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Comment by carterac | Hacker News Reader

The valley?? The real story of talent drought is in New York City. Recently there has been a gigantic explosion of startups with lots of funding, but _very_ few great engineers available.

As CEO of a just-funded tech startup, I am budgeting ~70% of my time to personally recruit a Lead Developer and Senior Software Engineer (despite having a technical background myself).

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It could be because you are not paying enough. NYC is an expensive and unpleasant place to live for some people, esp. if they are from other cities in the US.

Yeah this was the problem I ran into when I was being recruited by a few companies in NYC a few years ago. I live in Boston but they weren't willing or able to help me relocate and weren't willing to pay me anything close to what I could make at another job here in Boston.

Have you considered hiring remote workers? Surely your money will go further hiring a remote developer in the Mid West with the cheaper cost of living than NYC? I'm sure you could even fly them in a few times if you needed to and still save money

It seems that despite the ever decreasing barriers, people just don't want to hire, or aren't comfortable hiring, remote workers.

I live in Montana. I grew up in Kansas City, and went to school in NY. There is no language barrier, I'm a skilled developer and a pretty good communicator. I'm willing to relocate sometime in the next 2 years.

It seems I might as well be a non-English speaker in Siberia, when it comes to getting my foot in the door at an SV, NYC, etc. startup.

"It seems that despite the ever decreasing barriers, people just don't want to hire, or aren't comfortable hiring, remote workers."

The good news is, this is changing, and fast. Pretty anecdotal, I get pitched for remote work all the time, but over the last year or so, the number of offers has gone up significantly . Of course plenty of "we'll help you relocate" type offers too. I see many more good devs working for companies in the USA than there used to be (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1879225)

And I live in Bangalore, India where even really good devs are lost in the sea of mediocrity. Kansas is way closer :-)

I suspect you just have to wait a little till the demand supply gap gets painful enough to overcome this particular prejudice/preference.

I should also build my brand and portfolio more. That, I think, is the biggest barrier next to geography.

I work remotely, and have done so since 2004. I've worked for and with distributed companies and people all over the place, including the US, Slovakia, Singapore, New Zealand, and closer to home here in Australia. Where I live is classified as a regional city (100k population) and is 1 hour flight from the nearest major city (Melbourne). Software development work locally is virtually non-existent, or pays WAY below what I can make working remote, so I chose this path over moving my family elsewhere.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that it IS out there, but remote work is probably the most hidden of hidden job markets - every single one of these roles/projects has come through word of mouth. As you've already pointed out, if you're in the US, you already have some things going in your favour, namely language, timezones, same culture, same currency and banking system, etc. The best advice I can give is start working your network - people you went to school with, mailing lists and IRC channels for technologies you use, etc.

If you want to ask me anything else about working remotely, feel free, I'll try and answer to the best of my ability.

As an engineer from the NYC market myself, I know what you are going through. We have a hard time finding good engineers because the banks are paying $50-100K annual bonuses, plus six-digit base salaries.

It's hard for a startup to compete with that.

I am graduating this December and I am divided in between moving to the Bay Area vs. working in NY. Is it better for my career to stay around technology companies or is it better to burn harder in a financial company?

Better to come to NYC and work on one of the many exciting tech startups desperately looking for tech talent, but I may be biased :).

Seriously though, ping me and I'll help make sure you find a great job in NYC.

Have you tried recruiting from other areas to NYC? I'm thinking about areas like DC where there's plenty of government focused work but very little on the start-up type work that's happening in and around Boston, NYC, and the Valley.

Could you define what you mean by a great engineer, please?

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