Charlie Walker enjoys hiking in the countryside near his new home in Washington State. Courtesy of Charlie Walker
- Charlie Walker, Product Manager at Yelp, relocated from San Francisco to Tonasket, Washington.
- He had been working remotely for almost a year. After he moved with his wife, Yelp went completely remote.
- They were able to buy a house – and their mortgage payments are half their rent.
This essay is based on a conversation with Charlie Walker, a 35-year-old product manager at Yelp. Insider has checked his employment, rent and mortgage payments. This essay has been edited for length and clarity.
I’ve been working as a product manager for Yelp since November 2019. I create functions for millions of small business owners.
I had moved to San Francisco from New York because my wife went to college to study nursing. My drive to the Yelp office downtown would take me about 45 minutes.
We lived in the Sunset area of San Francisco in a 500-square-foot apartment with a roommate and our rather large dog.
We liked our roommate, but being able to live alone, especially as a married couple, was really desirable. We just couldn’t afford it in San Francisco.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, I started working from my apartment. Trying to share a workspace with the others was a challenge.
After almost a year of teleworking, we moved to a small and rural place
My wife finished school and then got a scholarship on which she agreed to transfer for a job at a rural health clinic in Tonasket, Washington. It is approximately 30 minutes from the British Columbia, Canada border. It has about 1,100 inhabitants – it’s really small and rural.
We rented a double wide trailer for a few months after moving in January 2021. It was the only option. In April we were able to buy a house here. Now we have a much larger space than in San Francisco, with a garden. The woman who used to own it was an excellent gardener.
Our rent in San Francisco was twice what our mortgage payments are now.
We’ve also saved some money because we don’t eat or drink as much as we used to; There are fewer options here. In San Francisco we went out to eat about twice a week. Now we go out to eat about once a month. But groceries are no cheaper than in San Francisco.
I love the freedom of working from home, but I miss the conversations in the office
I don’t have to commute – I just go downstairs to my little office in our basement. For a while I did two hikes a day, one before work and one after. But now we have a 10 month old boy.
One of the biggest challenges is keeping the team together and maintaining good communication. We started meeting virtually once a month and each person shared a photo from a trip or what they did last weekend, for example. It was very powerful to learn more about people’s lives.
But it’s hard not to have those little moments when you’re chatting down a hallway with a colleague or where you can have lunch together. You definitely lose a bit of that personal touch.
It was a huge relief to make Yelp completely remote
I was the first to move on my team. Little did we know how good it would be for my career to move to such a remote place.
I knew that post-COVID-19 lockdowns, Yelp would continue to work remotely full-time as an option, but that some people would likely choose to go back to the office. I was a bit nervous about how it would feel to have most of the people in the office while working remotely.
When Yelp announced it would be going fully remote in June 2022, it was a relief. Moving here was a leap of faith. But knowing that the company was completely remote opened up a lot of opportunities for our family.
I appreciate the sense of community – and making friends was easier than I thought
Whenever you move somewhere you don’t know a soul, you don’t know how it will turn out. My wife goes to the office but I work from home. I’m an extrovert, so it was important to have friends to hang out with.
I was surprised to find such good friends. There is a great community here. I started attending some events hosted by a local non-profit organization that works for environmental protection and education. They asked if I wanted to join the board. Now they are among my closest friends. It’s so easy to connect with people.
The pace of life was such a nice surprise. We love gardening and being outside – we’ve even learned how to press apples from the local orchards.
My wife and I moved every three years. But that’s the first place it feels right. It’s a pretty sweet life. Maybe we could spend the rest of our lives here.
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