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Comment by nostrademons | Hacker News Reader

That assumes an ordered ranking of people and of employers, a premise I reject.

Google is one of several thousand employers that are both hiring and pay reasonably well. Most of the other ones will also fly you out and pay for relocation if they want you. At the same time I was interviewing with Google, there was even a 3-person startup that was willing to fly me out to SF to interview, except that I didn't really care about their business. If you don't get into Google, there's still Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Stripe, AirBnB, Square, Twitter, Netflix, Tesla, Lyft, Dropbox, Cisco, Intel, Juniper, NVidia, EBay, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Ericsson, JP Morgan Chase, and many other companies. Most of those are perfectly acceptable employers; they may not have the prestige of Google, but you can make a good living and possibly even end up wealthier than at Google.

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I don't think the parent assumes an "ordered ranking of people and of employers" as much as it assumes a limited supply of open positions that meet the criteria you're giving (i.e., employers that will pay to fly you out for interviews and pay your relocation expenses if they hire you). The Bureau of Labor Statistics gives June 2017 numbers for employment in the "Information" category as 76,300 in the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara area and 102,400 in the San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward area (and another ~4000 if you throw in Napa, Santa Rosa and Santa Cruz). Even if we assume that all of those positions meet your criteria, and assume that there's a huge number of unfilled positions--say, 25% more than the filled ones--we're at around 250,000 total. And in practice, the first assumption there is, well, suspect. (There are technical writers, helpdesk support people, and entry level programmers at companies that won't pay relocation at that level.)

Bottom line: only a small fraction of people can get jobs in the tech industry, because even at its tremendous growth rate it's only creating enough jobs for a small fraction of the population. Increasing the pool of qualified applicants doesn't change that, it just makes the competition for the existing jobs harder.

> Google is one of several thousand employers that are both hiring and pay reasonably well.

I lived in Dallas for almost fifteen years. The vast majority of those companies ignored me even when I applied. Many of those same companies are now starting to beat my door down because I changed my location to New York. This industry seems to have a serious problem with geographic myopia.

Just from your list, Facebook ignored me until I moved to New York, Intel ignored me, nVidia ignored me, IBM ignored me, Microsoft basically ignored me. The only companies that approached me or responded to my applications were Google and Amazon, and only Amazon has been persistent.

Did you indicate a willingness to relocate in your application? I was in Boston when I applied to Google etc, but had on my website, my resume, and my cover letter (when applicable) "Looking to move to Silicon Valley."

I mean I work at Google now, but when I was applying to move out west, my experience almost exactly mirrored GP's. Only Amazon responded to my resume. There is an awful lot of luck involved at landing a high paying job still.

Same here despite listing that I was willing to relocate on my own dime. Then I relocated took a job at Apple and every big name wanted to interview me. Got job offers at two other big tech names while I was in CA. until I worked in the valley I apparently wasn't smart enough despite 20 plus years experience outside CA. there is a bias. it is real and speaks badly of the valley.

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