About Silicon Valley
Living and Working in High-Tech Heaven
Part I

Silicon Valley is the only place on Earth not
trying to figure out how to become Silicon Valley.
—Robert Metcalfe

Where is it?
There are no official borders, but Silicon Valley is typically defined as the area in about a 30-mile radius around San Jose, in Northern California. San Jose is the "Capitol of Silicon Valley," and roughly 50 miles south of San Francisco, near the southern tip of the San Francisco Bay.

Santa Clara and Sunnyvale are two other, well-known cities within Silicon Valley, but there are many cities in this densely-packed region. Santa Clara is also the name of the county in which the cities of Silicon Valley reside. Santa Clara County and Silicon Valley are synonymous. Sunnyvale is "The Heart of Silicon Valley."

For an interactive map, click the map graphic above. For maps of all sorts, see the Silicon Valley Web Directory.

What is it?
It a nutshell, Silicon Valley is "High-Tech Heaven." Throw a dart at a list of high-tech companies, and the one you hit probably has at least an office in Silicon Valley, if not a park-like campus. Many high-tech companies got their start in Silicon Valley, and there are many more in the process. All of the big names have a presence, including

Other regions have tried to achieve Silicon Valley's high-tech, economic miracle. New York's Silicon Alley has even played with the nickname. While successful in their own right, no region can beat or even match the one and only, Silicon Valley. It has the largest concentration of high-tech companies, but they are all over Northern California from about Sacramento west to Santa Rosa, and south to Santa Cruz. Residents, politicians, news media and such, generally call the entire region the San Francisco Bay Area.

Don C. Hoefler first coined the term Silicon Valley in print, in his 1971 series of articles about the area. As you may know, silicon is the main ingredient in computer chip-making recipes, and there are lots of chip makers here. The Valley part comes from the fact that it is really a valley, nestled between the Diablo and Santa Cruz Mountain Ranges along the southern tip of the San Francisco Bay. There are lots of other nicknames for the region.

• Bay Area - Short for the entire, San Francisco Bay Area
• Peninsula - Generally locations north of the heart of Silicon Valley, closer to San Francisco
• The City - San Francisco (As in, "Let's go up to The City.")
• East Bay - Cities on the Oakland side of the bay.
• South Bay and North Bay - South Bay is essentially Silicon Valley. North Bay is near and north of San Francisco.

Job Opportunities
Increasingly, there are more jobs than workers in Silicon Valley. In fact, there are so many jobs with more to come, recruiting is big business. Employers and staffing outfits recruit worldwide for jobs in Silicon Valley. The California Employment Development Department predicts that by 2001, there will be 98,700 more jobs than there were in 1994. But, according to other sources, that's a conservative estimate from a over year ago. Since 1992, Silicon Valley has added over 200,000 jobs, with 1997 as the only estimated year. I recently heard on the radio that in 1997 alone, Silicon Valley added over 30,000 jobs, even with the Asian Financial Crisis beginning to hit.

Speaking of which, recently the Asian Financial Crisis has slowed job growth and caused spotty to massive layoffs, especially at chip makers with Asian interests. Still, Silicon Valley continues to add thousands of jobs. The job market is still pretty good, despite layoffs.

In the absence of an economic crisis, in some areas such as Sunnyvale you can literally walk next door and land a new job on your lunch break. Job hopping for higher pay, career advancement or better working conditions is the norm.

Silicon Valley skills in the highest demand include those in science, engineering and information technology. The concentration and sheer size of high-tech companies creates thousands of supporting jobs in:

• Accounting
• Customer support
• Field Service
• Human resources
• Manufacturing
• Marketing
• Sales
• Technical communications
• Education and training
• Quality assurance

And many more. The personal needs and desires of such a large, well-paid population lays the foundation for thousands of non-technical businesses and jobs, too.

Lots of sites include jobs in Silicon Valley. For those that focus on Silicon Valley, see Job and Career Sites in my special section, Silicon Valley Career Resources.

Silicon Valley
Part I • Part II • Part III

Job Searching - Technical supports Equal-Opportunity Employment
Bay Area map from Public Domain.
Copyright © 1998, J. Steven Niznik. All Rights Reserved.