From...

May 18, 1999
Web posted at: 8:09 a.m. EDT (1209 GMT)

by Rochelle Garner

(IDG) -- Without question, the San Francisco Bay area is one of the hottest regions in the U.S. -- if not the world -- for technology employment. But don't think of the Bay area as just San Francisco.

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The region extends north to Marin County, across the East Bay to Oakland and south to the peninsula. And of course, there's Santa Clara County, the geographic name for what we now call Silicon Valley. Technology's mecca is a pretty big place.

What's it like to work in the Bay area? To find out, Computerworld talked to three recruiters who specialize in the region.

Thomas McGinley-Swingle
Executive vice president
Chen & McGinley Inc.
San Francisco

Q:Where are the best opportunities for IT professionals in the Bay area?

A:It's a seller's market right now, and that means demand is all over the place. That said, there are fewer jobs in Marin County than in the town of San Ramon. Plus, a lot of companies are moving back into the city from the suburbs.

Q:What IT positions and skills are the hottest in 1999?

A:Most companies are looking for someone with two to 10 years of experience. The hot skills are Unix, C++, Perl, Java, any Internet or e-commerce technologies, and object-oriented development. The hot platforms are Solaris, HP/UX and Windows NT. And there are still quite a few jobs for mainframe people. We're also seeing growing demand for systems administrators in Windows NT and Unix.

Q:What are the salaries and the work hours like?

A:At the Fortune 500 companies, it's 45 to 50 hours a week -- longer when there are upcoming [results]. Salaries are all over the map. What one company may pay for one set of skills, another may be willing to pay $15,000 more. For example, financial services -- like brokerage houses and securities firms -- will pay higher salaries than other companies using the same kind of technologies.

Someone skilled in Unix or C++ might get $90,000 in the [Silicon] Valley vs. $80,000 in San Francisco.

Janice Litvin
Director
Micro Search Inc.
Walnut Creek, Calif.

Q: Describe the work culture.

A:As a generality, it's very fast-paced no matter what kind of company you work for. This area is a start-up haven, and it's bred a start-up culture of intense activity that infuses just about every department in just about every company throughout the region.

Q:What IT positions and skills are the hottest in 1999?

A:The hottest skills are Web-related. These include Java, back-end databases like Access, Oracle and Informix, languages like Visual Basic, Perl, CGI Scripting and C++. The focus in this region [is on] all things interactive.

Q:What are the pros and cons of the region?

A:In the pro column: The place is beautiful, with rolling hills, the Pacific and the bay. It's also culturally stimulating, with theater, art, music, dance and people from all over the world. To me, it seems we still have an almost-anything-goes attitude. It seems less judgmental here.

The cons are pretty well-known. It's incredibly expensive -- gasoline prices start at $1.75 a gallon. A four-bedroom house built after World War II costs about $400,000 in the less-pricey parts of the region. That same house would cost $700,000 in Los Altos and $1 million in Palo Alto.

Traffic is horrible. Despite the wealth here, many of the school systems are pretty bad.

Dave Drugman
President
Bay Cities Research Inc.
Palm Beach, Fla.

(Specializes in recruiting workers to the Bay area)

Q:How would you describe the work culture in the area? A:Burn that tie. The area places so much emphasis on casual that people wearing a suit are a little suspect. It's also free-wheeling. It's still business, but people expect to have fun, too. It's also Driven with a capital "D" -- it's fairly common to see parking lots full at 10 p.m.

Q: What advice can you offer people seeking jobs in the area?

A: [They should] get themselves known by these companies. The bigger companies are going into relationship recruiting, and you have to be seen. Join [Internet] chat rooms and newsgroups, become active in technical associations, drop by the company booth at the wine and trade shows.

Talk to friends to find out what [your] potential boss would be like -- and maybe even seek him out. It's not about papering a place with résumés. It's getting to know people, even if there aren't any openings, because when they do need someone, you want to be the person they think of.