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Here's my perspective - I moved here in 2010 from Missouri, so my newbie info is a little out-of-date. As far as working at a startup, don't worry. If you're halfway decent, people will be falling over themselves to hire you. Of course some skills will stand you in better stead than others; a GitHub full of Ruby/Python/Javascript is a lot more attractive in SF than a resume full of C# jobs. The real worry right now is housing. You state that you'd like a convenient place to live. Given that a great many startups these days are in San Francisco, that means paying SF rents, or sacrificing convenience. You can afford SF rents by taking a roommate and living cheaply for surprisingly little - I know people doing it on $50-60K, but they have partners who earn significantly more. If you want to do it solo, shoot for at least $130K or above. You're in a fiercely competitive rental market, and as someone without friends or connections should expect to pay $2-5k/mo just on rent, depending on your area. If that sounds extravagant, consider the numbers. At the high end of the range (and that's something like a good-sized one-bedroom apartment in SOMA), you're potentially spending $60K per year just on housing, in one of the highest-tax areas of the country. The good news is that, if you're halfway decent, that's a very achievable salary. If you're good, you can earn far more, but generally that requires moving south. As far as finding friends and jobs, I had good luck hanging out at hacker spaces like Hacker Dojo in Mountain View, Noisebridge in SF, Sudo Room in Oakland, and a host of others. You'll find like-minded friends, housing connections, and jobs there. Programming meetups are a great way to connect professionally. Dolores Park in the Mission is a glorious place to spend the spring and summer, and it's always full of people on nice days. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that my company is hiring for Android, iOS, and JVM/Python backend roles - if that's up your alley, we'd love to talk to you, my username at Google's fine webmail service. |
I figured housing to be expensive, nice to get a number ball-parked though. As far as rooming with someone, it is true that I do not know anyone but would accept living with an initial stranger. That said, do any SF social forums spring to mind where I can post such a wanted ad? And, by "south", do you mean working for one of the big guys?
As far as my skill-set and experience goes, I am pretty certain that my background is quite different from the typical developer. I would love to talk with you about it and can explain in much more detail if you would hear it.
So as far as possibly filling a role your company is looking for...
I would be a liar if I said that I am an expert/have a bunch of experience with iOS and Android but, I would also not be doing myself justice if I left it at that...
I know python and c# well (so, not unfamiliar to the concept of the JVM) and have done quite a bit of thinking/tinkering/learning about cloud computing and associated technologies. I guess what I am trying to say is if I am not qualified for it now I can get myself there in the near future. In other words, its up my alley and I would love to find out if I can hack it.
Before I go I gotta thank you again for the info and time, it really is much appreciated!