Austin, Denver, Detroit: Good Places to Be a Software Engineer Looking for a Job • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by microcolonel » Thu, Feb 22, 2018, 2:37 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #7

commandlinefan wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up there. As bad as it might have been when you were there, you should try going in the wintertime. Orders of magnitude worse. You couldn't pay me enough to go back there.

But, assuming you just hate winter/snow, you've just described the entire northern tier of the US that's not right on the West Coast. Which is of course your prerogative. I'm just not terribly sympathetic to arguments that life isn't livable outside of the Bay Area because of the weather.

> But, assuming you just hate winter/snow, you've just described the entire northern tier of the US that's not right on the West Coast. Which is of course your prerogative. I'm just not terribly sympathetic to arguments that life isn't livable outside of the Bay Area because of the weather.

I think what he was getting at was that a northern winter makes the infrastructure problems considerably worse. Potholes big enough to bathe a toddler can be hidden by snow, and snowplows don't operate regularly and efficiently on roads where they are at serious risk of destroying an axle, wheel, or tire on any given day; and even if they could dodge the potholes, they couldn't clear the snow where it counts! If our road infrastructure here in Toronto, or my previous city, Calgary, were any more poorly maintained, winter could make life considerably harder for those who can't afford to travel by foot.

I recently had a ride on what IIRC our ministry of transport has deemed the worst maintained road in the country, and it's better than 50% of the roads near Pittsburgh, and in my (old, 2011-2012-ish) experience, better than 80% of the roads in Detroit. I can not imagine snow on these roads making life any easier.

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

#112

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Feb 22, 2018, 2:45 PM UTC

username223 wrote: post #70

_raaq wrote: 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…

> ... 0 engineering style hobbies... I can't comment on the rest of it, but many people move to Denver because they have outdoor style hobbies, and think that it's near the mountains. They are probably disappointed to find that it's more or less the standard Great Plains sprawl -- Dallas within a few hours' drive of Longs Peak -- and that Boulder is an overpriced NIMBY colony.

[deleted]

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

#113

Post by Cshelton » Thu, Feb 22, 2018, 4:13 PM UTC

corpMaverick wrote: post #84

pm90 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking purely from anecdotal evidence: Dallas certainly does have a lot of good jobs, but its not a liberal enclave like Austin. In some ways its more representative of Texas than Austin, which is definitely more like SF (except maybe the rents, which are definitely far more reasonable). But Dallas has its own charms for sure. You can get really huge houses close to work for pretty cheap, the school systems are pre…

Which city sounds better for raising a family ?

If you considered the suburbs of Dallas though, I'd say they are about the same. Frisco, Plano, McKinney, etc.

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

#114

Post by starwind0 » Thu, Feb 22, 2018, 4:57 PM UTC

clumsysmurf wrote: post #61

_raaq wrote: 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…

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 bou…

I owned in Broomfield. It's the burbs. It .. well not for a 20 something single dude. Otherwise very nice.

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

#115

Post by _raaq » Thu, Feb 22, 2018, 5:06 PM UTC

_raaq wrote: 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…

Oh yes, some brought up the homeless. Not to get into it too much. Denver is freaking sketchy. Every few months a gang would kill someone outside my LoDo offices, or someone would show up looking for their ex armed and we would have a lock down. Homeless are rampant. Half real homeless, half young vagabond. It is usually ultra nice, then next block I'd feel the need to hide my watch. Austin, I bike to work every day. I walk around at night every day. Sure there are clusters, like under 35.. but I walk my dog 7 miles on weekends all through down town. Something I'd never ever do in Denver.

Denver has always been an ultra sketchy town, with a hard drug problem. Just look at the Gang statistics for Aurora. If anything Denver has been getting better, but the difference is 10 years ago you would avoid down town at all costs. Now you want to buy a run down house for 700k.

Though if you can find work in Boulder or Fort Collins, grab it. Denver, avoid.

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

#116

Post by fapjacks » Thu, Feb 22, 2018, 5:23 PM UTC

Recoveringhobo wrote: post #101

fapjacks wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. 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. > Every…

Maybe, but I've lived in those places you mentioned (except the east coast cities) and the problem is stifling in Austin. I'm originally from a small, liberal college town in a conservative plains state which in the 80s might have been a great twin city for Austin, if somewhat smaller. So I have some insight into what it "should" be like when people describe how cool Austin is, or how cool people have heard Austin is (because a lot of Austin's reputation is propagated by total strangers). And Austin simply isn't like that, anymore. All of the reasons that people love Austin are actually nowadays being manufactured by outsiders. The plastic, false reality of those qualities is palpable and easy to spot when you're there. There are a few secrets and a few items of local flavor which were still sort of genuinely "Austin" but even when I lived there more than five years ago, they were being inundated by outsiders as "best kept secrets" and diluted.

Having lived in most of the places you mention above, I can say definitively that Austin is experiencing this problem the worst among the "boom cities" by orders of magnitude. I'm guessing it's because of the proportion of recent transplants to "original Austinites". Austin was a small city in Texas in the 80s! ZERO of your boom cities were anything like that so recently. And it's worst among your examples not only because there are actually so few people proportionally who lived in Austin since it was actually cool, but compounded by the fact that a lot of those Austinites are leaving Austin for the surrounding countryside (or wherever).

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

#117

Post by mrkstu » Thu, Feb 22, 2018, 5:28 PM UTC

oceanghost wrote: post #35

jdhn wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same goes for UX designers. Very few direct hire positions, and almost everything is a 6 to 12 month "contract to hire" that magically never turns into an actual position. Plus, I'd say that for every job that a company advertises, there's at least 5 or 6 recruiters who will post ads for that same exact job. Anecdotal story: I interviewed at a well known ad company here in the Metro Detroit area, and the recruiter le…

The balls on some of the C2H people are amazing. I had been at a position for 10 years-- some CEO calls me and says my skillset would be PERFECT for his company, would I be interested in talking. We get into details, its C2H, I decline. He was absolutely incensed, he says, "well, its just to make sure you're a good culture fit!" To which I reply, "I'm not going to leave a stable job for what is essentially contract w…

I work in Networking and I am floored at the same phenomenon playing out in that sector.

My current job came from a referral from an acquaintance- and he had gone in C2H. I let him know that wasn't even an option for me- I have lots of kids and a housewife spouse- you know the standard situation a decade or two ago- contracts have zero appeal to me.

It was like pulling teeth- they wanted me bad enough that it ended up making it happen, but they treat actual salary slots like golden tickets. They'll spend incredible amounts on contractors (some have been here for YEARS) and professional services, but a normal actual job is like hens teeth.

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

#118

Post by mrkstu » Thu, Feb 22, 2018, 5:33 PM UTC

reducesuffering wrote: post #62

tropo wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ancient philosopher Plato tells us that the ideal marriage ages are 16 for women and 30 for men. One might suspect that he was 30 at the time, but Plato is quite respected. Consider taking his advice. Biologically it makes sense, leading to large families that can be financially supported.

Consider taking his advice and marrying 16 year olds?

I think he's just implying that there isn't any reason to remove the undergrads from the dating pool.

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

#119

Post by curiouscat321 » Thu, Feb 22, 2018, 6:01 PM UTC

padobson wrote: post #2

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,…

The salaries, sadly, are really lagging. I just graduated from UMich and I can name a small handful of people who stayed in the state. The vast majority of them moved out west.

Even when you account for the lower COL, the salaries are just too low in the Detroit area. It’s getting better, but the area needs more real tech employers who value software engineers. The automotive companies still seem to treat them as cost centers.

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

#120

Post by pm90 » Thu, Feb 22, 2018, 6:03 PM UTC

stevenwoo wrote: post #83

pm90 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.…

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.

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.