Considering moving to Silicon Valley

[JohnSoCal]

Originally Posted by mdwstrnkid

I work in enterprise software, so the consulting work that I would have done would have been customer implementation. My wife used to work as an enterprise software implementation consultant (total coincidence; our jobs had nothing to do with us meeting) and would log anywhere from 60-80 flight segments a year - a grueling travel schedule IMO.

My experience is that, in enterprise software, there are some expectations around face time, especially at $300+/hour.

The big difference is that all of my clients were manufacturers of products like Cisco, etc. or oil companies, aluminum plants, utilities so there was almost no traveling required. The only time I had to travel anywhere was with Sandia National Laboratories when I had to spend 2 weeks in Albuquerque NM for testing of our device. I have taken on a few projects in other locations like Spokane, WA, San Diego, but 90% of my work was in Silicon Valley by choice. I was offered a lot of gigs in places all over the country and even in Canada but I would only work in places we enjoyed and where the work was interesting. I remember one job where they tried to get me do a gig at a meat packing plant in Des Moines which I turned down very quickly. We enjoy the San Francisco Bay area and there are a lot of interesting projects there. Actually about half of my work I was able to do from home. When I was at Sandia, I did all the work at home except for the 2 weeks testing in Albuquerque.

[JohnSoCal]

Originally Posted by mdwstrnkid

Also, depending what you are doing, you might be spending a lot of time doing business development to make sure that you have a constant pipeline of work, which is time that you won't be getting paid. Also, you might other expenses such as travel, equipment, admin overhead, etc. that will eat into your billing rate.

In my case, the types of gigs I would have expected would have been short-term engagements with companies located all across the country, so at the end of the day I would probably only come out a little bit ahead of a salaried job with the added headache of being a road warrior.

That was never a problem with me. I probably didn't spend more than 30 minutes a week that I didn't get paid for and that was the time for invoicing the client. The only time I spent more time than that was doing fixed price contracts where I had to analyze the scope of the work, specifications, and prepare the contract. It was still a small percentage of my time as my contracts were generally several months long and I didn't do a lot of fixed price contracts.

[luau]

The most traveling I would want to do for a gig is going to SoCal. I just want to be able to obtain gigs now, I don't need the premium rates you guys were getting, at least for now. It's been a concern of mine though that the people will go, "he's in his 20s and doesn't have enough experience", and just write me off.

[mdwstrnkid]

Originally Posted by JohnSoCal

The big difference is that all of my clients were manufacturers of products like Cisco, etc. or oil companies, aluminum plants, utilities so there was almost no traveling required. The only time I had to travel anywhere was with Sandia National Laboratories when I had to spend 2 weeks in Albuquerque NM for testing of our device. I have taken on a few projects in other locations like Spokane, WA, San Diego, but 90% of my work was in Silicon Valley by choice. I was offered a lot of gigs in places all over the country and even in Canada but I would only work in places we enjoyed and where the work was interesting. I remember one job where they tried to get me do a gig at a meat packing plant in Des Moines which I turned down very quickly. We enjoy the San Francisco Bay area and there are a lot of interesting projects there. Actually about half of my work I was able to do from home. When I was at Sandia, I did all the work at home except for the 2 weeks testing in Albuquerque.

Unfortunately, most of our US customers are based outside of Bay Area, so getting on a plane would have been the norm if I were to have gone into implementation consulting. Also, given the nature of the work, the typical gigs would be measured in weeks, hence the need to spend a lot of time building up the project pipeline.

[mdwstrnkid]

Originally Posted by luau

The most traveling I would want to do for a gig is going to SoCal. I just want to be able to obtain gigs now, I don't need the premium rates you guys were getting, at least for now. It's been a concern of mine though that the people will go, "he's in his 20s and doesn't have enough experience", and just write me off.

In my experience, at least in software, if you know what you are doing (and can demonstrate that to a potential employer), your age won't matter at all. In fact, I suspect that some companies would be more inclined to hire young, hotshot developers who are willing to put in the hours to get the job done.

[JohnSoCal]

Originally Posted by mdwstrnkid

In my experience, at least in software, if you know what you are doing (and can demonstrate that to a potential employer), your age won't matter at all. In fact, I suspect that some companies would be more inclined to hire young, hotshot developers who are willing to put in the hours to get the job done.

My experience is that applies to perm workers but not contractors. Most employers preferred the more seasoned experienced people for contract work.