Hacker News Reader

Comment by noelsusman | Hacker News Reader

This baffles me. There are so many alternatives to working for a startup with no real office in a dense, expensive city.

View on HN

Yes, you can also work for an established company with cramped offices in a dense, expensive city.

Or you can take a massive pay cut, tank your career, and go live in the middle of nowhere.

Sounds great.

Well, I work for a Fortune 150 company in not cramped offices in a not dense, not expensive city that is definitely not in the middle of nowhere. Its a great working environment in a great location with great benefits and pay. Such things do exist, you just have to get out of the bubble and look for them.

I suspect everyones definition of middle of nowhere is a bit different. For example, to a NYer or Bostonian anything outside their respective cores is "nowhere". To people further south and west it seems to be a much more expansive definition.

For Boston some have this attitude about anything outside of Route 128. However historically that’s where almost all the tech jobs were. Today more has moved into the city but a large number of tech jobs—especially large companies—are well outside Boston/Cambridge.

For me it's more of a suburbia vs inner city thing. I want to live where I'm a few minutes walk from a grocery store, a few bars and other amenities along with easy public access (walking, riding, public transport) to work. I could live in a large rural town if they catered to this but few seem to.

The other big thing is the lack of job opportunities in smaller cities, solvable via working remotely but still relatively uncommon, particularly for new hires.

> Or you can take a massive pay cut, tank your career, and go live in the middle of nowhere.

Working remotely is an option here (if you go this route, look for a 100% remote company though).

I moved to the middle of nowhere and did not take a paycut. Now I work remotely and I'm saving so much money that I might even take a year off after this job expires.

It still sucks and I hate working, but it's the least bad path that I could find.

I'm a remote worker in middle of nowhere paid a competitive industry salary. Cost of living is ridiculously cheap compared to big metros. If you can't increase your earnings, decreasing costs is just as well.

Hahaha, you think companies in the middle of nowhere don't have cramped, noisy open offices?

At least you can afford peace and quiet at home though, instead of having to live with flat mates and commute via public transport.

Some do. Mine doesn't. I work in an Indianapolis suburb, all devs have their own offices with real doors, and we work at home about 50% of the time (in our large quiet houses).

You can easily make 150k in this environment, where a 250k home is 3k sqft in a good neighborhood. I'm making quite a bit more in the management/director track.

To me, this sounds like "there is no alternative" defense. I don'know whether it is made with the idea of making one's situation feel less miserable, but it is plain wrong.

Considering the ancestor comment and how the situation seems to weight on that person, I would advise to try and find a better situation, because from personal experience, when you start grinding yourself for a job postitve outcomes become very unlikely.

I think, you can ask to take no pay cut: it's a win for the company too, if you move the company will have you an could hire another employee on the free place. I moved into the middle of nowhere without a pay cut.

RedHat's office is in downtown Raleigh. It's not in the middle of nowhere and it's also not a dense, expensive city.

But it's Raleigh > NC > the South > the middle of everywhere I wouldn't want to be :(

Sometimes the (paycheck - cost of living) nets you more money in the smaller city.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com