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

You could say the same thing about SF, Oakland, Portland, LA, Seattle, Boston, New York, etc etc. Name a city with a booming economy in the U.S. that isn't mostly transplants.

> 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.

Once again, you could say the same thing about any of the popular cities for young people to move to. I currently live in Seattle and hear people saying the exact same thing all the time. Californians pricing Seattlites out and bringing road rage yada yada. I'm originally from the East Bay and have experienced the exact same gentrification process in my own home town.

> 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.

I've heard this exact same sentiment online about all the hip cities in the U.S.

I loved living and working in CO, and am passively looking to move back there if the right situation comes up. Anyone trying to compare it to SF or NYC is not being serious. Those cities are in their own tier and we all know it. But Denver is a very active job market. Once I got some sufficiently "hot" technologies on my resume / LinkedIn, I had no shortage of recruiter hits, even when I had minimal experience.

It's true the traffic is HORRENDOUS and only getting worse due to the influx of people to the state every year. I would encourage anyone looking to work in Denver to negotiate part-time WFH unless you happen to live super close to the office. Mass transit isn't really a thing unless you luck into your home and office both being on the minimal light rail routes.

I absolutely had NO issues with people pushing drugs on me or making a big deal about drug use. If anything it's a bigger issue where I work now on the east coast.

I had no trouble making friends with people of diverse interests. Some of my buddies in CO were major contributors to OpenStack or Ceph. Some others were PhD's in ecology, or doctors, or poets, or restaurant managers, or lawyers. It's not all ski bums and stoners.

If you're willing to expand your search into the surrounding burbs, there are some good jobs to be had at the likes of Level3 or Comcast. Some of the smartest people I know work for Comcast on uniquely challenging problems of scale, on small, nimble teams. Calling them a dino seems a bit disingenuous. Though they are a huge and hateable company, won't dispute that heh.

Agree with the sentiment that Boulder is not Denver just as SF is not Oakland. Boulder was a cool place to live in the 70's, but good luck buying a home for under a million bucks today.

So I guess I lied a bit, I am responding to the OP directly. I am absolutely NOT discounting their life experience. They lived in CO longer than I did. But since it's one of the top comments on this story, and I had such a great time living in Colorado and want to move back, I felt compelled to share another viewpoint. It felt like home to me. Obviously to them, it didn't, despite being their birthplace. And that's fine.

I think you are maybe talking about Commerce City with the giant flaming smoke stacks? That area is indeed horrible.

Boulder is not part of Denver. It's its own city.

If you want someplace cool and good to live (though you will want to secure a 4-5 day a week remote job first, because driving down I25 to Denver will make you want to die. Ask me anything), may I recommend Fort Collins? :)

Cleveland rocks.