Post: #1

Does anyone anyone live / have any insight into the job market and opportunities for growth in Silicon Valley? After a lot of soul searching I've decided to cash in my chips and relocate for better jobs/opportunities. Luckily a close friend is a flight attendant and signed me up for free flights for 1year so I have virtually no limitations on where I can interview/move to. I am currently an operations manager for a large grocery retailer and want to break into a corporate setting and pick up valuable technical skills/experience. I also have a bachelors degree in business and all my (limited) work experience is climbing into management in less than 1year. My cousin worked in San Jose for 2 years and I can tell he learned a LOT about businesses and how they operate and I want to surround myself with the same level of intelligence & drive, something that is lacking in my current city. Any insight is greatly appreciated, thanks.

Post: #2

I live in San Jose. If you work in technology the job market here is amazing. Otherwise I don't think it is better than any other big city. It would help if you were more specific about the field you want to work in.

Post: #3

I'll comment on this thread later on as I'm native of the Bay Area. Don't want to write on my phone.

Post: #4

alrighty, if you want to live in Silicon Valley, try to get into tech jobs. tech jobs are very big in that area because of all the tech companies there. i'll warn you though; this place is extremely expensive and even though you might be making a lot of money, lots of it will get lost to cost of living, high taxes, and communting if you can't afford to live close to all the jobs (like most people in the Bay Area). add to that, the level of intelligent guys here isn't that great as many people think.

sure, you have a shitload of "educated" men here, but that's about it where they are "intelligent." you have a bunch of engineers here who outside of anything tech, are extremely boring and inept. and, you have horrible gender ratios. WAY too many guys here in relation to chicks (SJ is nicknamed "Man Jose") and the chicks here are ugly UNLESS you have big time yellow fever that you will fuck any asian girl on sight.

if you really want to try it here, then go ahead. it's a unique place though but it has a lot of drawbacks that I must warn to men. you don't want to become frustrated like I am right now because of the low level of talent here and the boringness.

Post: #5

Could you compare San Francisco vs San Jose/Sunnyvale/Mountain View for living and IT jobs?
You definitely need a car/motorcycle for the latter?

Post: #6

(03-31-2014 09:02 PM)Freedom Wrote:  Could you compare San Francisco vs San Jose/Sunnyvale/Mountain View for living and IT jobs?
You definitely need a car/motorcycle for the latter?

you need a car for almost all of the bay area unless you live in proper San Francisco. but most people couldn't afford to live in SF unless you have a bunch of roommates. most of the IT jobs are in SJ/sunnyvale/Mountain View. SF has lots of finance jobs thanks to a bunch of banks being there. still, it's easier to commute from SF to silicon valley (if you manage to afford in SF) than from where I live. the part of the bay area I live in is pretty isolated compared to the other regions.

Post: #7

There's been a big shift to SF from the valley over the last probably 5-8 years. Older companies like Yahoo, Google and FB are all based down south. The newer companies like Twitter, Zynga, Square, Dropbox etc are all based in SF.

There are still plenty of startups further south but I'd probably guess as many in SF now. Even the bigger employers like Google, Yahoo etc have offices in SF and increasingly the young people that work for them live in SF and shuttle down. Many companies that get to a certain size in the south/valley end up opening an office in SF to attract younger workers.

There's still plenty of enterprise companies in the south and maybe more overall tech jobs down there but the real center of innovation is making a switch to SF. There were even rumors of Google moving their headquarters to SF in either the transbay building or mission bay.

Post: #8

I moved to SV last July from DC. The cost of living in South Bay is on par with DC, but as the Tech companies continue to grow, the cost of housing also rises steadily. I managed to get a pretty cheap 1 bedroom for $1400/mo, but 2 months ago the unit next door to me rented for $1600… just to give you an idea of how quickly things jump up in price.

As for the ratios, don't come here for the women. This is the only place in America where you can go out and the line to the men's bathroom is 5x longer than the line to the women's bathroom. I've never seen anything like it. That said, if you're proactive, the girls here are friendly and I've actually had an easier time getting numbers and taking girls out on dates than I did previously in DC. Day game FTW.

The social scene here though is a step down from DC, IMO. Most of the Techies only hang out with other Techies from their company -- everyone lives in a bubble more or less. There are definitely fewer events where you have the chance of meeting cool people. "The Tech" in San Jose probably has the most events in the area, but they're geared towards geeks (no offense).

Overall though, SV is a great place to live if you can deal with the cost of living. The weather is superb -- sunshine every day. Literally 340 out of 365 days a year. So for that, I could see myself sticking around.

Anyway, hope that helps.

Post: #9

(03-31-2014 09:57 AM)defguy Wrote:  Does anyone anyone live / have any insight into the job market and opportunities for growth in Silicon Valley? After a lot of soul searching I've decided to cash in my chips and relocate for better jobs/opportunities. Luckily a close friend is a flight attendant and signed me up for free flights for 1year so I have virtually no limitations on where I can interview/move to. I am currently an operations manager for a large grocery retailer and want to break into a corporate setting and pick up valuable technical skills/experience. I also have a bachelors degree in business and all my (limited) work experience is climbing into management in less than 1year. My cousin worked in San Jose for 2 years and I can tell he learned a LOT about businesses and how they operate and I want to surround myself with the same level of intelligence & drive, something that is lacking in my current city. Any insight is greatly appreciated, thanks.

Hmmm ... Is San Jose in Silicon Valley? I've always thought San Jose was a bit out of the way. I think of Silicon Valley as from San Francisco down to about Mountain View. Once you hit Sunnyvale, I don't really think you're in the valley anymore.

"The Valley" being defined as the tech hub where founders, hackers, entrepreneurs, investors, etc congregate. There's tons of stuff from Mountain View and north, but I don't think Sunnyvale and south (including San Jose) has nearly as strong a scene.

My recommendation: Subscribe to Startup Digest. It'll give you a good listing of tech events in the valley every week. Go to as many events as possible and build your network. You'll learn about more events as you go to events. IMO You'll have a better time finding work through in person connections than through trying to do it online.

Post: #10

You realize if you exclude Sunnyvale from your definition, you also exclude Cupertino.

That being said, "The Valley" runs from San Jose up to SF, although one could argue Redwood City, San Mateo, South San Francisco, etc. don't have a startups and could be excluded.

Post: #11

Anything from San Jose to Mountain View is considered the valley. Palo Alto to SF is considered the peninsula. SF is called "the city" in local parlance. To answer OP's question, I wouldn't move there unless I wanted to play the start up lottery. The cost of living is ridiculous and even more so in SF proper. The women are terrible as well and it's pretty boring there. San Jose is about as suburban as you can get. If you want the California experience you'd be much better served moving to LA. it's not quite as expensive (but catching up), the women are hotter, and there's much more to do.

Post: #12

I have worked for several companies based in the area, have family there and have spent a great deal of time there. When people say, "get a tech job", it doesn't just mean engineering, or having a CS degree. All of these companies hire sales people, customer service people, marketing, human resources, finance, basically the entire organization that supports a business. Every common role in a typcial business is needed, and usually your best bet to get in to the industry if you are not an engineer or product person. There are all levels of entry, from totally inexperienced, to having a Harvard MBA. Unless you are a phenom you typically should have a bachelors degree, but I have known quite a few who dont. From my experience you can break into the industry pretty easily, look everywhere from job boards, craigslist and apply direct to the companies you think are cool.

Lets take your experience. You are an operations manager for a grocery business, a multi billion dollar industry, practically bigger than the tech industry. Ecommerce companies are in desperate need for people with real business experience, from real industries, not internet . eBay immediately comes to mind, especially now that they have eBay Now. Or Google, with Google Shopping Express that is running in SF. Or even the gazillion other smaller ecommerce companies that are venture backed in the Bay Area, trying to break through. Coming in to a tech company with real world experience from a similar business, or one a big tech co is trying to break into, is invaluable, better than an ivy league degree imho.

As far as living in SJ, its a toss up. Its really a place to live if you are married and want to raise a family. Willow Glen and Campbell are really nice. Mountain View has come a long way. If you like the outdoors, a house in the burb's and the slow and easy life(with zero nightlife), thats the spot to be, but keep in mind those houses are all $1m+. Any single tech worker in the bay area in my opinion should live up in SF and commute down, either Cal Trains or another way. Thousands of people do every day, its pretty typical.

Post: #13

(05-11-2014 07:17 PM)JJJames Wrote:  Hmmm ... Is San Jose in Silicon Valley? I've always thought San Jose was a bit out of the way. I think of Silicon Valley as from San Francisco down to about Mountain View. Once you hit Sunnyvale, I don't really think you're in the valley anymore.

"The Valley" being defined as the tech hub where founders, hackers, entrepreneurs, investors, etc congregate. There's tons of stuff from Mountain View and north, but I don't think Sunnyvale and south (including San Jose) has nearly as strong a scene.

the Silicon Valley is literally the valley that San Jose sits smack dab in the middle of. Traditionally this was the ground zero of the tech industry. I would say its still where most of the tech office space is in the area, but higher profile companies these days are further north.