Hacker News Reader

Comment by vdnkh | Hacker News Reader

I live and work in NYC as a JS developer, and I feel like it's a great place to be. The community is strong here and there's a lot of diversity in what people do, technical or not, within the tech community. The amenities are good and I walk to work and honestly the rents are not that bad. Manhattan is the most expensive, but if you want to save money Brooklyn, Queens, NJ, etc. are cheaper and all linked by (mostly working) public transit. One of the biggest factors keeping me here is the public transit and the fact that I don't need to drive and sit in traffic.

View on HN

As someone living in SF I’ve been seriously eyeing NYC for a while now. It just seems like an overall better city.

The roads are better, the people seem more varied, there’s even more things to do outside work, there are seasons (god I miss weather), and the tech scene is probably almost as strong.

But are there many startups? It almost seems these days more startups are coming out of Europe than out of NYC.

The startup scene is pretty decent. There are hundreds of companies here, including some pretty big names: DigitalOcean, BlueApron, Etsy, Casper, Compass, Stack Overflow, Jet (technically in NJ, but close enough), Meetup, etc. Not to mention that the larger ones (Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Adobe, etc) all have pretty large offices here.

What I like most is the diversity in the companies. They're "tech" companies, but their business is advertising, finance, real estate, and lots of other industries. There is so much diversity here that, even if you only hang out with technically-minded people, you'll still have plenty to talk about. When I lived in SF, every person seemed to do the exact same thing but for a slightly different variation of the same kind of company.

Anyway, I'm obviously biased, but I prefer NYC to SF. The weather was a huge point for me, but also the fact that NYC just "feels" more like a city - it's incredibly dense in most parts of Manhattan, which makes it easy to walk to almost anything. Diversity are transportation are two other big pros.

You may want to consider a gentle reintroduction to "weather", especially East Coast winters. Snow is fun when you're on a ski vacation. Decidedly less so when it's wet and getting whipped into your face by the wind as you trudge to work.

Nah I grew up in south central europe, I’m good with weather. Seeing -15C (5F) and 38C (100F) in the same year is pretty normal to me. Honestly I moved to SF to escape the summer heat and now I miss my winters and falls and springs and it’s been crazy hot here lately.

Don't forget winter and spring time slush. There's a reason Timberland boots are so big in NYC.

The winters in NYC really aren't that bad. Yes occasionally it snows but the storms that dump inches of snow are infrequent enough to be novel. When it's cold it's cold but if you're wearing the right jacket that isn't bad either.

> The winters in NYC really aren't that bad.

I still have nightmares about those hidden pools of half frozen brown sludge that accumulate at street corners that turn your shoes pitch black if you accidentally step in one!

Yea but the part of the year when it's not cold it stays not cold all night so you don't have to think about the jacket you're going to need to change into every day all year.

SF and NYC are polar opposites in nearly every aspect of daily life. For one to jump ship to either or, is a big difference. I prefer the seasons as well, I couldn't live in any place where it's basically the same weather ever day. Fall just arrived here in New York (the best season ever).

One thing to keep in mind is that ads and media are a big focus here - not to say that every company is in that game, but you'll notice quite a lot are. I don't really find that field interesting so it does out leave out options for me personally.

> The roads are better

Are you planning to drive in Manhattan? Car ownership in NYC is a world of hurt.

No I'm just tired of potholes being more dangerous to me on a Boosted Board than bad drivers. There's so much money in this city, why can't we use some of it to have better roads than 3rd world countries?

What kind of events would you recommend for someone trying to get more involved in the NYC community? I've been in Brooklyn for a while but work remotely and more or less exist outside of the tech community but would like to get involved.

I like the BoroJS family of meetups. Their schtick is "people focused" javascript. Good talks, venues, and interesting company. But sometimes it can feel a bit cliquey because the organizers are obviously good friends.

http://borojs.com/

Oops, I thought you said "meetups" not stuff outside of tech. I personally like to climb, bike, and visit breweries. Biking is fun because you can stop off and explore wherever you feel like.

Meetup.com has many great tech meetup groups. Most of the active niche tech meetups are hosted in NYC on weekday evenings, but there are some more general Brooklyn tech meetups.

I have only spent a week in NYC but this place was amazing, granted I am a jazz enthusiast so potentially biased.

https://www.smallslive.com/

I don't know what you're talking about, but the rents are easily the 2nd worst, possibly the worst, in the country. COL adjusted, it is the worst of all the major tech cities [0] for software developers. 0. https://hired.com/state-of-salaries-2017

I've lived in NYC in 75, 80, and 100k salaries and I've been fine in all cases. And that's without roommates and my SO being a student (so she can only contribute a bit for groceries, not rent). Rents are high, but so are software engineer salaries. Almost all of my friends who work in other industries make do with 50-60k salaries - we're fine.

If you really want to save, get a 2 bedroom apartment with someone. If they make >70k you will have a good amount of money for fun/saving/loans.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com