I have an option to work for a large tech company in the Bay Area or in Seattle. I'm not sure which to pick, and as far as I can tell the work experience will be about the same.<p>Any thoughts one way or another?
You don't have to file state income tax in Seattle and the housing market is less zany. A lot of people are fleeing SF for Seattle.<p>SF is beautiful and the weather is better. It seems to be An Experience.<p>Many years ago, I lived 45 miles from SF and I spent some time wishing I could live there. It's an incredible city.<p>It was unaffordable then and it's only gotten worse. But both cities have serious homeless problems. That is not peculiar to SF.<p>I guess it depends in part on how much you want An Experience and how much you want a relatively sane lifestyle. If you can afford it, I think the Bay Area is amazing. I'm glad I lived there and a little sad that moving to SF was not possible. But I'm currently in Washington and my life works vastly better here. So I'm getting over those feelings.
9 months of oppressive cloud cover a year and people that refuse to drive over the speed limit even a little and overt racism a short drive in any direction vs ridiculous rents/home prices and a culture that would rather see people die on the streets than mess up their neigbohood character by building houses but the weather is better and there’s more VC money and startups. Source: I’ve lived both places and currently reside in San Francisco. Sorry, that was probably not helpful.
I worked for a large tech company in Seattle and the actual living in Seattle part of it was tremendous (I didn't really enjoy the work, but that's a whole other story). I really loved living in Bellevue in particular -- it's very clean and beautiful.<p>You'll save a lot more money living in Seattle compared to SF. The weather is a bit dreary sometimes, but I didn't find it to be much of a problem.