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Comment by sumitgt | Hacker News Reader

> Especially in places like Seattle if I was to relocate with the family, I'd be an indentured servant, with obligations to pay high rent/mortgage, I'd probably have nowhere to change jobs to, if Amazon didn't work out.

That's quite the opposite. Wouldn't living in a big city mean more choices? Seattle for instance has high paying job options from Microsoft, Google, FB if you decide to leave Amazon.

However, yes having more acceptance of remote work would be great.

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Wouldn't living in a big city mean more choices?

I guess the OP is only willing to work for one of the big-4?

Here in DC, between private sector software (where I work), public sector and defense, and consulting/contracting, there are tons of options all across the spectrum of job roles and salaries. And these are located all around the area, not just in a single part of the metro.

Aren't the Google and FB offices in Seattle relatively small, satellite offices?

What size would be "relatively small" in your measurement? They're certainly smaller than their Bay Area headquarters, so "relatively", they're smaller. But for FB, at least, there are many Seattle-primary teams (ie, teams where all or most members are in Seattle), especially in infrastructure and storage.

I've worked over two years in each of the FB Menlo Park and Seattle offices, and since the move to Seattle, I haven't missed anything from the headquarters (especially once the BBQ place opened).

Yes. The optionality relative to rural america is excellent. The optionality relative to the bay area is very poor.

I don't know about Google but I interviewed at FB Seattle and was told it's the second largest FB office after Menlo Park, with thousands of engineers and plans to keep growing.

I don't know about FB other than the building looks big, but the Google Seattle presence is certainly not small and is growing:

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/technology/google-plan...

Google Seattle-Kirkland is the third largest Google office. I wouldn't classify it as "satellite".

There is no such thing as "Google Seattle-Kirkland", no matter what the managers and recruiters may tell you. There is "Google Seattle", which is located in the Fremont neighborhood, a small and friendly office which I would definitely classify as a "satellite"; then there is "Google Kirkland", located on the other side of a large lake, over in the direction of Microsoft, which is certainly a big place. Still... Google is all about the mothership. Everything is centered culturally on Mountain View (called "MTV" internally).

Well... that's how it was when I worked there; things could have changed a lot in the last five years, perhaps. It sounds like the new Seattle office they're planning to build will be less of a satellite.

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