51–60 of 86 posts
Eh, three things really grind me gears about the tech scene in Chicago. 1) Lots of mediocre entrepreneurs that seem to have the same story: - Little to no hard skills. - Probably got an MBA from a good B-school - Did a stint at a consulting firm and is going to outsmart the competition with all the wisdom they gained at Accenture, McKinsey, BCG, Bain, or some big IL firm. - Does NOT have a technical co-founder but is…
My impression is that in Chicago -- and really everywhere outside the SF BA and NYC -- has much weaker comp for engineers. It makes sense, really. By far the majority of SE jobs in these places are in IT departments writing line of business software. These are Java and .Net shops usually and anecdotally it seems they pay from $60-90k. The companies where engineers are profit centers -- web startups and software compa…
Nearly every major study I've seen going back decades has Chicago having lower comp numbers for tech than SV. But usually its on the order of 3-10%. How that compares in cost of living adjusted terms I don't know. The 60-90k number sounds absurd to me. Having worked in Chicago for quite some time, 60k is what a new graduate could have earned 10 or 12 years ago in the middle of the last bubble burst. 90k seems like a…
Now I make the average salary of a web developer in Chicago according to glassdoor. I have 5 years experience as a dev, with a ton of holes in my resume (because my heart is in doing my own startups). Just thought add that anecdote.
Eh, three things really grind me gears about the tech scene in Chicago. 1) Lots of mediocre entrepreneurs that seem to have the same story: - Little to no hard skills. - Probably got an MBA from a good B-school - Did a stint at a consulting firm and is going to outsmart the competition with all the wisdom they gained at Accenture, McKinsey, BCG, Bain, or some big IL firm. - Does NOT have a technical co-founder but is…
My impression is that in Chicago -- and really everywhere outside the SF BA and NYC -- has much weaker comp for engineers. It makes sense, really. By far the majority of SE jobs in these places are in IT departments writing line of business software. These are Java and .Net shops usually and anecdotally it seems they pay from $60-90k. The companies where engineers are profit centers -- web startups and software compa…
My job feels easy, I have flexible hours, little oversight, independence to build cool things, good benefits, and I feel very lucky that anyone would pay me so much money to sit in a climate controlled office playing with a computer.
As a Chicagoan and software engineer, here's my honest opinion of tech in Chicago: it's a sad, sorry place to be right now. I grew up in Chicago, went to college in Chicago and work in Chicago. It's been a roller coaster love-hate relationship for 30 years. There's two major reasons I say it's so sad and sorry: a total lack of experienced, aggressive VC here, and a massive deficit of university-business partnership.…
UChicago does not have an engineering school. The U of C considers itself a university in the classical liberal arts mold, and that means they don't bother themselves with applied programs like engineering.
My impression is that in Chicago -- and really everywhere outside the SF BA and NYC -- has much weaker comp for engineers. It makes sense, really. By far the majority of SE jobs in these places are in IT departments writing line of business software. These are Java and .Net shops usually and anecdotally it seems they pay from $60-90k. The companies where engineers are profit centers -- web startups and software compa…
I'm getting $75k as a Python engineer with 5 years experience. Am I absurdly underpaid? My job feels easy, I have flexible hours, little oversight, independence to build cool things, good benefits, and I feel very lucky that anyone would pay me so much money to sit in a climate controlled office playing with a computer.
My understanding is that most of the big and medium names in the Bay are offering at least what I started out for people with no experience.
That said, my house cost almost $2M, and it is not a terribly nice house by the standards of anywhere but here. So . . . do with that what you will.
Eh, three things really grind me gears about the tech scene in Chicago. 1) Lots of mediocre entrepreneurs that seem to have the same story: - Little to no hard skills. - Probably got an MBA from a good B-school - Did a stint at a consulting firm and is going to outsmart the competition with all the wisdom they gained at Accenture, McKinsey, BCG, Bain, or some big IL firm. - Does NOT have a technical co-founder but is…
I'll offer a hypothesis to explain #1: It's because Chicago's culture is excessively risk averse. There seems to be a tendency to seek permission or acceptance from peers and others before taking a risk (either in business, fashion, life, whatever). This is actually great for bootstrapping, because it keeps you in touch with the real world and immediate customer demand. But it leads to fewer qualified, technical peop…
Absolutely. Many of the early startups were based on needs that could serve people and corporate partners. We don't have a lot of app based businesses.
It's interesting what would be 80s/90s person assumption? "1.6B in funding! Oh boy, robots, life extension, hover cars!" "Err, no. But you will be targeted with ads about food delivery and HR services much more precisely!"
Remember, you're talking about the 90s which had as a flagship startup a company that sold pet food. Broadcast.com alone was purchased for $5.9B (eq. to $8B of today's money), and all they did was stream video over the Internet.
Is funding and exits how we measure success now?
Do you have an alternative metric? I suppose we could count jobs created. My experience in the Bay Area is that as long as exits >> (funding * 2), it means that there are non-investors making some money and going on to create additional opportunities (sort of the criticality threshold for entrepreneurism).
Are the majority of startups only ever going to be short term ventures?