
Austin, Denver, Detroit: Good Places to Be a Software Engineer Looking for a Job - teklaperry
https://www.spectrum.ieee.org/view-from-the-valley/at-work/tech-careers/austin-denver-and-detroit-are-good-places-to-be-a-software-engineer-looking-for-a-job
======
_raaq
EX Denver developer here. Colorado Native. Now an Austin Dev (I'm a senior /
lead android dev) I can safely say that the job market in Denver is terrible.
Yes you can find work, but the company culture are terrible. I found myself
with brogrammers that had 0 engineering style hobbies or being asked to work
60 hours every week. There are a few gems.. But the Jobs you want, aren't
hiring mobile devs because their offices are start up size. IE Uber, google,
github. Those are all Boulder offices anyways, not Denver. In Denver you will
get mostly Banks, and dinos like Comast / Aol. Sure some will get offers at
Pivotal or Workday. But after that you aren't going to like what you can get.

Seriously the drug use is pretty Rampant in Denver too. Not a turn off to all,
but given the places I did work, you wouldn't expect it. Texas is so much
better. The job I have is so much better, My coworkers are actually nerdy.
Honestly. Sorry I just have to laugh at the idea that desert is a great place
to look for work.

Here in Austin we can't even find android devs to apply. Denver I interviewed
maybe 20 and found most to be just okay.

~~~
clumsysmurf
I agree. Have been here for about 6 mos now, was hoping to have a good work /
life balance (to me, that means running outdoors in open trail areas, not
necessarily mountains - and not having a bad commute). I'm now working
downtown and can not find any acceptable commute to a sparsely populated area.
The W line to boulder is way too damn slow, I could probably ride a bicycle
faster (it takes about 1:15 to go from boulder to downtown). The sprawl is
larger than I expected.

I also notice it stinks pretty bad from whatever those smoke stacks are doing
near Colfax & I25, and north of Denver - like some metallic smell.

In areas like North Thornton there is hydraulic fracking, so I'll pass on
that, along with Arvada near Rocky Flats.

There is a lot of homelessness, but i read about 75% of those people have jobs
- but can't find a place to live affordably. Rents might not be as bad as SF
or Seattle but they are going up, apparently from the influx of people coming
for legal weed and affordable housing shortage (luxury stuff is being built)

Oh, and avoid the 16th Street Circus. Centennial, Parker, Boulder, or Golden
all look nice if you can find opportunities there - but the commutes from
those (also nice to live places) are too much into downtown.

~~~
JPKab
Send me a private message. I'm an engineer and my company is hiring and we are
nerdy to a fault. Our stack is C++, Node, React, Python, and C#(we are phasing
that out).

We are in Broomfield, since Boulder got too expensive after we grew enough.

------
padobson
Detroit engineer here.

There may be a lot of openings around here as Detroit industry continues to
modernize and the startup scene matures, but salaries are still lagging.

Some of the large companies (autos, insurance, etc) will occasionally offer
higher-paying gigs, but competition is fierce and interviewing (like
everywhere) is a crap shoot.

I'm currently contracting remotely with a company in the Los Angeles area, and
I don't expect I'll be leaving remote work anytime soon. I expect my clients
will be in LA, SF, and NY for the rest of my career.

~~~
bittermang
Last time I was in Detroit the roads were the worst I'd ever seen. You
couldn't even call them pot holes, they were just scars in the earth. For a
place nicknamed The Motor City, it was a sad state of affairs.

And that's the crux of it. It's not just the money, in fact it's never the
money for me. It's a total quality of life scenario. Being across a bridge
from Windsor Canada is cool, the Detroit museum is a great place, and the area
has a great lineage for quality pizza. But Detroit itself is like a hostile
environment to me, where I can't even travel around without risking breaking
my vehicle literally in half. I'd have to me making great money there, just to
pay upkeep on vehicle maintenance.

~~~
danans
> and the area has a great lineage for quality pizza

What lineage are you referring to? Domino's and Little Caesars? (Both are
headquartered in the area). They are perfectly edible, but I've never heard
those described as representing a "quality pizza" lineage.

~~~
segmondy
Detroit has great foods. For great places to eat, trust that you have never
heard of them. Not nationwide chains. There are tons of random hole in the
wall joint with amazing food. You just have to know them usually through luck
or referral because you could walk past them many times and not know there's
amazing food in there.

~~~
danans
I'm from the area, so I definitely know that there is great food there, from
little local delis to _the_ _best_ middle eastern food in the US.

I'm just not aware of a great local pizza tradition. And for me personally,
Buddy's Detroit-style pizza (I grew up eating it) doesn't meet that standard.

------
enraged_camel
I have lived in Austin for 3 years now and I work in tech. It's a fantastic
city. Great weather throughout the year (very hot though - not everyone's cup
of tea!), lots of gorgeous outdoor environments within very close proximity to
the city center, and plenty of nice people, many of whom are newly-arrived
transplants and are optimistic about life and looking to make new friends.

I'm the organizer of a bouldering meetup[1]. We started back in September but
already have 250+ members. I'd say more than a third of them work in tech so
it's great for networking too. :)

[1][https://www.meetup.com/Bouldering-in-
Austin](https://www.meetup.com/Bouldering-in-Austin)

~~~
pm90
Hey, didn't know you were in Austin! Definitely will check out the meetup. I'm
an occasional climber.

Besides what you already mentioned: the food is one major factor that I like
Austin. From BBQ (Franklin, Salt Lick etc.) to Tacos (Torchy's, Taco Deli) to
ethnic Indian, Korean etc. this city has it all and new restaurants are
opening all the time.

If you like beer and breweries, Austin has many of them too. Oscar Blues,
ABGB, 512, Adelberts, Jester King etc. are just a few that come to mind. There
are lot of brewpubs as well and new ones are opening all the times.

If you're young and into the nightlife scene, Austin has a lively scene and
you can literally go out any night of the week and find something interesting.
From live music to famous bands, to music festivals, there's ALWAYS something
to do, which is really fucking amazing.

Generally I don't like to say too many nice things since I like to keep this
amazing city all to myself. But maybe HN crowd is ok :).

------
throwaway_woxx7
I've lived in Austin for about 5 years. Grad school, not work. My programmer
friends seem to have no problem getting jobs, and I have no shortage of male
friends, but the gender ratio of singles is pretty heavily skewed towards men
for introverted nerds. I'm a single male who doesn't have a lot of free time,
so I gave up on dating in Austin. The city doesn't seem to attract many people
I'd like to date. Particularly compared against where I lived previously. Many
of the people under 35 in Austin seem to have been attracted to the city for
the music festivals and relative lack of cold weather. I'm an introvert who
finds the summer heat here worse than the cold on the east coast. As I said,
Austinites are typically not my kind of people.

Something to keep in mind if you believe you might be similar to me. Austin is
probably not worse than SF, but I don't intend to live there after I graduate
either.

~~~
pm90
I haven't found that experience at all. In fact one of the reasons I refuse to
move to Man Jose or SF is because I've heard of the famously skewed sex ratio.
There is a lot more diversity in Austin, and as a single guy in his late 20's
I've had a very healthy dating experience.

~~~
throwaway_woxx7
I don't doubt SF, etc., is worse. My experience suggests Austin is a step down
from where I lived previously.

Perhaps you're more attractive or patient than I am. I also just realized that
I forgot to mention that I'm a teetotaler, which seem to be a major turnoff to
people here.

If you don't mind me asking, how do you meet single women here?

------
purplezooey
I don't know why Bay Area companies don't open more in the East Bay. Many of
their employees live there. Less commute. It's baffling why companies are so
focused on the misery that is Mountain View or Palo Alto.

~~~
reducesuffering
It is pretty astonishing how little tech companies there are in Hayward, Union
City, Fremont, and Milpitas. Tens of thousands of available tech workers
commuting to the Valley. Companies opening up there could drastically reduce
the extremely constrained traffic, then residents all around the bay would
allow for more housing. What's the downside?

~~~
woolvalley
Offices tend to be close to where the CEO lives. Where do CEO and founder
types tend to live? West bay.

Also an informal poll of coworkers find most of them live in SF or the south
bay today.

------
kenhwang
Can confirm that Los Angeles has wonderful supply of engineers and low demand
for them. I would rather fight it out here and try my luck than move to
Austin/Denver/Detroit though.

~~~
starwind0
I lived in San Diego. That was worse than Denver by a lot. I think I got 1
interview at, oh Jitterbug? Went back to Denver, now I am in Austin.

~~~
Cyph0n
SD is paradise for hardware devs, though!

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kdazzle
Detroit might be okay if you like long commutes, no transit, and (typically)
conservative workplaces. Pay seems like its increasing a bit, if stack
overflow jobs is any indicator.

It would be an awesome place for a startup with all the cheap property and
rent.

People here are nicer than anywhere else I’ve ever lived

I miss biking and walking to work. And while thats possible here, it’s not
easy to find.

But Detroit’s not an easy city and that’s one of its charms. Heh, though
people generally don’t talk about Detroit’s hardships in terms of biking to
your tech job.

~~~
vin7
It's weird. The brain drain is constant though, and you have to put up with
being the smartest guy in the room and the people you admire always leaving
for, like, Phoenix or Pittsburgh. You can buy a mansion for like $50k and then
who is going to attend your dinner parties? Your hot wife is a junkie instead
of a doctor or pilot.

Cleveland rocks.

------
jupiter90000
Does the Dallas story (low demand for devs, high availability of devs) line up
with the experience of those here familiar with the market? Based on just
looking at job postings, it didn't seem like there was a lack of demand for
devs in that area, but I know that postings don't necessarily equate to high
demand.

Also if that's true, do alot of the Dallas devs in need of work go to Austin?
Or is that not done for some reason?

~~~
Cshelton
Dallas guy here, also a very senior SW engineer. My last two hires were about
5 months or so ago, but high availability? hah! I can't necessarily speak for
the demand, other than it must be high, because it is hard to find available
devs. Also from working with recruiters in the past couple of years, good
candidates are snatched up very fast. If you have good experience (and are not
a contractor that jumps companies every 3 months), you should find a position
within two weeks in Dallas.

As far as Austin, no. Only reason people go to Austin is more a lifestyle
choice. More people come from Austin to Dallas simply because the number of
available jobs. Last time I checked, Dallas has around twice as many
developers as Austin as well.

Right now, people in Texas cities other than Austin are staying away too.
Austin's infrastructure has not kept up with the growth and it is nuts. Dallas
and Houston have done a much better job when planning ahead for the growth of
the entire job market, whereas Austin took somewhat of a Boulder, Co stance
and decided they really don't need to work on infrastructure to aid growing
the population. That's a whole other story though.

~~~
pm90
> Austin's infrastructure has not kept up with the growth and it is nuts.
> Dallas and Houston have done a much better job when planning ahead for the
> growth of the entire job market, whereas Austin took somewhat of a Boulder,
> Co stance and decided they really don't need to work on infrastructure to
> aid growing the population. That's a whole other story though.

That's sadly very true but its not from a lack of trying. The city tried a
couple of years ago to float a light rail proposal that was put up to a vote
but shot down by citizens. Most of the infrastructure is still very road-
focused. Although I'm hoping that the many downtown approach will easy the
traffic somewhat (Domain, Mueller etc.)

~~~
stevenwoo
Thought traffic on I-35 was pretty bad in the 90's when I lived in Austin and
as bad as the worst parts of Houston, imagine it's much worse now.

~~~
pm90
Yeah its basically a parking lot at daytime during most of the week. Mopac is
a lot better, I'm guessing because it has less truck traffic. I consider
myself very lucky though since with a developer salary I can choose to live
wherever I want and have flexible hours to avoid the worst parts.

------
tombachar
Just moved my startup(www.getpei.co) from Los Angeles to Austin for an
accelerator and can attest that software is sprawling! There are tons of great
meetups supported by a ton of great innovative companies and with amazing
events like SXSW (which will be our first) they environment is growing for
engineers.

The reason I see this happening is because I believe with the roots of live
music in Austin, there is a lot of creativity growing around here. When you
mix it with effective development and adventurous culture, there is a great
mixture of support systems to really build a software-based community.

Weirdly enough, my company is actually looking for a CMO now in the area, and
we are finding it difficult to fill the position at an early stage company. So
shameless plug, if you are in the area ( which I am finding a lot of Austin is
HN), please feel free to reach out!

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souprock
Two typical problems with this study:

1\. There is a failure to clearly specify what is meant by a given city. In
this case, linkedin is at least kind enough to use the word "region". For "SF
Bay Area", would that count Davis or Santa Cruz? For "Boston", would that
count Chelmsford or Braintree? For "Washington D.C.", would that count
Arlington or Annapolis Junction or Ballston or Dulles?

2\. Anything below a certain size is not considered. If the big city has 54321
people fighting over 12345 jobs, while the small city has 123 people
considering 321 jobs, going for the big city might not be so wise. This is
before even adjusting for quality-of-life problems in cities.

------
pxlpshr
For anyone looking for engineering positions in Austin, we are hiring at
athenahealth ($ATHN). Senior-level positions in C#/.NET (+Azure), JAVA (+AWS),
ReactJS/Native, iOS/Android.

Our Austin office is where a lot of R&D happens and there is a huge push to
re-platform into micro services. athenahealth also owns Epocrates, a very
popular mobile app used by more than 600K providers. That product team is
based here, too.

Great place to work, beautiful office, downtown location with parking
included, and a very mission-driven culture. Find me on LinkedIn or my Gmail
in my HN profile. Happy to connect you with the hiring managers.

~~~
yanslookup
This is pretty ballsy considering the layoffs and push to offshore development
going on right now at Athena... stock price is doing good though...

