I am a liberal arts degree holding web developer in my 30’s from the midwest trying to land his first proper Jr. Web Development job. I have some projects under my belt and even an internship, but it’s still been hard to find a regular full time job in the field. I am thinking of moving to this area for, A. the work environment (I am supposing that since the top web companies are there there is a lot of similar work at all levels of skill. B. the weather.
Factors that also come into play:
C. It might be nice to live near or in the college town of Stanford.
D. San Jose is the 10th largest city in the US and I like cities (might be a good place to touchdown to start).
E. There might be a good area to raise a family in the burbs after 2-3 years in one of the more traditional/conventional areas at a private school.
I’d like to know what your opinions mainly on my reasons for wanting to move here and which precise location might be best based on the factors which I’ve listed. If you have nothing to say on the work environment it would still be helpful to hear about other aspects. Tell me your stories of the area or just spit out some facts you’ve discovered. Since it is such a large move (no pun intended) I would like to hear as much as possible.
I lived in Palo Alto (Stanford) and Mountain View for most of the 70’s and all of the 80’s.
Loved it. Weather fantastic. Very, very expensive to live there. An example - soon after I first moved there, friends bought a house that cost 4 times my annual wages. It was a lovely little 20’s bungalow. When I left in 1990, that house had gone up by a factor of 20 - my salary (and I had done very well) had gone up by less than half that. House was demolished in 2000 and replaced by a $4 million MacMansion.
Salaries are big on the ‘peninsula’ - but not as big as the cost of living. A realtor friend expects even more inflation of home prices when FB goes public.
The weather in Palo Alto best overall I’ve ever experienced, and I grew up in SoCal.
I actually like San Francisco Gloom and Doom as well. But I prefer my temps a bit cooler.
There should be plenty of web development jobs out there. You’ll be paid very well, but be prepared to work very hard. Not just because they pay you well, but because your competition is smart as hell.
As JasG said. don’t expect to be able to buy a house anytime soon. Real estate in the bay is ridiculously expensive.
For some 30 years or so, the trend has been for people to live in further and further outlying areas, just so they can afford it. Massive numbers of people live as far away as the San Joaquin Valley, places like Stockton, and spend way long hours of their non-working lives commuting, sitting in ever-worse parking lots that the freeways are.
The entire S. F. Bay Area used to be a fabulously beautiful place. It still is, sort of, but the massive crush of people-congestion has largely ruined it. Still, some people thrive on that. If you think that works for you, go for it.
If you’re into hiking, check out the Santa Cruz mountains area, very close to San Jose and Santa Clara. Umpteen-thousand miles of trails, mostly in redwood forest.
Yep, I was amazed when I started seeing people commute in from Stockton and Modesto (90 miles east). I ended up leaving the area because of the crowding and cost of housing. Of course, Stockton is now the center of the foreclosure world…
Another example, I just looked up an old girl friend’s home - she and her dad bought it for $66K in 1979 (long time, I know) - it is now worth $1.1M on Zillow - for a 3br/3ba 1600 sqft home built in 1952.
Weather is great. But housing, especially within a bike ride to Stanford, is crazy high. Be prepared to spend at least $1500 for a small apt. Higher is more likely.
San Jose can be much cheaper. Stay out of Oakland or East Palo Alto. Some areas of San Jose are sketchy, too. A smart idea is to find a place either in Fremont not too far away from BART or Downtown San Jose within a short distance to Calltrain, which is by the Sharktank (aka HP Pavilion) aka Diridon station. A low end fixer upper house is about $300K.
No way you are going to afford Palo Alto. I work in Santa Clara and live in Fremont, walking distance from the BART. It is heading to San Jose but it will be a while. It is good for getting into San Francisco, though. Weather is great, and, probably more importantly for you, the tech job market is about the best in the country. I’m hiring (not web developers though) and everyone is getting multiple offers for absurd amounts of money.
Do not look at Santa Cruz. Thought it is a lovely place, the only way to the Valley is 17 over the mountains. That is a narrow, twisty turny road, and seems to get clobbered at regular frequencies. Bad weather really screws it. I’ve got alternates on my commute, there you are pretty much stuck.
I live in San Jose and I quite like it. It’s quiet, there’s a lot to do (though it’s not known for its night life–I don’t care at all about that as I’m not a night-life kind of person, but some do) and it’s within driving distance of a bunch of other cool places.
There are decent parts of SJ and not-so-decent parts. I live in south SJ, near Highway 87. It’s a nice, not-too-expensive area that’s quiet and pretty safe. I’ve lived in the same house for about 12 years and the biggest thing that’s happened was a guy got shot by the cops near our house a few months ago. Houses are in the $400 - $650ish-K range around my area. They used to sell for more, but the housing market took a dive.
There are parts of San Jose I wouldn’t want to live in, most of them in the eastern part of the city. That’s where most of the gang activity is, and every time I have occasion to be around that part of town I feel uncomfortable (but I’m a big ol’ chicken. There are a lot of great people who live over there–it’s popular with folks who don’t make the kind of money needed to live in other nearby areas). But for the most part I would definitely recommend the city as being affordable (a relative term around here, I know) and pretty centrally located for the tech industry. And the weather is, for the most part, nice. It gets a little cold (down to maybe high 20s/low 30s very occasionally) and it rains in the winter/spring and everybody forgets how to drive, but aside from that things are usually pretty nice.
Lived in San Jose in the 80s, went to high school there and San Jose State. Lived in Santa Clara/Sunnyvale, and worked the early part of my career in Silicon Valley in the 90s, got my piece of the action and became a refugee from the high housing costs (now live in the Sacramento area). The Bay Area in general is a great place to start a tech career. There are hundreds, if not thousands of companies utilizing people in your field of interest. So, you should be able to find a job there with the right skill set and attitude. As stated upthread, competition is high, and be prepared to work a lot to pay for stuff. Housing costs are very high, and freeways are choked with traffic (altho people from LA would scoff). You need to have a good, solid, reliable car, as public transportation is thin outside SF.
The South Bay environment is beautiful - you have hills ringing the south valley and bay on the north. The Santa Cruz mtns are a mecca for hiking and mtn biking (Mid-Peninnsula Open Space District), as well as Grant Park and Henry Coe on in the mountains on the east side. In the summer when the fog is rolling over the top of the Santa Cruz mtns it can be stunning at sunset (if you are not too busy to notice). Other than the occasional earthquake (Loma Prieta in '89), there are few natural hazards.
The area is highly diversified so if you like cuisines from other lands you will be in heaven. SJ is about 45 min from the heart of SF, and there are trains to take you there if you please. Gilroy has it’s Garlic festival in late July, and Monterey/Carmel are about 60 min south. There are also wineries in and around the southern part of the valley near Gilroy and Hollister. The beach areas near Santa Cruz are about 30-45 min away, but as stated, Hwy 17 is a twisty congested road thru the mtns and one accident will screw your whole day.
Bottom line - there are a lot of career opportunities for the right skill set, great diversity, awesome weather and environment. But this comes at a high cost for housing, and everyone else wants to be there, too.
I’m a native-born Chicagoan, and immediately after college moved to San Diego for a job. Admittedly that isn’t the same as San Jose, but maybe my experience will be instructive.
I thought that San Diego was beautiful when I visited for my job interview, and jumped at the chance to move there. But it wasn’t much more than a year before I decided that I hated it: it was bland, homogeneous, and culture-free. I missed the blues clubs, the pizza joints, the ethnic neighborhoods, and the seedy dive bars of Chicago. Plus I found the women out there completely vapid. I traveled around much of California, and didn’t like any of the rest of it any better.
I was back in Chicago within eighteen months of moving out there. I’m not saying you’ll have the same experience, but there’s one more data point for you.
What I know of Southern CA agrees with this (I grew up there). But the Bay Area is totally unrecognizably different from SoCal. If T.R.M. here didn’t like N. Ca. either, it must be for different reasons than not liking SoCal. I too wouldn’t wish SoCal on anybody other than the people who choose to live there (who must therefore deserve it for some reason).