I've lived in a lot of major cities in my life, and SF is the first one where I've had to literally dodge human shit while walking on the sidewalk.
As a longtime Austin resident, I'd almost consider that a nice problem to have, because it would mean that walking was an integrated part of my daily routine rather than something I have to explicitly make time for so that I don't lose my mind from all the driving I have to do.
I've heard good things about Austin's urban life - though I've never lived there myself.
In any case, there are lot of cities in the US (and even more abroad) where you can get the walk-centric lifestyle without having to dodge human shit. Hell, even Manhattan, the city that supposedly defines urban grime, doesn't have this.
What part of Austin are you living in? There is great public transit here, and the city is very pedestrian and biker friendly. I know many many people who don't own cars in Austin. If you're driving everywhere all the time, perhaps that is a lifestyle choice you made.
I definitely wouldn't call Austin's public transportation "great," nor would I call a significant portion of the city "pedestrian friendly." I don't own a car and get around by bike, bus and car2go, but the desire to do so drastically limited my housing and employment choices.
From experience, anything that isn't green on that map isn't anywhere near walkable, and only Guadalupe and South Congress have transit worth riding. 20-30 minute headways are the norm on other routes, and only transit devotees will put up with that, like I did when I lived on Burnet.
You are very correct that transportation is a lifestyle choice, but Austin doesn't make driving rarely an easy choice.
It would be neat if we could do this without requiring me to provide my public transit bona fides. I live in Central Austin, where the public transit, pedestrian, and cycling infrastructure is about as good as it gets in Austin. And I would argue that it's pretty meager compared to many major cities – such as San Francisco, which is what we were talking about.
And since we're also talking about working for software companies, I would also like to posit – and I could certainly be wrong about this – that the majority of local software companies are not located centrally, where they are readily accessible via bus, rail, or bike. And once you're out of Central Austin, you're in a city that's built to car scale, not human scale.
As a longtime Austin resident, I'd almost consider that a nice problem to have, because it would mean that walking was an integrated part of my daily routine rather than something I have to explicitly make time for so that I don't lose my mind from all the driving I have to do.