11–20 of 32 posts
I was born in Davie, somewhere outside Miami and Fort Lauderdale.
Everything in Florida is a scam that does not discriminate. A scam on the users. A grift on the employees. A land inflated by speculation. You won't get paid enough to live there and everything will price you out of paying for it anyway.
I'm a recent arrival in Fort Lauderdale, from San Jose (though I spent several years in Boston as well). The vibe is uniquely its own down here. The biggest difference is that tech feels like a minority in South Florida. That is, unlike the experience of Boston or SF, you'll be an oddity, and a curiosity. Wow, app developer? Really? People are friendly, the drinks are strong, and the pretty relaxing, cheap beachfront…
What's the housing and rent situation like where you are? Do you need a car or is it generally a walkable place?
Paying $2300/mo for a 1600 sqft 2 bed 3 bath apartment about a quarter mile from downtown and a half mile from the main beach with all the expensive resort hotels.
If you’re an investor looking to tap into underrated talent it could make sense. But if you’re a software developer?
What type of work do you do? How old are you and how far along are you in your career? Are you allocating capital or investing? Are you an IC?
Perhaps if you’re targeting work in tourism and hospitality, when I’ve explored the options as a software professional it hasn’t looked good.
Perhaps things have changed, but after I finished college I considered starting my tech career there 10 years ago and found that the region has never diversified its economy beyond tourism.
A Latin American friend of mine, recent Comp Sci PhD from top US school, just spent a few months trying to find good work based in Miami. He did a few remote jobs with Silicon Valley companies and ultimately moved to Seattle for a job there. This is someone with family in Miami and every desire to live there.
It can be helpful to think about what your n+1 move might look like. You don’t want to be trapped in a place with few or limited opportunities. It’s a place that offers opportunities for people who are new to the US… and for investors or retirees looking for lower taxes… maybe that’s you maybe it’s not.
If you’re closer to retirement and can land a job paying SV salary in Florida, it could be a great quality of life.
And let’s not mention the political climate there.
I'm a recent arrival in Fort Lauderdale, from San Jose (though I spent several years in Boston as well). The vibe is uniquely its own down here. The biggest difference is that tech feels like a minority in South Florida. That is, unlike the experience of Boston or SF, you'll be an oddity, and a curiosity. Wow, app developer? Really? People are friendly, the drinks are strong, and the pretty relaxing, cheap beachfront…
How did Boston and San Jose compare in your experience? Any notable differences, VC money and Biotech aside?
I earned more money in SJ but had a better work life balance in Boston. Companies in the former were more expecting of the grind, raising and deploying capital as early and often as possible; in the latter, more self-pacing of the growth curve and interested in sustainable, organic numbers.
Not sure if I answered your Q, but feel free to ask just about anything and I’ll follow up mañana.
Real estate is blowing up here (home equity basically doubled in the last 7 years)... may not be a good time to buy, but rent is just as expensive. People are mostly good-natured. Not much crazy unless you go into the seedier areas. There are some which will put up a "don't mess with me" front, but even most of these are quite nice despite. Population leans more toward the superficial side of the value spectrum. Politically, more democratic leaning which quickly becomes republican as you go north from West Palm Beach. South Florida, being the retirement capital of the US, you'll find quite a lot of elderly as well as frequent snow birds who have the money to visit from up north during the winter months.
The tech scene in South Florida: Tech is very undervalued. I believe Miami is really trying... but salaries are typically offered at around 70% of the national average (casual observation during job seeking and I consider myself in the top 10% of the industry, ymmv). I have been working remote from here for over a decade as you quickly end up hitting a ceiling limited/influenced by the local culture. The prevalent big tech is Citrix and Microsoft...lots of Java, PHP and .NET content/events. This also means that newer technology doesn't gain momentum here nearly as fast. There's a growing cryptocurrency scene in Miami w the Mayor spearheading interesting projects. Startup scene is here but you'll have to spend some time looking for it (especially if you're outside of metro areas).
I'm personally underwhelmed by the tech scene and wished it were more curious, innovative, and cutting edge but the money here is not technology savvy and isn't willing to take these kinds of risks so it's difficult to affect this sort of change (despite personal efforts). I admit, I've lost touch on this a lot over the past 5 years, so this might have changed. When I stepped away from the community, there was lots of grassroots effort to help educate the money and get it moving through the tech community. Money does circulate if you know the right communities/people.
Education is very meh. Only private schools will get you any edge down here. Public schools in some small pockets do well, but most don't. Any high achievers are dissuaded from staying since there's not many strong higher education programs as far as technology is concerned. And if any _did_ decide to stay here to take advantage of state scholarships (Bright Futures is pretty good, FWIW) there is hardly much opportunities for interesting work unless you want to work in enterprise tech..... which is not for everyone (and very likely not the HN crowd).
It's not a terrible place to live, but as another commenter already mentioned, you're not going to be making huge career moves by working within the local community. I'm sure I'm glossing over much, but I've asked some folks from Miami proper to weigh in. Let me know if I can fill in any gaps I might have left.
Georgia is close and cheap enough to vacation in Florida.
Born, raised, and lived here for four decades. I've lived and worked all over south Florida. Miami, Hollywood, Ft Lauderdale, Pompano, Boca Raton, Boynton Beach, West Palm Beach, Jupiter. It's very hot and it's getting hotter by the year. Mosquitos are a thing. Beaches and tropical life is stunning. Cost of living is comparably cheap here. No state tax, good access to most any resource you could need or what, pretty…
I'm a recent arrival in Fort Lauderdale, from San Jose (though I spent several years in Boston as well). The vibe is uniquely its own down here. The biggest difference is that tech feels like a minority in South Florida. That is, unlike the experience of Boston or SF, you'll be an oddity, and a curiosity. Wow, app developer? Really? People are friendly, the drinks are strong, and the pretty relaxing, cheap beachfront…
What's the housing and rent situation like where you are? Do you need a car or is it generally a walkable place?
Sure, you could find a place where you can walk, but it's not really that common unless you're in a densely populated area. I biked exclusively during college and did relatively alright for a few years but I upgraded to a car as soon as I could afford to.
Georgia is close and cheap enough to vacation in Florida.
Not _south_ Florida though, which is the only place worth vacationing to if you care about beach life. Honestly, though, if you care about beach life, living in Georgia doesn't make sense anyway. If you don't care about beach life, you might as well just live anywhere and fly to Florida for your two weeks a year or whatever.