At Google, HR has dictated to our team "no Bay-area hiring" for over a year now. It seems at least one company agrees with "There’s no surplus value in hiring in the Bay Area".
The engineering pool is broad enough (or the Bay Area shallow enough) that they can hire everywhere and get the same quality of engineer.
Since the wages paid are based on _local_ prevailing wage, and the Bay Area has the highest prevailing wage, Google will get cheaper engineers.
This also avoids the US immigration system, which is a terrible, expensive, stress inducing (performance sapping) thing for staff (and businesses) to interact with.
Finally, by distributing engineers to other countries, they counter some of the political "They're not _local_" arguments being made in various countries.
Pretty much if you ever double your salary you will come out ahead as everything else doesn't double. (And even if it does, your savings also doubled so you can retire to a lower cost of living and come out ahead).
If you go from say 120k to 240k in salary your housing may go from say 1k (12k/year) to 3k (36k/year) but at the end of the year 120k-12k is 108k while 240k-36k is 204 which is a net gain of 96k!
Of course you still need to eat and stuff but when you check out the "Regional Price Parity" [1] you'll see that nowhere do things actually become twice as expensive. So you're really getting a 2x boost in salary in exchange for a 1.3x increase in expenses.
I would wager that you still end up with more disposable income in the end if you're single. I only decided SF or the rest of Bay Area wasn't financially worthwhile when I wanted to start a family.
>Now, I’m earning 2-5x more than my peers (that were more senior than me) that chose to live in those cities.
Salary or takehome? Sure, your net in SF will be higher than Orlando or London, but looking at resources such as levels.fyi, internal salary sharing sites at large companies, etc. the math for Seattle comp with no state income tax is pretty close to bay area minus tax.
Take-home pay is indeed higher in the bay but unless already had a family, that take-home pay is worthless in what is without a doubt the most socially dull major metro in the US.
As a UK national I would love to move to the US for better opportunities and weather. Getting a visa seems next to impossible, short of marrying an American. I probably missed my chance in the pre Covid tech boom.
The boom _during_ Covid has been crazy, but I think it's still possible to get a FAANG job that will get you to the US. The other route would be joining a FAANG in the UK and then changing teams after 1-2 years.
I dunno, if you've made enough money to enjoy it (like, say you've been in Bay Area "Tech" for a few years), London seems like a cooler place to be. You lose on dollars and cents, but I'd think you'd win on lifestyle. I don't just mean "work-life balance"; I mean it's a nicer, more interesting, more stimulating place to be.
This article conflates the notion of being "in tech" with being a CEO for some reason. The vast majority of people "in tech" will be workers, not CEOs. For those people, a statement like "There’s no surplus value in hiring in the Bay Area" should sound like a good thing.
Continental allergies destroy talent. This applies to much of the east coast as well as they’re downstream of the continent.
I agree with much of this post, but there is a reason the areas with the highest intellectual output are on the coast.
I just moved from Dallas to the bay. Going from multiple allergy medicines a day and a persistent brain fog from ragweed and mountain cedar to none. Going from keeping windows closed with co2 levels spiking to levels that effect cognition to living with windows open and breathing fresh air. There is a reason Texas is where dying companies relocate to.
The TV show Silicon Valley lampooned all these ideas a decade ago. The weird thing I’ve noticed is that when Bay Area tech people watch that show, they don’t seem to understand that they’re being made fun of. They think they’re being celebrated. That’s how thick the bubble is.
I've never met a person who didn't understand that this show is satire. Every single tech person I've talked to about Silicon Valley thinks it's funny because of how plausible and yet ridiculous it all is, and because of all the totally accurate details scattered throughout—from golden handcuffs / resting & vesting, down to minor things like which drinks were stocked in the show's office fridges. And I lived in the Bay Area during its entire run, so most of my network is current/former Bay Area tech people.
Everyone I knew who watched the old Office Space movie thought it was funny; I never liked it because it was too much like real life (at the time). Same with the TV show The Office.
About the "tautological" part: Economic feedback loops are natural and don't diminish from the value of being in the area. At one point I went there to open doors that probably wouldn't have been reachable otherwise. Silicon Valley isn't a perfect circle either, because it wasn't just created from nowhere decades ago.
The only reason I don't live there anymore is because I already got the "in" I needed, I think remoteness actually works best if you're ambitious (provided you visit occasionally), and because I really didn't like living there. Idc if someone takes the last part as an excuse, my work speaks for itself.
At Google, HR has dictated to our team "no Bay-area hiring" for over a year now. It seems at least one company agrees with "There’s no surplus value in hiring in the Bay Area".
But are they hiring in other parts of the US instead, or other countries?
Both
Doesn't Google want everyone in an office? How does that work?
What's HR'a rationale?
The engineering pool is broad enough (or the Bay Area shallow enough) that they can hire everywhere and get the same quality of engineer.
Since the wages paid are based on _local_ prevailing wage, and the Bay Area has the highest prevailing wage, Google will get cheaper engineers.
This also avoids the US immigration system, which is a terrible, expensive, stress inducing (performance sapping) thing for staff (and businesses) to interact with.
Finally, by distributing engineers to other countries, they counter some of the political "They're not _local_" arguments being made in various countries.
Engineers are increasingly commoditized, and businesses like google no longer need outlier talent
There are obvious exceptions to everything. But I’ve lived in Atlanta, Orlando, SF and Seattle.
Moving to SF was a career multiplier. I instantly doubled my salary.
Now, I’m earning 2-5x more than my peers (that were more senior than me) that chose to live in those cities.
Walmart was started in Arkansas. Warren Buffet famously lives in Nebraska.
But the Tier 1 cities create more wealth for more people than Tier 2 or 3 cities.
How much more are you spending (on non-avoidable cost of living stuff) now that you live in SF, though?
If I hypothetically doubled my salary _and_ my expenses, that hardly seems worth it. Although NorCal is gorgeous.
Pretty much if you ever double your salary you will come out ahead as everything else doesn't double. (And even if it does, your savings also doubled so you can retire to a lower cost of living and come out ahead).
If you go from say 120k to 240k in salary your housing may go from say 1k (12k/year) to 3k (36k/year) but at the end of the year 120k-12k is 108k while 240k-36k is 204 which is a net gain of 96k!
Of course you still need to eat and stuff but when you check out the "Regional Price Parity" [1] you'll see that nowhere do things actually become twice as expensive. So you're really getting a 2x boost in salary in exchange for a 1.3x increase in expenses.
[1]: https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-par...
> If I hypothetically doubled my salary _and_ my expenses, that hardly seems worth it. Although NorCal is gorgeous.
All else being equal, the improvements in other non-financial areas (chances to grow social life, many more attractions, etc) should make up for it.
The savings gap hopefully should widen as well (unless it's a deficit, in which case, cut expenses).
Altho I want to state the perhaps obvious that different big cities have very different subcultures.
Portland vs. SF vs. Nashville vs. NYC.
I would not limit yourself to just one specific big city.
I would wager that you still end up with more disposable income in the end if you're single. I only decided SF or the rest of Bay Area wasn't financially worthwhile when I wanted to start a family.
If you already earn more than you spend, doubling both does seems like a no-brainer.
Unless they demand twice the work from you.
>Now, I’m earning 2-5x more than my peers (that were more senior than me) that chose to live in those cities.
Salary or takehome? Sure, your net in SF will be higher than Orlando or London, but looking at resources such as levels.fyi, internal salary sharing sites at large companies, etc. the math for Seattle comp with no state income tax is pretty close to bay area minus tax.
Seattle has enforceable (and readily abused) non-compete and also virtually non-existent startup scene
Take-home pay is indeed higher in the bay but unless already had a family, that take-home pay is worthless in what is without a doubt the most socially dull major metro in the US.
Sounds like an exaggeration, cause there must be plenty of worse places. But yeah Silicon Valley rubbed me the wrong way.
Why is that? Monoculture I assume? Everyone works in tech so you never meet interesting people who work in completely different fields?
As a UK national I would love to move to the US for better opportunities and weather. Getting a visa seems next to impossible, short of marrying an American. I probably missed my chance in the pre Covid tech boom.
The boom _during_ Covid has been crazy, but I think it's still possible to get a FAANG job that will get you to the US. The other route would be joining a FAANG in the UK and then changing teams after 1-2 years.
I dunno, if you've made enough money to enjoy it (like, say you've been in Bay Area "Tech" for a few years), London seems like a cooler place to be. You lose on dollars and cents, but I'd think you'd win on lifestyle. I don't just mean "work-life balance"; I mean it's a nicer, more interesting, more stimulating place to be.
This article conflates the notion of being "in tech" with being a CEO for some reason. The vast majority of people "in tech" will be workers, not CEOs. For those people, a statement like "There’s no surplus value in hiring in the Bay Area" should sound like a good thing.
Continental allergies destroy talent. This applies to much of the east coast as well as they’re downstream of the continent.
I agree with much of this post, but there is a reason the areas with the highest intellectual output are on the coast.
I just moved from Dallas to the bay. Going from multiple allergy medicines a day and a persistent brain fog from ragweed and mountain cedar to none. Going from keeping windows closed with co2 levels spiking to levels that effect cognition to living with windows open and breathing fresh air. There is a reason Texas is where dying companies relocate to.
The TV show Silicon Valley lampooned all these ideas a decade ago. The weird thing I’ve noticed is that when Bay Area tech people watch that show, they don’t seem to understand that they’re being made fun of. They think they’re being celebrated. That’s how thick the bubble is.
I've never met a person who didn't understand that this show is satire. Every single tech person I've talked to about Silicon Valley thinks it's funny because of how plausible and yet ridiculous it all is, and because of all the totally accurate details scattered throughout—from golden handcuffs / resting & vesting, down to minor things like which drinks were stocked in the show's office fridges. And I lived in the Bay Area during its entire run, so most of my network is current/former Bay Area tech people.
Everyone I knew who watched the old Office Space movie thought it was funny; I never liked it because it was too much like real life (at the time). Same with the TV show The Office.
Big Bang Theory was all the rage when I was working at CERN. I know exactly what you mean.
I heard one word of that show through my roommate's door and knew it was satire
I’m glad I have no ambition, I guess.
About the "tautological" part: Economic feedback loops are natural and don't diminish from the value of being in the area. At one point I went there to open doors that probably wouldn't have been reachable otherwise. Silicon Valley isn't a perfect circle either, because it wasn't just created from nowhere decades ago.
The only reason I don't live there anymore is because I already got the "in" I needed, I think remoteness actually works best if you're ambitious (provided you visit occasionally), and because I really didn't like living there. Idc if someone takes the last part as an excuse, my work speaks for itself.