay people over $250k?
And I'm not even including 401k matching, ESPP, healthcare, discretionary bonuses and annual incentive bonuses.
That's always why I moved in SFO. Wisdom I always received was every 2-3 years it's time to move out and up. It's served me well. I think now I'm "career" as we like where we live and I want to build something in my division.
And yes, we easily offer that. Why is this a surprise? Our costs are lower and our clients are largely the same as they would be in the Bay Area. Our major markets are national and international. We don't discount our enterprise level systems and new tech for having been developed in fly over country, and we have a MUCH lower cost of doing business. Physical plant is CHEAP here as are our taxes. This results in more capital available for HR, and we consider human capital our single most important investment.
Our entire strategy is built on innovation and we do that by hiring the top talent we can. That means offering top tier compensations.
Side note: SFO is the airport, SF is the city.
I applaud your approach and would love to one day work for your company as it sounds like a great place to work since you actually appreciate your human capital.
I also agree on the 2-3 years hopping, it's a great strategy.
I've been looking at sites like weworkremotely.com and remoteok.io.
1) From people I know well who make a solid recommendation.
2) At major tech conferences.
Hiring is a very risky and high stakes proposition. A new hire easily costs us a million or more if it doesn't work out. We are very cautious, and I take our hiring process very seriously.
Junior positions we typically recruit from Univerisities in the region with top CS and ECE programs since they are less likely to be skeptics of fly over country.
I'm big in theater, ballet, and art. San Francisco is way too expensive for artists to live in anymore and the art scene there is very limited, inorganic, and a bit stale. Further the distance to San Francisco means it's a chore (and a drive) to get there from the South Bay where all the jobs are.
Now I can take public transit to cultural institutions, and walk to a lot too. We have organic arts districts with real artists in residency, regular gallery showings and art walks, and some amazing local musicians.
You might get that in Oakland these days, but even Oakland is getting prohibitively expensive.
Can you expand on this? Where are you located now that is richer culturally?
I'm big in theater, ballet, and art. San Francisco is way too expensive for artists to live in anymore and the art scene there is very limited, inorganic, and a bit stale. Further the distance to San Francisco means it's a chore (and a drive) to get there from the South Bay where all the jobs are.
Now I can take public transit to cultural institutions, and walk to a lot too. We have organic arts districts with real artists in residency, regular gallery showings and art walks, and some amazing local musicians.
You might get that in Oakland these days, but even Oakland is getting prohibitively expensive.
Are there downsides to living here? Undeniably. The biggest being sprawl and traffic. However next to Austin's city council actively fighting growth and traffic management investment we're in better shape despite an unfortunate anti-rail mentality.
[1] https://kinder.rice.edu/uploadedFiles/Urban_Research_Center/... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_Houston#Arts_and_th...
I think you missed the two biggest that will never change: The weather (105F and 90% humidity for 3 months out of the year, hurricanes) and the politics (Lege doesn't like what you're up to? Prepare to be stomped in the Capitol building like Denton was).
I'm a native Texan who grew up in Dallas with all of the baggage that entails--including an innate dislike of Houston because "rivalry"--so I know where I'm coming from. Ever since moving to Seattle years ago, I've become a lot more of an outdoor person because going outside doesn't physically hurt for six months out of the year. My first job was pushing grocery carts on a blacktop parking lot for Sack 'n' Save and the temperatures haven't gotten any better since. And the politics...oh, the politics. I really love living in a state that doesn't do things to cause it to be openly mocked by the rest of the country.
I love my home state, I visit quite often, and I'm genuinely proud to be a Texan but it truly escapes me how any one can say "hey, y'all come on down, the legislature and the sun won't hurt you that much" because they both really do.
Not sure what you're referring to. Living in WA, I'd be asked non-stop by others how the pot was.
Hopefully the city council here in Seattle can get out of its own way and dezone the city so that it may densify. Height caps and parking minimums are forcing suburban hellscape style infill in Seattle, which is very destructive and guts the neighborhood of its classic charm. Large buildings clustered around transit would be much more productive for our city versus tearing down 100 old homes to replace them with 200 odd 2800sqft boxes on postage stamp size parcels.
hilariously accurate