Ask HN: Reality for the Average Developer Outside Silicon Valley/Big US Markets?
Big US markets, especially Silicon Valley, get a lot of attention. I would imagine it distorts the view of what it's really like outside these big markets. So what's the situation like for the average developer outside the big US markets in terms of ease of getting a job (or switching jobs), perks, salary, quality of work?
I ask as an average grad entering the industry in a non-top-tier, non-US city.
[+] [-] raquo|7 years ago|reply
Up your relevant demonstrable skills enough to work remotely for a company in a big US city.
Alternatively, immigrate either to US or to a country from where it's easier to work for US (hello Canada).
Maybe move to a bigger city in your country and work for its Google or Microsoft office if there is one and if it pays well.
An average nondescript town is not a good place to be a software developer. Low wages, uninteresting, unchallenging work (hello agency work, drupal websites, 15 year old enterprise java codebases), working in an IT dept that is a cost center rather than revenue driver, etc. We can't possibly know what exactly it's like where you are (better ask on a local forum) but that's what it's like more often than not. It might certainly be better than other careers locally, but it's worse than you can have if you're willing to make the effort.
[+] [-] jasonkester|7 years ago|reply
It's like there's this Big Pot of Gold sitting there up for grabs in the Bay Area. But whenever anybody mentions it, all these people come out of the woodwork to explain how that Pot of Gold is only in the Bay Area. Out here in Scott's Bluff Nebraska they only have this little bucket of rocks.
And that's all perfectly true. But our commenter then goes on to explain how we should all forget about that Pot of Gold and instead focus on how to get a few of those rocks, because that's all any of us are ever going to get.
No. That's not the takeaway you should have. If there's a Big Pot of Gold someplace waiting to be taken, your job should be to find a way to get some of that gold.
Yes, it won't happen immediately. You'll need to work on it. Maybe it'll take 5 years. Maybe 10. Maybe you'll need to actually go to the Bay Area for a few years at some point. But know that if you really want it, it absolutely is possible to achieve.
Google alone hires 10,000 engineers every year. Not all of them were born in Palo Alto and graduated top 1% from Stanford. There are dozens if not hundreds of companies who are hiring remote devs at Bay Area compensation packages.
Just because you're a no-experience kid in Nebraska today doesn't mean you need to still be one 10 years from now.
Please. For your own sake. Get going.
[+] [-] frfl|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] a-saleh|7 years ago|reply
So far switching jobs was not a problem. Nor getting a job.
Around 7 years as a developer on some form or other. Currently 2500$/Month with a 4 day work-week. Interesting work. Up to additional 500-1000$ a month for my on-call duties. No additional variable compensation. Some possibility to get pre-IPO share of the startup. No sick-days. 20 day vacation. Vacation is auto-approved :)
Previously similar compensation for a 5 day work-week as a QA/Internal tooling dev at US corp with local presence. Accumulated ~20K$ stock over, but only half of it vested as I was leaving :P 5 days of no-questions-asked sick-days. 25 days of vacation. 15% of additional variable compensation.
Around 30% tax/social-security (there are additional employee taxes on top of my salary, but custom is to pretend that this is the employers problem :) Some opt for self-employment scheme (you can half your tax if you have good accountant), that can be sometimes in a grey legal area, if you are billed by a single large corporation.
Started at 800$ with 4 hours a day 7 years ago.
Currently around 500$/month recurring life expenses (I own my flat, so mostly utilities, insurance, phone bills, e.t.c., if I rented, it might be additional 300$ for 2 bedroom flat?), around 10$ price of dinner at a pub. And feeding a family of three is more expensive than I'd like :)
[+] [-] frfl|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] clusmore|7 years ago|reply
* Maximum of 38hrs per week + breaks (~40hrs). I have never worked or been pressured to work overtime, paid or otherwise. I happily do my 9-5 and everything outside those hours is my personal life, especially the weekend.
* 20 days paid-time-off (annual leave) per year. Never tried negotiating for more.
* 9.5% on top of base salary contributed by employer to your superannuation (similar to 401k). I believe 17% if you work for government.
* Comfortable salary. Definitely not SFBA rates but comfortable for CoL. Fresh grad would be ~$40-60k/yr, going up about $10k/yr for the first few years until you reach a point where years of experience becomes less relevant than the type of experience (~5yrs). Some regional variance to account for CoL. I stupidly started low, but then pushed for more until I felt comfortable that I'm paid average market rates. My history was $40k, at ~6mo $55k, at ~1.5yr $70k, at ~2.5yr $77.5k, at ~3yr $90k, at ~4yr (job change and BNE->MEL) $110k. This is plenty to live off and save for the future, especially if your SO makes similar.
* Somewhat flexible working conditions. Some companies are butts-in-seats 9-5 from the office, most will allow some WFH and variance in hours (7-3, 11-7, etc.), some allow full WFH/remote and your own hours.
* Pretty easy to find a new job. Each time I've tried interviewing I've received multiple offers within about 1 month.
* Sane interview processes. Most places will do a 15-30min phone screen so you can decide if you want to proceed, a take-home technical test that takes 1-2hrs, and then a 1hr onsite, before making an offer.
* Offices are mostly open-plan.
* Some companies offer small perks on top of all this, e.g. retail discounts, device allowance, phone allowance, personal development allowance, etc.
[+] [-] frfl|7 years ago|reply
What allowed you to get to this point? Was there a general pattern that you noticed that helped you go from 40 to 110 in just 4 years? It's quite impressive actually. Was it being in the right place at the right time, professional growth from what you worked on, personal projects, negotiating hard when the offer was made?
[+] [-] cyrilbenson47|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] segmondy|7 years ago|reply
I also think the stigma is GENERALLY true. The average 10yr software engineer from Phillipines is not going to be anywhere as good as the average software engineer in the Bay with 10yrs experience at these companies that pay good. Sure, there are exceptions, but we are talking about the average. Heck, the average 10yr software engineer in the US outside of the major tech cities can't keep up either. There's a reason most of the innovation and tools you are using are coming out from that side of the world. :-)
[+] [-] muzani|7 years ago|reply
Also frankly speaking, American devs are a lot better. Interviewing candidates in both Malaysia and Indonesia, if the higher paid senior ones can reverse a linked list, it's considered quite good. Western companies have much higher standards.
[+] [-] k0t0n0|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] soneca|7 years ago|reply
All of these are monthly salaries:
A good jr developer salary: R$4500 +- R$1500 (today, ~US$1200 +- US$400)
A good middle-level developer salary: R$7500 +- R$1500 (today, ~US$1900 +- US$400)
A good senior developer salary: R$12000 +- R$2500 (today, ~US$3200 +- US$700)
A good tech leader developer salary: R$18000 +- R$3500 (today, ~US$4800 +- US$900)
The highest salary for pure software development that I heard is R$30000 (today, ~U$12000). More than that only for CTO-like roles at big companies.
In terms of ease to get a job, it is ridiculously easy. A struggling startup fired 10 developers and let the market know that they were open to offers. In one week all of them were already working at another company. All of them and already working (not just receiving an offer). We get LinkedIn messages from recruiters all the time. The more senior ones get around 3 to 5 messages a day from recruiters. A little bit harder for juniors, but still easy enough compared to other professions.
The quality of work varies a lot. I like a lot my current work and company, but this one is hard to generalize.
[+] [-] ffumarola|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dovetailcode|7 years ago|reply
If there is a large downturn in the technology space, a place like Silicon Valley is going to see more of an impact. Multiple industries like tech, insurance, banking, biology/medicine, etc. in an area will help if there is a downturn in the economy for a specific industry.
[+] [-] forensium|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] frfl|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DerekQ|7 years ago|reply
Very easy to jump jobs, though permie jobs have more hoops to jump through. Most jobs are big corporate, very few startups.
Working as a contract developer (rolling 6 months) at $11,500 per month (25 days holidays factored in). A similar permie role would pay about $8,500 a month + perks (health insurance, pernsion, etc.)
The work is generally not that challenging - a good dev with 5 years behind them could do it.
[+] [-] CM30|7 years ago|reply
1. You're far less well paid than in Silicon Valley. Wages vary by region, but in many European countries, developer wages are closer to standard office worker ones than the rockstar ones at Google and Facebook.
2. Tools are often a bit more basic/old fashioned, and design is usually the same. In fact, I'd say the vast majority of the tech world is usually about 2-3 years behind the valley in terms of tech knowledge and tooling and best practices, and that time gap jumps up further and further the smaller the town/less tech savvy the company.
3. Perks are a mixed bag. Some companies have all the ping pong tables and arcade games and free food/drink associated with startups, some just offer you an office environment and say get to it.
4. Quality of work is usually less interesting. Lots of CRUD apps, small business websites, CMS themes, etc. Very few projects that have the goal of 'changing the world'.
5. The workforce is usually more diverse than in Silicon Valley. For all the comments about women in tech and diversity, my experience is that it's more of a problem with Silicon Valley unicorns than other businesses and agencies. Probably because they're not mostly hiring graduates from a select few universities.
6. The ease of getting a job varies. Usually you don't have much in the way of Google esque logic tests, but you'll probably have a few coding challenges to prove you know what you're doing. These challenges will be extremely easy for someone with FANG experience.
7. There is far less interest in personal projects, side hustles, and other such things among developers outside of Silicon Valley and other major markets. Most devs in these places are basically salarymen, they code because it pays the bills and spend their free time doing other stuff.
8. This lack of interest also seems to extend to the companies themselves when it comes to marketing their tech and culture. In fact, I suspect most European companies are absolutely terrfied of inbound marketing, and have no idea how to update a blog on a regular basis.
9. Working practices are often a bit dated as well. A lot of development is still done with the old 'have the designer create a PSD and get the developer to turn it into a website' mentality, and waterfall style project management methodologies haven't been replaced by agile in many of these organisations either.
So yeah, basically the reality for the average dev outside of Silicon Valley is working on a CRUD project with tech and design that's about 3 years behind the cutting edge with a team that build sites as a profession rather than a 'passion'.
[+] [-] meiraleal|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] frfl|7 years ago|reply