I would flag github as a more crucial requirement. We've had various im/irq platforms for decades. They weren't really a substitute for video - but video is only a tiny fraction of team communications, and simple chat satisfies most of those requirements.
I'm a transplant here, and I feel like I'm living in a weird post-apocolyptic nightmare with all the Trump signs and Trump flags on their giant lifted trucks. I really hope that this state can pull it's head out of Joe Arpaio's ass, and wriggle leftwards a little bit.
I think the weirdest and most noticeable thing is people riding motorcycles without helmets.
That said; yeah, the heat is not really that bad (it took me about 2 years to acclimate), and there are options for relief. Surprisingly, I think we get more rain in Arizona than in California (not this summer though), and winters are definitely much colder in Arizona than they are in California.
I grew up there, and really the worst part was that stretch in February where it's overcast every single fucking day.
Then there's the humidity with 100+F days in the summer. And mosquitoes.
The other problem was I grew up in a reasonable, livable suburb, and now, when I go back there, I see that rents and housing are really extremely expensive compared to salaries. Jobs suck (there's no real tech industry anymore). And traffic in the suburbs is constant gridlock wherever you go. It's become a real horror show and I couldn't ever contemplate moving back. Weather/Climate is not even the consideration.
It's absolutely true that the home-office staff always get the best projects, be in-contact and visible to the executive staff, and are last on the list when layoff-time comes.
This is also true when you're at a home office, and you get acquired, and it becomes a remote office. Your career gets fucked.
I've had it happen to me over and over again; and it's very different when you work at the headquarters.
It's my biggest worry about 'permanent WFH'. It's that I'll end up being like the remote-office nightmare all over again.
there is a huge difference, not only in the kinds of work you can put on your resume, but in the quality of co-workers, and what you can learn from them.
You can approximate that experience in some other areas (Provo, Boston, Austin, San Luis Obispo, etc) but a LOT of American cities are still technological backwaters, and there's nothing available but garbage jobs that will drain your soul and turn you into a code zombie.
“Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Hocus Pocus