Does the location of university matters when finding a job?

[excelle08]

Hi, everyone! I am an international student applying for 18fall Ph.D. in computer science programs in US. Now I've applied for 15 universities but only two of them are in California (i.e. UCR and UCSD). Here is my list of choices:

Lotteries: CMU and U of Washington
Top tier: GATech, UCSD, Wisconsin-Madison, UTexas Austin
Realistic choices: NEU, Stony Brook, PSU, UCR, UVa, UMN
Safe schools: George Mason, W&M College, UTexas Dallas

So I made up these choices based on my backgrounds as well as the fact that the competition on PHD positions is fierce especially for this year. I did not choose too many UC schools because I've known that the universities in California have been extremely selective even since last year. 

As for my background, my current undergraduate GPA is 3.78/4 ranking 18 out of 303. My TOEFL and GRE are 106 and V157+Q170+AW4.0 respectively. I joined a lab of my school doing researches on distributed systems and had several research experiences. However technically I don't have any published or accepted paper, but three conference papers in submission. For details you might as well visit my personal page (https://excelle08.me).

So here's a problem, a friend of mine attending MS program in computer science at UCR tells me that I'd better study in California so as to boast more convenience on internship and job applications. However personally I've avoided California to some extent and set my preference on solely research strengths of the universities and professors (by looking up csrankings.org as well as publications of the faculties), without caring much on location. So could anyone tell me if the location matters when it comes to job opportunities? Or it's just personal skills matters and companies usually won't hesitate paying one for trip to onsite? What about five years later when the CS industry might cool down?

Any advice please?

Edited January 6, 2018 by Wei Su
Complete the post

[Baller123]

I’m not a CS student but was born and raised in the Silicon Valley (both my parents are in the CS industry). I also plan to transition into AR, AI, or related after my PhD in computational neuroscience. Although I’m a little under qualified to give advice, I’ll do my best. 

Working from your top-tier and lotteries, you should be fine coming from any of those schools. You will easily be able to find internships as all of those schools have strong ties to industry. However, at lower tier schools proximity is very helpful. For example, SJSU is not a highly ranked school but it has a disproportionate representation in industry due to its location. Part of the reason stanford CS is so difficult to get into even in comparison to eqlly strong programs (like MIT and CMU) is that google is less than 15 minutes away and your chance to interact and network is much better.

[cabbysaurus]

I don't think the location will matter very much at all. You will likely only be participating in internships over the summer, when you will be able to relocate. In addition, companies recruit from all over the country and will certainly fly you out for interviews if they think you are a good candidate. Furthermore, many large companies, such as Google, have a number of offices across the country. There are also a variety of startups in many cities, particularly near universities.