John: Hey, this is John Sonmez from simpleprogrammer.com and I’ve a question today from Sean about
obtaining dev work in another state prior to moving there.
Sean says, “Hey John, do you have any advice/suggestions or personal experience with getting hired
as a developer in another state?
I’ve read articles on this, but haven’t seen a lot of firsthand success stories of
this working.
My gut tells me that it would take either a phenomenal online portfolio, big name on
my resume or possibly both.
One or my goals is to move to a warm snow-free state i.e.
Missouri to Florida to work with a job in place as opposed to moving blind without a
job set up ahead of time.
A video response would be awesome but any tips or advice on this would be appreciated.
I really enjoy your blog and especially the videos.
Thanks.”
Well, thanks Sean.
I appreciate that you like what I’m producing and I’m glad to help you if I can.
I’ve actually gotten several jobs out of state earlier in my career and it really wasn’t
that hard.
I don’t think it’s as difficult as you imagine it to be.
In fact, if I didn’t know any better I just assume that mostly you get jobs out of state.
When I first started out as a software developer I was willing to work anywhere in the US so
I just applied for jobs all over the place and I didn’t really worry about whether
they were in state or out of state.
I got several jobs that way.
The key thing is it depends on the company and the job.
A smaller company is probably less likely to hire someone out of state but a company
like Microsoft or Google or Xerox or HP or any of those bi companies, they’re not even
going to care at all.
For the most part they’re interviewing probably mostly people that are out of state so the
cost of flying you out and having you travel to interview it’s really nothing for them,
they do it all the time.
They might even fly you first class.
One time I went to a Microsoft interview or maybe it was an HP interview and they flew
me first class there and back.
That was pretty awesome.
They didn’t care.
They didn’t care about the price because they’re a big company and it doesn’t really
make much difference.
They’re more concerned about finding the right person.
I guess I would say if you really want to find a job on a state keep in mind that the
bigger the company is the more likely that they are going to fly you out for an interview.
That’s going to be the primary factor, right?
If you’re looking at small companies, you’re probably not going to find that as much, although
I have even had success.
I’ve had small companies that have flown me from for example from Florida to New Jersey.
Don’t ask why I would go that direction when you want to go to Florida.
Although I will say that employment in Florida is sometimes is a little bit difficult especially
on the pay range.
In Florida we don’t have state income tax so sometimes companies pay a little bit less
so just be ready for that.
If you’re living in—It sounds like you’re probably living in Missouri, but if you’re
living in the bay area in California and you’re thinking you’re going to get equivalent
pay in Florida, you’re probably sadly mistaken so don’t expect that.
Another thing that you could do, another option for you is to work remotely.
Maybe if you’ve already got a job right now, maybe you can tell your company that
you would like to move to Florida or maybe you could come up with some kind of real good
excuse why you need to move to Florida and see if they’ll continue to let you work
remotely.
A lot of people have had success with that and then you can keep your Missouri pay while
living in a cheaper area to live in Florida.
I actually did that when I moved—when I first moved to Florida I was working for a
company—of course they were all remote and we moved to Florida.
It was like a pay raise for me because now I didn’t have to pay income or state income
tax.
Anyway, the basic idea is just—it doesn’t really matter that much.
Having a reputation is always going to help you with any kind of job.
Having a good portfolio is going to help you in general, but I really wouldn’t worry
about it.
As long as you apply for big enough companies and there’s plenty of them.
I think in Florida you’ll probably find a lot of defense contractors so you might
want to gear your resumes.
Those are the bigger companies that will be hiring software developers.
You might want to gear your resume towards that.
If you can obtain clearance levels, government clearance levels that’s going to help you
with that.
Think about those kinds of things, think about the kind of employers and if you match up
for them, a big defense contractor for example like Lockheed Martin is going to have no problem
flying you out for an interview if you’re the right person for the job.
All right, well, hopefully that helped you.
Good luck in getting to Florida where it’s nice and warm, getting out of the cold there.
Let me know how it works out for you and I’d be happy to help any of you out there who
have a question, career question or anything I can answer you, just email me at john@simpleprogrammer.com
and don’t forget to subscribe to the channel.
Take care.