I’m starting this year at one of the BB/EBs in Menlo Park/Palo Alto and I was wondering if anyone who has experience working as a junior banker there. Did you or your coworkers live in SF (was thinking Potrero Hill/Mission to be close to the freeways), or is making this commute too difficult? I would definitely prefer living in the city but if it’s not feasible I may live closer to work. Any input or experiences are really appreciated!
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I lived in SF this past summer and am pretty familiar with the area as I made alot of trips between SF (where I lived & worked) and the overall South Bay (Sunnyvale, Saratoga, Palo Alto, Menlo Park, etc).
I highly recommend that you DO NOT commute every day from SF to Menlo Park/Palo Alto especially if you're going to be in banking. The one way commute via Caltrain (public train system) is ~1 hr and it'll probably be worse if you decide to drive with AM rush hour. As an analyst, the last thing you want to do is spend 2+ hours every day just commuting to and from work. Driving 1 hr back home to SF after leaving the office at 2 am because of some fire-drill will not be fun.
I would suggest that you just take the L and live near Menlo Park/Palo Alto. It definitely won't be as fun as living in SF but you'll probably save some money and your mental health and sleep schedule will thank you later. Feel free to PM me if you have any more questions about SF/the Bay Area, I'll also be starting FT at a MM in SF in the summer!
Second this, you probably don't want to commute everyday from SF to Palo Alto. Especially working banking hours. I used to commute tri-weekly to SF from that area and trust me, not a good look. I understand why you'd want to live in the city, so I guess you'd have to weigh your desire to be in the city against a really rough daily commute, but if I were in you're shoes I wouldn't.
I live in Palo Alto, most of my friends working on Page Mill or Sand Hill have (decently affordable) apartments in Redwood City or San Carlos 15 mins away on the 280. SF is just too far and will take 45 mins even without traffic on the 101. Caltrain is consistently late coming from SF and commuting to the valley from the south (SJ, Sunnyvale, Los Altos) is a complete parking lot by 7AM. The Bay sucks for social life, save yourself some dough this summer and spend the difference on a vacation.
Ugh man I feel you. I'm trying to lateral from NYC to they Bay. It's likely I'll place in to MP and not SF. Fucking sucks I don't want to live in MP.
Disagree with the other posters here. I work in Menlo and commute from SF and it is absolutely worth it. No one is expected in the office before 10am, so you can leave late enough to miss the worse of the morning traffic. You'll also be leaving after evening traffic. Most firms in the Peninsula have an office in SF that they let juniors work from once or twice a week as well.
It really depends on your firm's culture. If you're rarely expected in the office on weekends, living in the city works well. Particularly now with COVID, there's no commute at all. Just live somewhere close to the the 101 or 280 (Hayes, Potrero, Dogpatch, SOMA). The majority of analysts and associates live in the city at our firm.
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