Are the Google, Microsoft, and Amazon offices engineering offices? I know that the Microsoft one is not.
- Cost center IT departments for the healthcare and insurance sectors out in the exurbs (presumably low respect and high risk of outsourcing).
- Quant trading for the commodities market downtown (and really nothing else, unless finance is your cup of tea).
I'd love to work for a SV-style technology company in Chicago.
That said, Chicago has quite a few non-finance tech companies: - Vividseats - Grubhub - Spothero - Sproutsocial - Uptake - Orbitz - HERE technologies - Trunk Club
There are a myriad of smaller startup companies you've never heard of, as well as traditional corporate types like IBM, etc.
A lot of the tech folks here work for financial companies.