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Old 10-15-2011, 06:31 PM
 
33 posts, read 117,173 times
Reputation: 21

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I'm originally from the north bay area but have lived out of state for a few years and all of my time working in my career, as a software developer, has been out of state so I'm not really all that familiar with the dynamics of living and working in the bay area (mostly lived at parent's house when I lived in CA). I'm hoping to move back at some point as it is a great place for someone in the tech industry but I'm by no means rich and want to find an affordable community to live in where myself and my fiance could rent, at the very least, a townhouse, or, preferrably, a house. We have dogs and other pets and living in an apartment probably wouldn't work.

It seems that most of the jobs are either in SF itself or on the peninsula, but maybe I'm wrong and there are software industry jobs in other parts of the bay area? I'd appreciate any advice on what areas I may want to look into, I would hope to keep my commuting time to, at most, 1 hour each way.

I'm definitely thinking that somewhere in the east bay may be a good fit but I'm not real familiar with the commuting times and relative amount of jobs in my field within proximity of the cities there (the bay area is definitely more spread out than the metro where I currently which makes figuring this out from looking at a map a bit difficult). Also, the south bay may work but the cheaper areas seem to be pretty far west or south to where it may make commuting a bit difficult (I did live in San Jose a little bit while in college and found the traffic a bit overwhelming)

Thanks for any advice

Last edited by rdane1010; 10-15-2011 at 06:40 PM..
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Old 10-15-2011, 10:29 PM
 
Location: South Korea
5,242 posts, read 13,043,351 times
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Just focus on getting a job first then figure out a place to live. I'd say most tech jobs are in San Mateo County and Santa Clara County but there's tech stuff all over the place in the Bay Area--Will Wright is in Emeryville, Seagate is in Scotts Valley, etc. SF has some stuff, seems like mainly companies like Zynga and Twitter. The Bay Area is a big region and there's a lot of traffic bottlenecks so you want to have a good commute. You wouldn't want to get an apartment in San Jose then get an offer for your dream job at a software company in Novato, that commute would be crazy. But if you really had to get somewhere to live somewhere that was convenient to most tech jobs, I'd maybe pick somewhere like San Mateo or Redwood City that is fairly equally distant from San Jose and San Francisco. You'd put Marin, much of the East Bay and Santa Cruz County out of reach but you'd be within decent commuting distance of most software tech jobs.
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Old 10-15-2011, 10:34 PM
 
2,131 posts, read 4,900,902 times
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Stockton
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Old 10-16-2011, 04:42 PM
 
33 posts, read 117,173 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by wrcousert View Post
Stockton
LOL, I'm hoping thats a joke, I'm from northern California so I know about Stockton, I'm not meaning to say its a horrible place or anything but its not within commuting distance of the bay area and there aren't many jobs there for my field.
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Old 10-16-2011, 04:45 PM
 
33 posts, read 117,173 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mayorhaggar View Post
Just focus on getting a job first then figure out a place to live. I'd say most tech jobs are in San Mateo County and Santa Clara County but there's tech stuff all over the place in the Bay Area--Will Wright is in Emeryville, Seagate is in Scotts Valley, etc. SF has some stuff, seems like mainly companies like Zynga and Twitter. The Bay Area is a big region and there's a lot of traffic bottlenecks so you want to have a good commute. You wouldn't want to get an apartment in San Jose then get an offer for your dream job at a software company in Novato, that commute would be crazy. But if you really had to get somewhere to live somewhere that was convenient to most tech jobs, I'd maybe pick somewhere like San Mateo or Redwood City that is fairly equally distant from San Jose and San Francisco. You'd put Marin, much of the East Bay and Santa Cruz County out of reach but you'd be within decent commuting distance of most software tech jobs.
Yeah, unfortunately I think you're right about the peninsula being the most central location, I say unfortunately as I was mostly hoping to avoid thinking about living there due to the very high cost (and I prefer the slightly warmer weather a bit further inland). I could end up working contract positions to where I'm only guaranteed 9 months, or so, at a particular company which is why I'd like to live somewhere centrally located.

I am wondering about the east bay though as I know there are a couple bridges that provide access to the peninsula (san Mateo, Redwood city, etc) so would this be another reasonable option?
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Old 10-16-2011, 06:12 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rdane1010 View Post
LOL, I'm hoping thats a joke, I'm from northern California so I know about Stockton, I'm not meaning to say its a horrible place or anything but its not within commuting distance of the bay area and there aren't many jobs there for my field.
It's on the ACE train. People use it to commute to the Bay Area daily. I think it's about $300 per month.
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Old 10-16-2011, 07:19 PM
 
33 posts, read 117,173 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by wrcousert View Post
It's on the ACE train. People use it to commute to the Bay Area daily. I think it's about $300 per month.
really? hmm, I will have to look into that, I've never heard of it, thanks for the info

EDIT: looked into it, definitely interesting but looks like its 2 hours end to end, also it goes to the south bay, rather than SF itself and from what I remember of that area there aren't a whole lot of ways to efficiently get around in the south bay once you get off
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Old 10-16-2011, 07:31 PM
 
Location: South Korea
5,242 posts, read 13,043,351 times
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You don't want to take ACE, it's a long ride in the first place and last time I heard anything about it, it routinely gets stuck behind freight trains.

Could live in Fremont and you'd be able to get to Palo Alto and San Jose pretty easily or take BART to SF.
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Old 10-16-2011, 07:49 PM
 
2,131 posts, read 4,900,902 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rdane1010 View Post
really? hmm, I will have to look into that, I've never heard of it, thanks for the info

EDIT: looked into it, definitely interesting but looks like its 2 hours end to end, also it goes to the south bay, rather than SF itself and from what I remember of that area there aren't a whole lot of ways to efficiently get around in the south bay once you get off

You could take ACE to Livermore and transfer to BART. It looks like BART plans to extend eBart service to Stockton at some point in the future. Probably not in your lifetime though....
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Old 10-16-2011, 08:04 PM
 
Location: Oakland, CA
28,226 posts, read 36,750,520 times
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I wouldn't pick Stockton. Affordable, yes but that long commute would take a toll on you for sure.

For example, if you live in Oakland, commuting to SF or most parts of the east bay is reasonable. San Mateo is the absolute furthest I would want to go on the Peninsula, unless you can go in on off hours. If not, look at a 90-120 minute commute round trip. (one way might be pretty short, and the other one will take a while, but it generally averages about 45 minutes.)

If you originate in Hayward, Newark or Fremont the commute to the Peninsula would be shorter, but each of those areas may or may not be an ideal fit. Good luck!
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