Live data from Hacker News

Austin, Denver, Detroit: Good Places to Be a Software Engineer Looking for a Job

spectrum.ieee.org

41–50 of 141 posts

Re: Austin, Denver, Detroit: Good Places to Be a Software Engineer Looking for a Job

#41
post #38

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…

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.

SF is a sausage fest without a doubt. Fortunately, there's a lot of sausage on sausage action (if that's your thing :-)

I lived in the bay area for ~4 years, lots of dudes, immigrants, and really wealthy people (in addition to a lot of the working poor). Interesting place just not my cup of tea.

Did make Buena Vista inspired Irish Coffees last night though.

Re: Austin, Denver, Detroit: Good Places to Be a Software Engineer Looking for a Job

#42
post #38

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…

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.

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?

Re: Austin, Denver, Detroit: Good Places to Be a Software Engineer Looking for a Job

#43
post #25

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…

Do you provide your employees with better insurance options?

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/insurance/aetna_health.html

Dirtbag company.

Re: Austin, Denver, Detroit: Good Places to Be a Software Engineer Looking for a Job

#44

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…

I've had no shortage of suiters. Granted I say that as a single dude, but I know a few who would date me. MANY more times that of Denver. Just because I know more people because everyone is so friendly. I mean there is a whole university to offset from the software engineers.

Re: Austin, Denver, Detroit: Good Places to Be a Software Engineer Looking for a Job

#45

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…

Well, there is a big difference between "Austinites" and people that moved to Austin from somewhere else and now make up 4/5ths of the population. I made up that number, but it's not a bad guess. Austin is an east coast city in Texas. Everybody there is from LA or the east coast and brought their road rage and terrible attitudes to Austin. It seems all the actual Austinites are leaving the city for nearby small towns like Dripping Springs, Elgin, Fredricksburg, San Marcos, New Braunsfels, etc. People actually from Austin seem to be way cooler than the people that moved to Austin from somewhere else. No offense to the transplants -- I used to be one and certainly Austinites are way cooler than I am. But I'm guessing they've also looked around and come to the same conclusion like the person here. Austin was probably as cool as they say in the 80s and 90s. Not so much these days.

Re: Austin, Denver, Detroit: Good Places to Be a Software Engineer Looking for a Job

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can interview.

You know Android?

how big of a technical leap is it to from Java UI dev (Swing/Java2D/JavaFX) to Android? I know Chet Haase and Romain Guy did so curious to know if it is an easy transition.

Re: Austin, Denver, Detroit: Good Places to Be a Software Engineer Looking for a Job

#47

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 mee…

Austin Bouldering Project is great. It is an impressive facility with a really engaged community (almost too much of a good thing, weekends are busy). Highly recommend for any Austinites who may be curious about climbing.

Re: Austin, Denver, Detroit: Good Places to Be a Software Engineer Looking for a Job

#48

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…

I've had no shortage of suiters. Granted I say that as a single dude, but I know a few who would date me. MANY more times that of Denver. Just because I know more people because everyone is so friendly. I mean there is a whole university to offset from the software engineers.

Maybe age is part of the problem for me. I'm about 10 years older than the undergrads, so they're not really in my dating pool. Most of the dates I've gone on were with fellow graduate students, but I didn't go on many dates before stopping.

Re: Austin, Denver, Detroit: Good Places to Be a Software Engineer Looking for a Job

#49
post #25

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…

Do you provide your employees with better insurance options? https://www.consumeraffairs.com/insurance/aetna_health.html Dirtbag company.

Not sure aetna and athena health are the same thing.

Re: Austin, Denver, Detroit: Good Places to Be a Software Engineer Looking for a Job

#50
post #6

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 offic…

> 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.

What does this mean? If you mean cannabis use, who cares? It's legal and it's harmless. If you are talking about opioid abuse or something else, that's a different story.

It sounds like you had some subjectively bad individual experiences because you mixed with people that you are not socially compatible with, but there's nothing here (brogrammers that don't share your hobbies? weed smokers?) that seems like an indictment of the entire city of Denver. Similarly, while your new job is great and you have found your tribe in Austin, your nerdy coworkers are but a very small part of the selfhood of ATX.

Post reply on HN