Ask HN: How is the tech market in SF? How does it compare to remote? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How is the tech market in SF? How does it compare to remote?

42 pointscgb22317 comments

Obviously there’s been many, many layoffs at the FAANG / Big N tech companies.

While the biggest names may be downsizing or reshaping or whatever euphemism you prefer, there are many more tech companies in the Bay, who may have different situations.

As someone who used to live in the Bay, and is considering returning (had to move for family health reasons) I’d love to understand where we’re currently at.

So some specific questions then:

How many tech jobs are still exclusive to the bay, vs being targeted towards folks who are remote across the country / world?

Does this differ based on roles like software engineering vs more people oriented roles like Product / UX / Sales / Marketing?

How many people are going back to the office? How many are still in the bay, but just working from home? Of that latter, how many would be free to leave and work from any other state as they please?

Most of my friends left the bay, for a wide variety or reasons. I haven’t heard of anyone moving back. But on the other hand, I cant imagine the bay ever not being the epicenter of tech, growth, and innovation? Where do we actually stand?

My perception is that hiring in SF, as in the US is still hot for in demand skills But can suck for those without in demand skills.

A few mega corps are doing 10% RiF (AMZN, MSFT, etc). A few are drastically reducing their expenses because their business model never was profitable without VC investment (Twitter, DoorDash, Peloton).

But lots of smaller-than-the-largest companies still have massive numbers of open reqs for roles which align with their growth strategies.

[caveat] I’m not sure that most open reqs are actually jobs waiting for employees. I think there are a few reasons why companies wouldn’t fill all of them, even if they found great candidates to fill them.

I found this gem of a Google Doc which aggregates open reqs by VC investment (note this isn’t SF specific but VC investments are highly correlated with the few major tech hubs, of which SF is one): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JxUyrHAmB6xbIEbLfQcA...

My personal anecdata is that my startup (7 years old / cybersecurity sector) continues to hire in engineering + product in South Bay and in India (and sales worldwide).

@thephyber Can you provide a job board link for your startup so that I can pass to my impacted friends.

My company (San Jose, CA and Gurugram/Bengaluru, India)[1]

Massive list (perhaps 30k open reqs) of VC job board links[2]

Best of luck to everyone affected. I’m hopeful there are enough open positions to absorb everyone recently laid off.

[1] https://www.balbix.com/company/careers/

[2] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JxUyrHAmB6xbIEbLfQcA...

Thanks for sharing.

unambiguously still better than anywhere else, not as great as it was from 2010-2017, but no city in the world will ever come close to that again for a while. definitely fewer finance/mba types left here (thankfully)

its pretty sector dependent. if you're just building a generic SaaS or consumer product, you'll probably be fine in a lot of other cities. if you're in AI, SF is essentially the epicenter for that

There is still an insanely high concentration of tech workers so there's a very high chance your neighbors, friends, etc are in tech. in the south bay it feels like everyone works at FAANG/Cisco/Intel/Adobe etc, you get the point.

basically you no longer have to be here to build cool stuff outside of like AI, but your highest chances of success in either the startup world or the corporate ladder are still here. if you can't make it in tech/find your groove here, it'll be on you. the vast majority of innovation, now that crypto/miami are forgone memes, will still take place here in the near future

considering state politics and high housing prices, who knows if that'll last? maybe it makes a huge comeback like nyc (it was in a much worse state in the 70s/80s). maybe it goes the way of detroit. the answer is probably somewhere in the middle

I heard Detroit has made a huge comeback? Any truth to that?

Parts of Detroit are much nicer, particularly downtown and midtown. They're tearing out I-375 which will make a huge difference immediately northeast of downtown. Soon, the Gordie Howe International Bridge will be complete and I believe that will be a boon to Southwest Detroit. The city of Hamtramck, which is inside Detroit, has also grown a lot and is probably the most religious and ethnically diverse spot in the state. There are some huge festivals (Movement / Mo Pop / Jazz Fest).

Just wish they would get rid of all the parking lots...

My perception (never been) is that Detroit used to have 1million+ more residents 50 years ago, but when the core industry (automotive industry) was wooed to the South and Canada/Mexico, those who could afford to left the region.

There is some recovery happening. A few select neighborhoods are thriving with creatives and strong local community.

But city services are slow and expensive because they were built out for 2x the population/infra but have been starved of funding as houses went condemned and utilities bills/property taxes went unpaid.

This is my experience as well pre Covid. I switched jobs in 2021 and have not been back down town so who knows how much of this still applys. I worked in down town Detroit for ten years but lived in the suburbs. Once Rocket Mortgage and associated Dan Gilbert businesses moved down town there was a lot more activity and stuff going on in a couple square mile area. There's still a lot of run down area's surrounding the fairly nice down town area. If I had started working five years later I would have probably lived down town instead of the suburbs.

I grew up in Windsor, Ontario (right beside Detroit). The vast majority of my friends from there work at Amazon/Rocket Mortgage. On paper they make less than SF, but lifestyle wise they’re all crushing it. A large chunk of them have paid off or almost paid off their mortgages and are under 35. Great place to have a family.

I couldn’t handle the snow after growing up there for 22 years. Ended up in California for 7ish years instead :)

"A huge comeback" is a big overstatement. Overall, it's still a burnt-out husk of its former glory. But it is true that the city proper has developed something which it lacked circa 2000, which is non-auto jobs (Quicken Loans + some other tech startups), a downtown art scene, young people, music, some hip food, and so on. In other words, it's germinated the embers of a much smaller, bougier, more livable town than existed at any time since the mid-late 80s.

For reference, the Detroit was the 5th largest (some sources say 4th largest) city in the US at its peak in the 1950s, similar in size to LA. It's now 27th, with about a third of its peak population.

The comeback is its plausible to live there. You can buy a 4 bedroom house for $75 it’s going to need about $100 in work but that’s not even a down payment in San Francisco. There are some cool things in Detroit. I went to a cool market and tea shop, a great Caribbean restaurant.

You know those companies doing layoffs? All of them have laid off some but not all of their recruiters. They still have open positions, though you may only be able to hear of them through your network.

Working remotely for Bay Area companies from elsewhere was a huge move for my career years ago. Pin that salary up.

One anecdote: I know a fresh CMU software engi master grad who has been finding jobs for 4 months with none of them progressing past first interview. Absolutely zero response from US or CA employers. The resume is all fine but the market is too saturated with juniors.

Unemployment in the US is only about 2-3% after all the layoffs in tech. In other words - it is nothing.

You can find remote jobs in SF on https://www.remotely.jobs or similar sites.

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