Ask HN: If you could move anywhere for a tech job, where would you go?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13623614

by tylerpachal • 9 years ago

33 80 9 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I live in Toronto, Canada and work as a Software Engineer for a medium-sized startup. Overall I like it here; but I am in my mid-twenties and since I don't really have anything tying me to Toronto (I just rent an apartment and don't own much furniture or a car) I often find myself wondering/fantasizing about other places I could move to for work.

I hear Colorado and Texas are good spots for software engineers, and places in Europe sound nice as well. I worked a contract in South Korea and had a good time there but can't see myself living in Asia long term.

If you could move anywhere for a tech job, where would you go?

bsvalley4• 9 years ago

In case you missed it:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13298734

codegeek• 9 years ago

If you move to the US, make sure you factor in Health Insurance costs that can cost anywhere from a few hundred to few thousand per month.

If I could move anywhere for a tech job, I will go with Hong Kong (a bit biased as I lived there once already). Technically, it is China but they have their own economy and Hong Kong is an awesome place. Yes, housing is expensive but everything else is cheap and quality of living can be outstanding. If you are single, HK can be a great place.

EDIT: I realized that my context was not clear when I talked about healthcare costs. I was assuming that OP may not have a regular job where employer covers most of the premiums. If the OP was on their own (freelancer etc), then the costs are definitely in the hundreds to few thousand per month. But even if you have employer sponsored plan, it can cost you a couple of hundred easily depending on the type of plan. If you are married with kids, then add more.

flexie• 9 years ago

Not sure why anyone would downvote this. It's a valid concern for anyone coming from Europe or other places with universal healthcare and whereas most tech companies in the US offers healthcare, many small ones don't and if you start your own company it's a big issue.

friedman235• 9 years ago

Health insurance in the US is around 70 to 100 dollars a month depending on your company and plan.

friedman235• 9 years ago

anywhere from a few hundred to few thousand per month.

This isn't true

mwpmaybe5• 9 years ago

An unsubsidized silver plan (i.e. on an exchange) for a family of four can run into the thousands.

spoonie• 9 years ago

To be honest, as I get older: rural Northeastern Ontario where I grew up gets more appealing. Internet access and the good-tasting-beer scene has gotten much better. And these days anything I'd want to shop for I can get delivered. The perks are reasonable housing costs and easy access to outdoor activities: own your own lake? Why not!

(This said after working in Kitchener-Waterloo, Toronto, Ottawa, London UK, Manila. And visiting many more places. A second place would be somewhere rural but close to a ski hill, Collingwood or Charlevoix or the BC interior.)

walljm• 9 years ago

The pacific coast is amazing and gorgeous. I would not necessarily want to live in a major city (SF or LA) but would want to be within a couple hours driving distance. But a house on the beach? yes please.

Really, anywhere where there is lots of nature and the illusion of seclusion.

poirier• 9 years ago

illusion of seclusion

Brilliant!

tcoff91• 9 years ago

You should move to Santa Barbara then. 2 hours north of LA, gorgeous weather, beaches, mountains with great hiking, etc... it's really nice. There are a lot of tech companies that have sprung out of UCSB.

beilabs• 9 years ago

Worked in China, Ireland, US and Australia. Moved to Nepal days after the earthquake hit to be closer to my wife's family. Love it here, completely different pace and way of life. Highly recommended it to any digital nomads who want to come work, visit or trek.

d0m• 9 years ago

Think of yourself in 5-10 years from now. Where do you want to be career wise and relationship wise? Then backtrack from that and do the first step to make it happen. You're very lucky to not be tied to a specific location so use that to your advantage!

pelasaco• 9 years ago

Love my job in Germany, but as Nomad, the best places where I lived were Portugal and Australia. I would go for Portugal, since it's not isolated in the Pacific.

mping• 9 years ago

atlantic you mean?

BrandoElFollito• 9 years ago

He probably means not isolated on the Pacific as Australia is

artur_makly• 9 years ago

i think this will help clear up some reality: https://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living

justin_vanw2• 9 years ago

This only lists major cities. If you want to save money, don't live in a major city.

AncoraImparo• 9 years ago

Back home to Ireland. My heart never left, but my wife couldn't really make a living there. So I am in the USA.

noufalibrahim• 9 years ago

While the circumstances of the original poster are different, this is a sentiment that I personally relate to. I have ties to the place I live in beyond my work and "cool tech. people". I'm willing to make some amount of sacrifice on the job/tech/earning front just to maintain these. That's the way I'd approach this.

cel1ne• 9 years ago

I'm very happy working remote and living in the heart of Vienna, Austria, which was voted best city to live in a couple of times in a row: http://www.businessinsider.com/what-life-is-like-in-vienna-2...

client4• 9 years ago

Montana, but I'm already here so life is great.

DrScump2• 9 years ago

Which side? I have friends from west and central. My only concerns about that region are seismic.

pmtarantino• 9 years ago

Edinburgh, Scotland. Visited twice and I loved the city.

bsvalley4• 9 years ago

Currently in California looking to get out. It's too expensive, too crowded. The state of California is beautiful but laws and people ruined the whole thing. I feel like we don't have enough privacy here, we live on top of each other even outside of the main cities.

If you're coming from Toronto I think the weather is not your main concern... So definitely avoid California. You'll get a higher paid job and will spend the extra money into taxes, housing, etc. So it's all fake here people don't save more money (we're all cash poor in Cali).

Texas is the best alternative to California in my opinion. It's warm(er), you get more space and privacy for less, people are actually nicer (especially around the Austin area) and the food is amazing. I've always thought Texas was the craziest place on earth but after visiting a couple of times I totally see myself staying over there for a few years.

ghaff5• 9 years ago

I have trouble recommending Texas--even Austin. Personally I pretty much hate the climate for much of the year and it's not an ideal spot for most of the outdoor activities that I favor.

Other than the West Coast, I'd probably advocate for either New England or Colorado.

bsvalley4• 9 years ago

The weather is clearly your concern. Colorado and New England are certainly high on the list in terms of nice places, but winter is a big problem. I'd rather go on a 2 week trip to the mountain in the snow, than spend 6 months waking up early on the morning with a shovel in one hand and a bag of salt on the other hand :)

nul_byte• 9 years ago

I went to the OpenStack summit in austin last year and really loved the city. I live in the south west of the UK, which although can be nice for 4+ months of the year, is mostly dark, wet, cold from September to March.

jimmaswell4• 9 years ago

Texas is the best alternative to California in my opinion. It's warm(er), you get more space and privacy for less, people are actually nicer

From what I've read about the laws that get passed there etc, there are a lot of classes of people Texans aren't "nice" to.

bsvalley4• 9 years ago

What are you referring too exactly?

douche• 9 years ago

If I could work 100% remote? Back home in northwest Maine. It's beautiful, it's cheap, I know everyone, my family is all there, there's a ton of stuff to do outside, it'd be a great place to raise children. It's home, and always will be.

justin_vanw2• 9 years ago

Why can't you (work 100% remote)?

I write software so maybe I just have a biased worldview ;)

rm_-rf_slash• 9 years ago

Australia, certainly, just not sure where. Sydney is great but it's way too expensive and I hear dreadful things about the commute. Adelaide is a lovely city but perhaps a bit too dull for a young adult couple.

I've heard good things about Perth and Brisbane but haven't had the chance to visit them yet.

Otherwise I'm happy to stay in upstate New York. It may be cold half the time and gray for even more, but there's also a comfort in having roots in one of the best places in the world to deal with climate change.

Razengan• 9 years ago

Japan. The perfect blend of high-tech metropolis and rural solitude, and chock full of stuff you just can't get anywhere else.

pryelluw• 9 years ago

I visited Colorado (Denver) on a business trip and fell in love with it. Would certainly move there if the conditions arose.

finkin12• 9 years ago

Boulder (or Denver) is pretty great if you like hiking, skiing/snowboarding, rock climbing, or just generally being outside.

I currently live in Boulder and with the amount of sitting I do it's nice to be so close to nature. I've gone skiing ~20 times this season and will be transitioning to trail running in the spring.

ghaff5• 9 years ago

I haven't spent a lot of time there but, if I had no ties to anyplace else, I'd very seriously consider that area. I'd miss the ocean but it pretty much ticks all the other checkboxes.

finkin12• 9 years ago

I recently visited the bay area and mountains + ocean is a pretty great combo I have to admit. The traffic was a bit much for me though. Boulder population is ~100,000 which ends up being the perfect size for me.

jwilliams• 9 years ago

If the criteria is "for a tech job", then move to San Francisco. The environment here and the learning on offer is unparalleled. And when I say learning I mean good, bad, indifferent, easy, hard, etc.

This is not to say you can't get those elsewhere, but the density here makes it more likely and more intense. A few years at a couple of SF tech companies is a decade of experience elsewhere. The tech companies here are in all different industries, sizes, stacks.

I say that coming from Australia, living full-time in SF - and still openly struggling with the lifestyle here now and then.

If you're trying to balance lifestyle, then I'd follow the other comments here -- Melbourne and Sydney are both terrific cites, great lifestyle and accessible culturally, but still different enough for North Americans to be interesting. The tech scene is still early, but growing rapidly. I haven't spent much time in Austin, but that feels like it may have similar attributes.

I quite like Denver/Boulder and Seattle too, but you might find that's not a huge enough departure from Toronto.

If you like big cities, New York or London might suit. If you're not a fan, then you'll be paying all the big city costs (rent, lifestyle) and getting zero back. London can be particularly tough. London might be worth it if you want a base to explore Europe. Otherwise can be a hard city to live.

Western Europe could be fun too, but the tech scene is much more varied and patchy. If you're looking at, say, Paris or Berlin, then you'd really need a passion for those cities. Plus I'd also suggest you'd want to narrow down to the 2-3 companies that you'd want to work for there -- i.e. the company first, the city second.

api• 9 years ago

In SoCal now which is very nice, but other places that come to mind for differing reasons are:

Asheville, North Carolina

Knoxville, Tennessee

Detroit, Michigan

Charleston, South Carolina

Santa Fe, New Mexico

holydude• 9 years ago

Looking to relocate to South Korea or Singapore.I have worked in Singapore and absolutely loved that place. If anyone is looking for a devops engineer for nix or windows please hit me up.

JacobDotVI• 9 years ago

If you are US-based and remote, I would recommend taking a serious look at the US Virgin Islands. I would explain further but I'm currently sitting on the beach :)

vram22• 9 years ago

Richard Branson lives in the British Virgin Islands. Saw a video of him there. He runs his business empire from there, almost like from a hammock :)

jimmaswell4• 9 years ago

What real choices do you have in the US besides California and Washington?

ghaff5• 9 years ago

Oh please. Do you seriously believe that or are you just trolling?

jimmaswell4• 9 years ago

From what I've heard and my own experience you're lucky to even get anything unpaid outside SV/Redmond/maybe NYC.

jcadam• 9 years ago

I hate big cities. I hate traffic. I get extremely uncomfortable in large crowds. I also hate snow.

For health reasons (I'm an asthmatic), I've found being right on the coast is best (clean, moist, salty air).

My ideal place would be sparsely populated, warm, and on the coast. A small beach town on the Florida coast would do it (where I can get away with wearing a halfway-unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt every day). I'd consider one of the lesser-populated Hawaiian islands if it wasn't so dang expensive :)

I live in the "Space Coast" region in Florida (just south of Cape Canaveral), which isn't bad, but its starting to get a little crowded for my taste. Not to mention all the freaking snowbirds from New Jersey/New York who come down here during the winter and drive around like they're lost.

Ok, someone just give me a remote job so I can live wherever I want and I'll be happy.

strictfp• 9 years ago

Palo Alto, because the wierd mix of small town relaxed feel and tech buzz

Berlin, because of the art, free spirit attitude and good startup and hacker scenes.

Amsterdam, due to all european head offices, great people, relaxed living and culture.

Zurich, great university and great outdoors. Nice people. But expensive.

Boulder, for reasons already mentioned.

Melbourne, little Berlin with better weather :)

rhexs• 9 years ago

A small college town with at least a handful of tech companies. Boulder, CO was close to that for a while, but it has become far too expensive and is turning into Bay Area Lite. Still a beautiful city if you're rich or well off.

Knoxville, TN always looked like a great place. Great outdoors, decent weather, smallish, good job market for the size.

sverige2• 9 years ago

Boulder has been very expensive since the late '80s when the Danish plan was enacted (named after local Paul Danish, not Denmark). No more than two or three building permits were issued in Boulder proper over the course of 15 or 20 years, which naturally made the existing housing stock ridiculously expensive. It's actually the textbook example of how to ruin a good thing by trying to prevent it from ever changing with restrictive laws.

ghaff5• 9 years ago

In general, "college towns" can be a good choice if you don't want a big city but want some access to culture/food/etc. College towns often punch [EDIT: above] their population weight in those respects.

akytt• 9 years ago

Teleport.org, mate. Designed so you can base your decisions on data.

dmode• 9 years ago

I live in the Bay Area and love it. I have a 3000sqft house in East Bay and I am not even an exec in a top five company. Dual income makes it really easy. What I really like about living here is excellent ethnic food even in the suburbs, outdoors, ocean and access to great companies. Other things I like about living here is that I can do the urban life if I want and go to some of the best Michelin starred restaurants if I want or just do my suburban Costco shopping. I also like that the wine country is only 1.5 hrs away. Healdsburg is my favorite small town. I also like going to Tahoe 4-5 times and drive down to So Cal few times a year. Not to mention weather.

edawerd• 9 years ago

Colorado is a great place to live, and this is one of the reasons why we (Gusto) decided to start an office in downtown Denver. It's significantly more affordable, people are extremely friendly and open-minded, and there's an appreciation of the great out doors.

inkjeremy• 9 years ago

I second that. I recently moved from San Francisco, where I was for four years as a founder of a seed-stage company, to Denver. What's great about this place is that there is tech-company density. Google, Twitter (data team), Uber (maps team), IBM Watson, Sendgrid, Homeadvisor, Gusto, Zillow, Opentable, Inspirato, Sphero, Techstars, and many others are all here.

You can satisfy your ambition to "change the world with video-compression software" and buy a house while you're at it.

nnn1234• 9 years ago

Moving to Colorado myself. Building a platform for the future of work where you get access to work and reward anywhere

Please check out www.crowdraising.co

MK999• 9 years ago

One of the great cities of Europe, maybe Milan, (so many to choose from) because I love walk-able cities. Toronto is very walk-able, so I think you're already in a nice spot.

merchang• 9 years ago

Made the jump from Southern California to Salt Lake City, Utah this last October. I believe Utah has the fastest growing economy in the nation currently, and is palpable living here. Cost of living is nice, and there is a treasure trove of nature to explore.

The city itself is nice, but definitely not a 'big' city, and you can definitely feel how conservative the area is once start to get outside of the greater Salt Lake area. But if you stick either in the metropolitan area, or outdoors it is a very pleasant place to live.

In summation: I wouldn't settle down here, but it is a great place to position yourself financially, with plenty of wilderness enjoy.

shuzhang• 9 years ago

I like Seattle a lot, I lived there for 6 years; I've been gone for 3 years now, but it's still my favorite.

The tech scene is world class - headquarter for 2 of the top 4 largest tech companies (microsoft and amazon) and just about every large tech company has an office there; plenty of promising startups too.

Real estate is super reasonable; not just cheaper than SF, but even significantly cheaper than Toronto.

Food scene and bar scene and music are all really good.

Lots of great outdoorsy stuff to do nearby (cascade range, ocean, etc.). I've actually never lived anywhere where people are as active on average. Several of my former co-workers have summited mount rainier for example, other co-workers have been racers etc. And they're really just typical tech workers in Seattle. Three national parks are within driving distance, and besides those, gorgeous hikes start less than hour out of the city. You will fall in love with the outdoors there.

The weather is always mild, no extreme cold or heat. Yes, it's dark a lot, but everyone really appreciates the sun more and the city parks are great on the nice days.

RestlessMind• 9 years ago

I suggest SFBA since you are young and without a family. You will have plenty of options from being a founder to an early stage employee at a startup to joining a pre-IPO unicorn to being a cog in the wheel at AppFaceGooSoftFlix. All of them can be great for you depending on how hard you work and how frugally you live.

And yeah, the area is expensive but you can also make a lot of money. So your net savings should still be more than many other places (esp. if you are not working at an early stage startup).

hypercluster• 9 years ago

I would move to Japan. Maybe I get sick of the work culture etc but damn I loved the month I spend there. New Zealand would be great too.

disposition2• 9 years ago

I hope to eventually make it back to Knoxville, TN.

ivcha• 9 years ago

If you're thinking Europe, Belgrade, Serbia. A very nice city with balanced weather. Amazing nightlife. Emerging opportunities in tech and startups.

Ask HN: If you could move anywhere for a tech job, where would you go?

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