|
To be clear, I'm more worried about the relocating part, not so much the to San Francisco part. Newer, bigger city will at least be interesting, even if I get to live in a shoebox a ferry ride away from work, and if I end up miserable I can quit, move back to my socialist utopia and, I dunno, code herring database forms or something. I can lease out my apartment here for a year at least. I'm more concerned over what differences I can expect in the working culture, what poo poo goes wrong when you move all your stuff 1½ continents + 1 ocean away, etc. E: I saw http://sf.curbed.com/archives/2015/09/18/mapping_rent_prices_by_neighborhood_all_over_san_francisco.php when I looked into things. So yeah, fun times. Xerophyte fucked around with this message at 02:18 on Feb 5, 2016 |
#
?
Feb 5, 2016 02:10
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 19, 2024 16:20 |
|
|
quote:We're talking $1500/month for a studio apartment. GUESS AGAIN: http://priceonomics.com/the-san-francisco-rent-explosion-part-iii/ quote:The median studio is $2,722
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2016 02:11
|
|
|
I moved out to San Francisco a couple years ago from the east coast and rented an apartment in the north Mission for $3500/month. During the year I lived there, there were at least two fatal shootings within a block of me, more phone robberies than I could keep track of*, and people pissing in the street on my commute to the BART station a block away at least once a week. When I left the region last year, the same apartment was on the market for $5000/month. That's a faster increase than most units, but not by much. Do you think any company out there is going to increase your pay at a rate that can keep up with that kind of increase? Cause if you do, I'd like to talk to you about this bridge in Brooklyn that I can sell real cheap.... *Fun fact: San Francisco has almost exactly the same crime rate as Camden, NJ, which makes it one of the highest crime cities in the US. It feels safer because the crimes are much more likely towards property crimes than violent crimes, but you still need to be careful taking your phone out in public, even in neighborhoods that seem nice. ultrafilter fucked around with this message at 02:30 on Feb 5, 2016 |
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2016 02:27
|
|
|
Eh, the Bay Area's not bad, but SF is definitely better commuted to it than lived in, IMO, unless you're printing money and can live in the upscale areas. The weather is consistently pretty decent. The winter is not terribly cold and summer is usually somewhere between 'a little chilly' and 'a little warm'. Lots of good food, culture, and tech jobs. Parking in SF is virtually nonexistent, making BART or Caltrain very viable choices. Crime hasn't been a problem for me, but I also don't really venture too far away from the main transit lines, and a lot of communities on the middle-to-southern end of the peninsula are pretty affluent and generally peaceful. Work culture - eh...it varies? I'd think that the company would play a major part in influencing that.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2016 03:02
|
|
|
Guess my information is a year out of date.  quote:Of course you can live in a nearby city for quite a bit less and commute via BART. You can, but your commute will be 45 minutes each way on a good day. EDIT: re: work culture, as was noted it really depends on the company. It's very easy to get taken advantage of, though; there are tons of developers putting in 8-5 working hours (48 hours/week) and plenty of people doing even more.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2016 03:04
|
|
|
TooMuchAbstraction posted:
That's my commute now in NYC and prices in my neighborhood are $3-4/sqft to rent and $800-1000/sqft to buy. 
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2016 03:10
|
|
|
Skandranon posted:If setting expectations that way was accepted in any significant way, wouldn't it completely invalidate the concept of whiteboarding? At that stage, you might as well just not bother with the entire exercise for anyone. Cicero posted:Of course you can live in a nearby city for quite a bit less and commute via BART.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2016 03:35
|
|
|
TooMuchAbstraction posted:You can, but your commute will be 45 minutes each way on a good day. I live in New Jersey across the Hudson from Manhattan, can see my office building from my apartment window (<2 miles as the crow flies), and if it takes me less than an hour one way it was a good commute. I would love to have a reliable 45 minute commute.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2016 04:27
|
|
|
If you live in SF or NYC a fun game to play is multiply your monthly rent by 12, then divide by the number of rooms in your apartment, and figure out how many nice used cars you could buy per room for what it costs to sleep, poop, and shitpost in each one for a year.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2016 04:57
|
|
|
mrmcd posted:If you live in SF or NYC a fun game to play is multiply your monthly rent by 12, then divide by the number of rooms in your apartment, and figure out how many nice used cars you could buy per room for what it costs to sleep, poop, and shitpost in each one for a year. might as well buy a lexus ls or mercedes S and sleep in the back
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2016 05:20
|
|
|
MeruFM posted:lol if you have more than 1 room in your apt You guys did see that article about a Google employee that decided to buy a truck and install a camper shell to live in, in the Google parking lot, rather than get an actual proper home, right?
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2016 05:31
|
|
|
TooMuchAbstraction posted:You guys did see that article about a Google employee that decided to buy a truck and install a camper shell to live in, in the Google parking lot, rather than get an actual proper home, right?
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2016 06:04
|
|
|
TooMuchAbstraction posted:You can, but your commute will be 45 minutes each way on a good day.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2016 06:12
|
|
|
Vulture Culture posted:Only in the Bay Area climate could you get away with that. It was, IIRC, a truck camper, not just a camper shell, which you can definitely get away with in many climates.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2016 07:00
|
|
|
TooMuchAbstraction posted:San Francisco is the most expensive city to live in in the United States. We're talking $1500/month for a studio apartment. Its housing market is supremely hosed up, TooMuchAbstraction posted:You guys did see that article about a Google employee that decided to buy a truck and install a camper shell to live in, in the Google parking lot, rather than get an actual proper home, right? Riding the Caltrain in to Mountain View every morning, there's this one street along the tracks that is about half a mile long with probably 70+ trashed-to-poo poo RVs of people living in them. People doing weird poo poo for a halfway affordable living situation is totally normal here. Most people just commute an hour or more rather than pay the convenience. And loving lol about $1500/mo, you may have been able to find something for $1500 in 2011. I found a 650 sq ft apartment for $2700 in October but had to turn it down as they didn't accept pets. I'm paying over $3k/mo for a 1 bedroom that's slightly less than 650 sq ft although if you're willing to have a roommate you can find half of a room in a two bedroom apartment for $1200 or so. Yahoo is laying off more people, Twitter is downsizing their SF office and the pool of capital for new startups is tapering off slightly, I'm hoping that when my (rent controlled!) lease is up in December I can find a bigger place at a slightly more reasonable rate. So far I'm enjoying the 60 degree climate, it's not super warm and I've had to purchase long sleeved shirts and a light jacket but it's not cold. And it doesn't get colder than 45 here, which is way better than Dallas.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2016 07:07
|
|
|
Steve French posted:It was, IIRC, a truck camper, not just a camper shell, which you can definitely get away with in many climates.  is a totally different person. This guy lived in a box truck:  According to this post, the truck was not insulated. Vulture Culture fucked around with this message at 07:54 on Feb 5, 2016 |
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2016 07:49
|
|
|
Xerophyte posted:The transfer is on an L1 visa, according to my (former) boss' boss it's very unlikely to be rejected but damned if I know. Salary similarly unknown since no formal offer yet, I'm expecting somewhere around 130k base. Asked someone who is currently going through immigration: - The cool thing with an L1 is that it's dual-intent. You should be able to start applying for a green card without risking your current visa status. But check with an immigration lawyer because it's very easy to mess this up. - The L1 might not be transferable between jobs? If it's not transferrable then if you leave your current employer (or get laid off) you also leave the country. This would be something to find out. - Ask your employer if they will be willing to sponsor a green card. If they are, then start the process ASAP, it takes at least a year and is important to have long-term. Again you'd need to check with an immigration lawyer before starting the process because they'll know all the risks. For money stuff: 130k base is about what you'd expect for someone thats been in the workforce for a couple years. ie not a beginner anymore but still an individual contributor. Typically there would also be stock and annual bonus targets on top of that, adding another 50-100k overall. You may also expect to get some kind of relocation payment of eg 10-20k to cover your moving expenses. These numbers are all pretty fuzzy but should get you a ballpark idea.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2016 07:51
|
|
|
Bear in mind that becoming a US citizen / green card holder has some pretty unpleasant tax implications if you're not intending to live in the US permanently.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2016 08:31
|
|
|
vileness fats posted:Bear in mind that becoming a US citizen / green card holder has some pretty unpleasant tax implications if you're not intending to live in the US permanently. Yes if you're a US citizen, no if you're a green card holder.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2016 08:45
|
|
|
My understanding is that green card holders are automatically considered US residents and therefore have to report worldwide income and pay US tax (subject to tax treaties) whether or not they are currently resident in the US. Is that not correct? (Of course you can give up a green card much more easily than you can give up US citizenship, so there is that). Edit: I never bothered getting a green card for those reasons, but there are a few other issues. e.g. good luck getting your 401K out of the US without being hit with US tax, as you'll be considered to be closing it down and the funds will be US income in the eyes of the IRS... even if you have not set foot in the US for decades and just want to transfer the money into a local superannuation fund... 
vileness fats fucked around with this message at 09:29 on Feb 5, 2016 |
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2016 09:22
|
|
|
I know a guy with wife and 2.0 kids who came in from England through an L-1 (I think) and got his green card, lives in Los Altos, he seems happy about it. I mean I would assume so, considering that he got a green card, anyway. So, uh, so there. Anyway, if you're not sure what the best decision is, that doesn't mean doing nothing is the best decision. Status quo bias (and Stockholm syndrome?  ) is a thing. And you can always go back after N months or years. It might be worth doing for the information acquisition even if you think the EV is negative.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2016 09:56
|
|
|
Skandranon posted:If setting expectations that way was accepted in any significant way, wouldn't it completely invalidate the concept of whiteboarding? At that stage, you might as well just not bother with the entire exercise for anyone. I don't know. But if you're terrible at the whiteboard and you know it, why not angle for something else? Like, ask for a harder problem and an hour and a computer. I've never had someone do that, so I'm not sure how I'd react. The only thing I'm sure of is that if we say, "the interview consists of 30-minute segments of whiteboard coding with various engineers" and you say "ok" and then you flub it you are 100% not getting the job.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2016 13:47
|
|
|
vileness fats posted:My understanding is that green card holders are automatically considered US residents and therefore have to report worldwide income and pay US tax (subject to tax treaties) whether or not they are currently resident in the US. Green card holders have to report their world-wide assets. But the big difference is that if you become a US citizen and then decide to move to your another country, Uncle Sam will still want you to file a tax return every year. Green card holders can cut ties more easily, but as you said, there's no chance of getting a 401k out without damage. That makes sense; the incentive for putting money into a 401k is that it's not taxed, so of course they'll strongly incentivize you to keep it where it is. For comparison, the UK does something similar too. I have some money sitting there in a pension fund, and they'll tax me 50% if I try to withdraw it all in a lump sum.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2016 15:03
|
|
|
Having a green card puts you at a distinct advantage in getting hired and a stronger position to negotiate raises because technically the moment you're out of a job you're not allowed to be on US soil when you're on a H1-B. We decided that this out weighed having to go the extra step to relinquish the green card if we decided to leave. We also didn't really care about having to leave the 401k in the US and withdrawing at eligible age (or just converting a small amount every year to the Roth and withdrawing without penalty then). Vanguard allows you to maintain an account without a US address if you have more than $500k in assets with them. Worse comes to worst, we can maintain a PO box here or something.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2016 15:24
|
|
|
Apparently the feedback for my SV BigTechCo interviews was good enough the recruiter is sending my file before the Council of Elrond on Monday. Also the big ole pile of money from my stock sale should hit my bank account by Monday too. If things line up well it's gonna be real hard not to burn down the whole office at my current job a week from now. PYF favorite accelerant and red stapler supply.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2016 21:44
|
|
|
minato posted:Green card holders have to report their world-wide assets. But the big difference is that if you become a US citizen and then decide to move to your another country, Uncle Sam will still want you to file a tax return every year. Green card holders can cut ties more easily, but as you said, there's no chance of getting a 401k out without damage. That makes sense; the incentive for putting money into a 401k is that it's not taxed, so of course they'll strongly incentivize you to keep it where it is. For comparison, the UK does something similar too. I have some money sitting there in a pension fund, and they'll tax me 50% if I try to withdraw it all in a lump sum. I may be used to commonwealth countries having closer ties - e.g. I was able to transfer a UK pension fund to a NZ pension fund with no issues (or cost). In any case, I suppose my point was that if the intention is just to go to the US for a few years (rather than permanently), do your homework on this stuff.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2016 23:15
|
|
|
vileness fats posted:I may be used to commonwealth countries having closer ties - e.g. I was able to transfer a UK pension fund to a NZ pension fund with no issues (or cost). quote:In any case, I suppose my point was that if the intention is just to go to the US for a few years (rather than permanently), do your homework on this stuff.  The US tax system is ridiculously complicated (sometimes by design), so it's not really something you can just look up on a website and be comfortable that you've got the whole picture. If there was one set of rules it'd be easier, but then state and even county-specific rules can complicate things.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2016 00:19
|
|
|
TooMuchAbstraction posted:This honestly sounds like more of a problem with your workplace than with your domain. Most workplaces I've been at pick one toolset that's reasonably current at the time they start working, and then they stick with that toolset for at least a decade. Your managers need to learn to say "no" when your developers say "hey, let's try out X new tool I've been reading about!" I can never believe when I hear frontend developers talking about rewriting everything every couple years. What a tremendous waste of time and money.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2016 02:38
|
|
|
RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS posted:I can never believe when I hear frontend developers talking about rewriting everything every couple years. What a tremendous waste of time and money. Probably not that much. Sites go through brand changes and redesigns pretty frequently so there's always a good chance to just start ripping parts. Combine that with browsers becoming a lot more standardized and the change in how people use a front-end of a website (mobile has become a lot more popular, more webapps, faster internet, ~~the cloud~~) and it's not that big of a deal having to write things again.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2016 03:00
|
|
|
RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS posted:I can never believe when I hear frontend developers talking about rewriting everything every couple years. What a tremendous waste of time and money. The people that follow every trend and hop from Backbone to Ember to Angular to React on every iteration so they can check boxes on their resume can gently caress right off, but I think modern development is closer to Brooks' "build one to throw away" than to a model of continuous improvement and refactoring. Lots of people have concluded (some for the right reasons, some for the wrong ones) that code is a liability, not an asset. piratepilates posted:Probably not that much. Sites go through brand changes and redesigns pretty frequently so there's always a good chance to just start ripping parts. Combine that with browsers becoming a lot more standardized and the change in how people use a front-end of a website (mobile has become a lot more popular, more webapps, faster internet, ~~the cloud~~) and it's not that big of a deal having to write things again. Vulture Culture fucked around with this message at 03:43 on Feb 6, 2016 |
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2016 03:38
|
|
|
I wish my last workplace would gut and replace at all, they were (and still are) doing VB6 server programs and VB.NET ASP.NET (the old ASP.NET) websites that are not only an immense pain in the rear end to work on, but also not complex enough to not warrant just doing again. The domain knowledge is already there from everyone who has worked on them and management, there's just such little reason to keep working on the same lovely stack that had nothing going for it. Actually that's not true, they did move all of the old ASP classic code to the legacy ASP.NET about a year ago when I worked there.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2016 03:46
|
|
|
RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS posted:I can never believe when I hear frontend developers talking about rewriting everything every couple years. What a tremendous waste of time and money. It's far worse to let your codebase end up in the situation most banks are in, where they have systems from the 70s still running, but no one knows how they work, and they simply keep it going because the cost to rewrite is now astronomical because they lost all domain and technical knowledge related to it. Although bytes do not change over time, code does rot.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2016 06:23
|
|
|
piratepilates posted:I wish my last workplace would gut and replace at all, they were (and still are) doing VB6 server programs and VB.NET ASP.NET (the old ASP.NET) websites that are not only an immense pain in the rear end to work on, but also not complex enough to not warrant just doing again. The domain knowledge is already there from everyone who has worked on them and management, there's just such little reason to keep working on the same lovely stack that had nothing going for it. This sounds exactly like the office I just left. They were still using Microsoft Visual Source Safe for their code repository. Nobody in the IT department was under 40, because nobody under 40 would stick around long enough to deal with those working conditions. People were still writing new web applications interfacing directly with COM+ libraries that had to be run as the logged in user because nobody trusted anyone to properly change the passwords and everything had to be logged in to the desktop. I made a campaign to modernize that poo poo but unless you have top management behind you, no amount of brown bag lunches is going to change that kind of culture. Their software platform was written on Microsoft's RDS (remote data services?) which was depreciated in 2008 and dropped completely in 2012. They were targeting 2012 R2 and in the last steering committee meeting I was in before I left, I asked our lead architect if they were beginning to target server 2016 as it was already in preview and would be released in the next six months. That went over really well with upper management, but not so much with their architecture group. My new company writes most everything in C#, Go, Ruby and JavaScript with Git and everything just loving works 
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2016 09:12
|
|
|
Hadlock posted:This sounds exactly like the office I just left. They were still using Microsoft Visual Source Safe for their code repository. Nobody in the IT department was under 40, because nobody under 40 would stick around long enough to deal with those working conditions.  Well that makes two of us. Sometimes it really helps to just do it again from scratch.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2016 18:31
|
|
|
Quitting really is a great way to get more money. I wish it wasn't true since it's stressful as hell (for me). 3 years ago I joined my current company at 78k as a mid-level .NET developer. A little over a year ago I was annoyed about paltry raises that only brought me to 85k, so I got an offer elsewhere for 115k and went to them saying "oh I'm happy here but I have this other offer, not sure what to do". They beat it and gave me 120k, plus a 10k retention bonus. That 10k retention hit my bank account the end of January. I'm done with this place. I want to get out of the .NET enterprise CRUD machine and work on cool stuff, not maintaining hacked-together forms. So I got an offer elsewhere (130ish) and put in my 2 weeks notice. They now want to promote me to architect and give me 150k (I bluffed that the other place is offering 150 and they said they'd match). Holy crap. There's no way I'm taking it since the new place does deep learning, high throughput distributed systems, blah blah all that kind of stuff so there's no way I'm picking enterprise forms over that, but it really does make me think. Is it normal in anyone else's experience for places to go to lengths like these to retain people? Even after already playing this game once before? I mean if I stay, then I'll have effectively played another offer off of them twice. I would have thought at a real company that if you try to do it a second time they'll just show you to the door. I kind of feel like there's no way I'm going to get back up to 150k base anytime soon if I leave - it seems like it's the kind of opportunity that arises only once you've been somewhere a few years and they know what you're capable of. I can't see them hiring anyone off the street for that much. That platitude about how you should always be looking for your next job is really starting to appear legitimate and wise to me.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2016 20:53
|
|
|
If you get hired as a principle developer or higher, 150k is not unreasonable. It sounds like you want to get out and do something else though.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2016 21:27
|
|
|
Cryolite posted:3 years ago I joined my current company at 78k as a mid-level .NET developer. There are a million developers out there who can't code their way out of a wet paper sack, and 10x'ers are most certainly real unless you're already working at a place where the best of the best is the norm. I've offered people we want to keep significantly more, promotions, their own teams, etc. I've seen literal millions in acquisition costs spent every year and often still can't find enough the people we want (in Chicago). I saw a candidate that we weren't sure about taken all-expenses-paid to a high end club to chat with the team. It simply means they value you. Highly capable software engineers are approaching executive valuations by many software organizations that realize it is hard as gently caress to identify, hire, and retain the best talent talent, especially if you're not necessarily a household name. Also, $150k without bonus? That's good, but nothing special, even in Chicago, but you're right that a company generally needs to feel very confident before dropping that much. If you've got a 15-20% bonus on top of that or vesting options or RSUs though, $150k is quite nice.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2016 21:42
|
|
|
Yeah, at least in NYC/SF 150k (or up to 200k total comp) isn't that unusual once you're at the Senior/Lead/Principal level. Keep in mind that not only is it hard as gently caress to find people who are really good (and not insane), they often have to pay a head hunter 15-25k, people who leave take a lot specific knowledge about how your systems fit together, and even hiring an awesome new developer is going to be a few months of them getting up to speed with everything and integrated into the team. Probably the only thing non-technical managers hate more than signing a software engineer's paycheck is replacing them when they leave.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2016 22:42
|
|
|
mrmcd posted:Probably the only thing non-technical managers hate more than signing a software engineer's paycheck is replacing them when they leave.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2016 23:07
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 19, 2024 16:20 |
|
|
mrmcd posted:Yeah, at least in NYC/SF 150k (or up to 200k total comp) isn't that unusual once you're at the Senior/Lead/Principal level.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2016 08:26
|
|