Just finished an internship at Amazon and got a return offer, and I graduate next summer. I’m married with a 6 month old daughter, and I’m excited to start my post college career. BUT... I hate big cities. I’m from the south and my wife is from the Midwest in both really rural areas. Seattle is the biggest city either of us have ever lived in and we hate it. The price of a small one bedroom is twice what some of our friends are paying for large houses in other more rural parts of the country, and we are tired of living in apartments anyways. But I get the feeling the only way to start a good career in the tech industry is to live in a big city. I see some crazy high TC pay from big companies on here. Is it worth it? Are there any alternatives to city life and still be able to have a good and well paying career?
Start you career in a tech hub such as SV or Seattle, then consider moving out
How long would you recommend staying? We’re considering this option and considering staying for 2-3 years. Anything more than that sounds awful. Is this enough time?
Ya that should be enough. Also you could transfer to the Amazon office in Austin or Minneapolis and I don’t think they cut your pay.
Got married at age 20 and started college later that year ;) I know, I got married young. Cows are ok. Pass on the other two.
There’s a tech job everywhere, but it won’t be a very well known brand like FAANG or some hot consumer brand like Airbnb and Uber. I know more older companies like IBM and Accenture have projects and offices in every corner of the world. Likelihood of working on consumer tech is very low outside of cities, but enterprise and government work still pays the bills for rural life.
You can work remote but first you need serious skills and reputation, which are best obtained in first tier companies.
How many of your friends who have these amazing houses also are making $150,000 TC out of college and will likely make close to $300,000 within a few years?
I mean, $90k TC is more than enough when your mortgage is around $1,200 a month. Here if we wanted a 2 bedroom we’d be paying $2,500-3,000 per month. Plus everything is more expensive here.
You can save a lot more in Seattle than in the Midwest because the TC is so much higher.
Amazon has tons of other locations: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Amazon_locations
There are certainly jobs out there in smaller cities. The problem is that you will have fewer opportunities to move to a new company once you start, if there are only one or two top companies in the area. Consider Pittsburgh or Austin maybe if you want a good tech scene in a slightly smaller city.
Denver/Boulder area could be a good trade off for you
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Amazon owns a fashion company called Shopbop that had its headquarters in Madison, WI. It is still a pretty small city and you can live 15-20 minutes outside of it and be in a pretty rural area. You get Seattle compensation. The company is a nice place to work but can be boring. They have about 500 people and about 70-80 are software developers.