Ask HN: Living in Bay Area | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Living in Bay Area

4 pointsoemera7 comments

I'm a 22 year old programmer from Germany and at the moment I'm working as a programmer for a small web agency. After works I'm a student and I'm studying BA Business Informatics (I really don't know if this is the correct term). At the moment I have 2 years left for my graduation and I can't wait.

While I love some parts of Germany (employment protection, health insurance ect.) and being a german I feel like I don't belong here. I sick of this officialism and all of that bad weather here. I hate it to wait until I can get my hands on something people in US are using quite a while (cause law in Germany is making it hard to get over here). I'm tired that companies in Germany are developing new software with technologies which are older than me.

Because of all that and much more I'm thinking about moving to a place where I can have all that I couldn't have in Germany. As I'm a daily hacker news reader I'm thinking about moving to the Bay Area cause I feel like all that cool hacker related things are happening there. It's the heart of IT (right?).

However I don't know how living in Bay Area is like. I read about it a bit but everyone is talking about expenses. I would love to hear a overall experience about living in the Bay Area? How is it like? What are hacker doing in there free times (except hacking)? What are you doing with friends? Are you going to partys, hackathons? What are you doing in your holidays? Are a lot of people surfing in Bay Area? (surfing was always a dream of mine)

Giving me a feeling about living in Bay Area / Silicon Valley could change my entire life cause this is really important to me.

Thank you.

Foot note: Sorry for my bad english. I'm working on it and please feel free to correct my text.

San Francisco is often described as the most cosmopolitan of American cities (excepting NYC). You may find it similar to European cities in terms of nightlife, cinema, cultural activities, and people's eclectic interests. Relative to Europe or Canada, there is little government support of arts or culture but that doesn't stop youth from innovating culture. So you'll find interesting people and interesting activities for entertainment.

San Francisco (and Berkeley/Oakland, across the Bay) are centers for culture and youth with adequate public transit and neighborhoods where rents are relatively cheap. The Peninsula and South Bay (the location of Silicon Valley companies) are suburban (wide expressways, shopping malls and office parks) and compare poorly to SF in terms of cultural activities but offer many opportunities for outdoor recreation. Californians tend to choose outdoor activities for recreation (running, biking, hiking, motorcycles) and late-night partying or club hopping often ends early for those who get up early for outdoor recreation.

Not many people surf (not as many as Southern California or our neighbor Santa Cruz but of course more than Europe!). It's an option if it's your dream. Surfing for some is an activity on a free weekend or an early morning before work (if the waves are good). For others, it is a lifestyle that leaves little time for career pursuits.

It's often said that Americans work longer hours and spend less time enjoying life than most Europeans (if enjoying life is defined as time spent with friends, eating food, drinking, or cultural pursuits). If you work in a startup company, that may be doubly true, as your peers will expect you to be focused on the tasks that will lead to success. You may find that a day at work in the Bay Area moving bits is not much different from the same in a European city. After work hours, you'll be tired but you'll likely find time to try a new restaurant or grab a beer with workmates or a roommate a few times a week. Among entrepreneurs, you will probably not have much free time on weekends and you should not expect holidays.

These are broad generalizations, of course, based on my own personal experience, so suitable only for stimulating thought and discussion. Your mileage may vary.

First of all thank you for your answer.

At the moment I'm having a double life between working as a programmer (40 hours per week) and studying. It's pretty hard and I really don't have much time for friends and parties but it's fun too. I think it made me a other person and maybe a better person having this double life. What I'm trying to say is I think I can handle a lot of work but I a guy who has to know why I'm doing this all. If it is fun to work in a startup I will go that extra mile with a smile but if it is not fun at all I wouldn't do that for a long time.

While living in the Bay Area seems pretty expensive I think Software Engineers are earning enough to live well, aren't they? (Everytime I read salaries from Software Engineers on HN I'm really shocked cause you would never get that amount here in Germany)

Do you know if there is a chance to study for a master degree while working as a full time Software Engineer? That's what I'm doing right know and in Germany it is possible to study part time. It takes longer but it's ok and you can live a pretty decent life when it comes to money (not everything is money but that's a other topic).

Whats about getting a job in the valley as a Software Engineer. Is it hard to get a job because of all excellent engineers around?

Any chance of chatting with you about all that stuff? Maybe Facebook?

Surfing in the Bay Area is hard for a number of reasons: you need a car and a surfboard, the water is freezing cold (you need a thick wetsuit), Silicon Valley is inland and blocked off from the ocean by a mountain range, and the good waves are mostly for experts. That said, Cowell's in Santa Cruz is probably one of the best places in America outside of Hawaii for a beginner to learn. You can get there with a combination of train and bus and then rent a longboard for an afternoon. Pacifica isn't too bad for a beginner, either... but you'll need your own gear and a car.

It's not going to be easy for you to move out there, since by and large the US is not very friendly to foreigners, in official terms (getting a visa), so why not take a good long trip there? Try and stay a month by renting a room for that time, and just hang out... see what happens, how you like it, what you don't like and so on. You could probably plan for and do that during the summer, although I think you'd be really pleased with how much better winters are in the bay area than at home...

Thank you for your advice it really sounds good to me. Although I think I'm pretty flexible and you know if you are sick of something you will give everything to make your dream work.

I searched a little bit and found out that I have pretty good chance getting a visa for work (developers are needed, I will have a graduation, I'm young and so on).

Yeah winters here are kinda hard and pretty cold. How is summer in the bay area? Is it extremely hot? I checked some average weather data from san francisco and it looked pretty good to me.

Renting a room will be kinda pricy but you are absolutely right about trying first before I gave up everything.

The weather there is just about perfect as far as I'm concerned. It rarely goes much below 10C in the winter, and it's not exceedingly hot in the summer either, unless you go far inland. It depends a lot where you are - it's much colder in the summer in San Francisco than, say, Fremont in the east bay.

In any case, yeah, go check it out, meet people, see what you think, and have some fun before you commit 100%.

If you have 2 years left before graduation how about trying to transfer to a local university as an F-1 student.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com