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Ask HN: Moving to DC in 2023?

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Re: Ask HN: Moving to DC in 2023?

#11

Post by bmelton »

cafard wrote: post #5

Tech/startup work probably is going to have to do with government or electoral stuff. I can't tell you much about that end of things. You might want to look at meetup.com for technologies that interest you and have Washington meetings. The techiest stuff is probably out toward and beyond Dulles Airport, say Reston to Ashburn. Trust me when I say that you do not want to commute from Washington to Reston, let alone Ash…

There are quite a few opportunities in or around the DC area in cyber-security too. These will have the "perk" (for those who want it) of not being directly government work, but will often have government and government-adjacent entities as clients.

Re: Ask HN: Moving to DC in 2023?

#12

Post by screwturner68 »

It's a nice place to live if you are looking to live in an urban area. That said it's very expensive. If money isn't an issue and you really want to live in DC I think your making a great choice, personally I'm not a big fan of DC I think it's expensive, a little boring, traffic is god aweful and the food scene at best is meh but that's just me I'm sure you have your reasons for wanting to move there.

I can't give you a lot of advice in the startup world, I work mostly in the public sector and to make good money you need a clearance. Every major player is in the DC area so it may be easier to get in with a large tech company if that's an interest.

Re: Ask HN: Moving to DC in 2023?

#13

Post by whalesalad »

Been a few years since I’ve worked in DC but it was a fun time in my life, both socially and professionally.

Lots of tech out there, even amongst all of the defense. Arlington, Reston and that general area of VA has a lot of tech. AWS and many others have their east coast data centers there. I remember having a client meeting with a startup at the Microsoft office in Maryland. The metro is a killer way to get around if you want to be car free. Where are you moving from?

Re: Ask HN: Moving to DC in 2023?

#14

Post by ckozlowski »

softwaredoug wrote: post #3

My experience has been the tech scene is connected to government funding (defense and otherwise), non-profits, advocacy groups, etc. Many of these would be smaller companies, but can be either grant driven or dependent on a govt contract. Also many govt contracts are through a prime (think Lockheed Martin) given the complexity of govt contracting. On the plus side, some of the work can truly be for the public good. E…

I'll second this, and add some more for OP. While most of my experience is in the defense space, there is a lot of public sector work. I've met people who work on projects for United States Geological Survey (HQed in Reston), National Park Service's "Recreation.gov", Small Business Administration, and others. There are a lot of non-profits in the area working various initiatives. Education is big here, and there are a lot of satellite campuses in the area as well.

I spoke at AWS Community Day D.C. last year, and there were a fair number of startups that attended. You can see some of them listed for DevOpsDays here. https://devopsdays.org/events/2022-washington-dc/welcome/

As someone else mentioned, health sector is big as well, and NIH has some big initiatives underway, many using high performance compute. And take a look at HHMI's Janelia Research Campus. It flies under the radar here, but they do some impressive work.

Aerospace has a lot going on, and plenty with geospatial. Not all of it defense driven.

So yeah, seconding the post above. There's a lot of great public good work beyond defense, it should just be noted that it's public sector, so a lot of bureaucratic strings come with that money.

Re: Ask HN: Moving to DC in 2023?

#15

Post by bmelton »

softwaredoug wrote: post #3

My experience has been the tech scene is connected to government funding (defense and otherwise), non-profits, advocacy groups, etc. Many of these would be smaller companies, but can be either grant driven or dependent on a govt contract. Also many govt contracts are through a prime (think Lockheed Martin) given the complexity of govt contracting. On the plus side, some of the work can truly be for the public good. E…

Yeah. It's been awhile since I checked in, but it seemed like most of the open source tech was hosted by or in relation to enterprise. Capital One either hosted or sponsored a lot of events. Amazon is another. Feels like Splunk is another name I see attached to things, but possibly just because I know people there.

Re: Ask HN: Moving to DC in 2023?

#16

Post by ckozlowski »

taveras wrote: post #4

It doesn’t pay as well as the private sector, but consider the United States Digital Service: https://www.usds.gov/ This video convinced me of their impact: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRQEC7DiPtI

I've talked to these people before on HN here. They're a great group.

Re: Ask HN: Moving to DC in 2023?

#17

Post by alephnerd »

Not in DC anymore but I worked and lived there for a hot second in the 2010s. If you don't want to work a government or defense adjacent tech job, Capital One or cybersecurity vendors would be your best bet. If Amazon is still hiring, they have a massive presence in NoVA. IBM has a decent presence in the area and if you do FOSS might be a good bet/employer because of RedHat

Re: Ask HN: Moving to DC in 2023?

#18

Post by clircle »

I live in suburban DC, on the Maryland side. I love living here. It's close to a major city, yet I can afford a house. The schools are great. If I want to do something with my family, we go into the city and catch a free movie at one of the Smithsonians. You get four seasons, but none are too acute. The area near the Potomac is very pretty.

I don't know much about what I'm missing in california, but I think it's nice here.

Re: Ask HN: Moving to DC in 2023?

#19

Post by cglan »

I lived there 4 years in Dupont Circle. It's a weird city. I personally didn't vibe with it so take what I say with a huge grain of salt. It's clean, people are intelligent, and there's a lot of stuff that's free and the architecture is gorgeous. That said, it doesn't have much of a culture since it's very transient. They way I describe it is the culture is very 'safe'. It's not gonna push the boundaries of anything. It also hasn't bounced back from Covid as well as some places. It's getting there, but it's not there. It's also very expensive. You're in an area that is approaching NYC prices in a lot of ways, but in reality is a mid size city. I moved to NYC and find it a much more interesting place overall. I think DC can appeal to a type of person, and it's a lot of fun in the summer but it wasn't for me. The tech scene was also uninteresting.

Re: Ask HN: Moving to DC in 2023?

#20

Post by bane »

One mistake almost everybody in tech makes when they move to DC from somewhere else in the country is that they move to DC proper. DC, despite being a fairly walkable city with a decent subway by US standards and a lot of diverse food choices, is not where action outside of government or government related is.

Nearly all of the tech scene is outside of the city in two areas. Either in the stretch of MD north of DC and fading away the further North it gets until you're around Ft. Meade. It's a mix of biotech (NIH) and defense (NSA) but Bethesda Softworks is famously in southern MD. Or, in the stretch between DC and Dulles airport which is heavily defense and intelligence (part of that stretch is between the Pentagon and CIA HQ).

There are pockets of non-gov, non-defense tech around. I don't know much about southern MD tbh, but I know there's some regular 'ol startups in Crystal City, Tysons, and Reston areas, or tech companies with solid East Coast offices at least (but usually geared towards selling to the government). Amazon HQ2 is not in the city for example.

You'll find a fair number of fintech, electric car support companies, commtech, cybersec sort of firms. There's a large class of nonprofit tech companies in the area too, they don't offer stock, but the pay is decent and the jobs are highly stable.

Despite having the country's second largest subway, getting into and out of DC is an expensive chore.

The DC-Baltimore metro area is one of the largest in the country, covers a huge area, and has almost as many people as NYC. Most people with the means end up moving with their jobs rather than commuting. Hour+ commutes are not unusual.

(source:

- grew up on the East Coast and spent time in the DC area

- advised two West Coast startups that opened offices in the DC area neither made it, but the one that opened in DC proper, despite having deeper pockets, failed faster and their office never saw a customer willing to come into the city)

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