New York City: Data Science’s Best Bet for Growth and Opportunity | Hacker News Reader

New York City: Data Science’s Best Bet for Growth and Opportunity

blog.insightdatascience.com

56 pointsagconway31 comments

I live and work in NYC as a JS developer, and I feel like it's a great place to be. The community is strong here and there's a lot of diversity in what people do, technical or not, within the tech community. The amenities are good and I walk to work and honestly the rents are not that bad. Manhattan is the most expensive, but if you want to save money Brooklyn, Queens, NJ, etc. are cheaper and all linked by (mostly working) public transit. One of the biggest factors keeping me here is the public transit and the fact that I don't need to drive and sit in traffic.

As someone living in SF I’ve been seriously eyeing NYC for a while now. It just seems like an overall better city.

The roads are better, the people seem more varied, there’s even more things to do outside work, there are seasons (god I miss weather), and the tech scene is probably almost as strong.

But are there many startups? It almost seems these days more startups are coming out of Europe than out of NYC.

The startup scene is pretty decent. There are hundreds of companies here, including some pretty big names: DigitalOcean, BlueApron, Etsy, Casper, Compass, Stack Overflow, Jet (technically in NJ, but close enough), Meetup, etc. Not to mention that the larger ones (Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Adobe, etc) all have pretty large offices here.

What I like most is the diversity in the companies. They're "tech" companies, but their business is advertising, finance, real estate, and lots of other industries. There is so much diversity here that, even if you only hang out with technically-minded people, you'll still have plenty to talk about. When I lived in SF, every person seemed to do the exact same thing but for a slightly different variation of the same kind of company.

Anyway, I'm obviously biased, but I prefer NYC to SF. The weather was a huge point for me, but also the fact that NYC just "feels" more like a city - it's incredibly dense in most parts of Manhattan, which makes it easy to walk to almost anything. Diversity are transportation are two other big pros.

You may want to consider a gentle reintroduction to "weather", especially East Coast winters. Snow is fun when you're on a ski vacation. Decidedly less so when it's wet and getting whipped into your face by the wind as you trudge to work.

Nah I grew up in south central europe, I’m good with weather. Seeing -15C (5F) and 38C (100F) in the same year is pretty normal to me. Honestly I moved to SF to escape the summer heat and now I miss my winters and falls and springs and it’s been crazy hot here lately.

Don't forget winter and spring time slush. There's a reason Timberland boots are so big in NYC.

The winters in NYC really aren't that bad. Yes occasionally it snows but the storms that dump inches of snow are infrequent enough to be novel. When it's cold it's cold but if you're wearing the right jacket that isn't bad either.

> The winters in NYC really aren't that bad.

I still have nightmares about those hidden pools of half frozen brown sludge that accumulate at street corners that turn your shoes pitch black if you accidentally step in one!

Yea but the part of the year when it's not cold it stays not cold all night so you don't have to think about the jacket you're going to need to change into every day all year.

SF and NYC are polar opposites in nearly every aspect of daily life. For one to jump ship to either or, is a big difference. I prefer the seasons as well, I couldn't live in any place where it's basically the same weather ever day. Fall just arrived here in New York (the best season ever).

One thing to keep in mind is that ads and media are a big focus here - not to say that every company is in that game, but you'll notice quite a lot are. I don't really find that field interesting so it does out leave out options for me personally.

> The roads are better

Are you planning to drive in Manhattan? Car ownership in NYC is a world of hurt.

No I'm just tired of potholes being more dangerous to me on a Boosted Board than bad drivers. There's so much money in this city, why can't we use some of it to have better roads than 3rd world countries?

What kind of events would you recommend for someone trying to get more involved in the NYC community? I've been in Brooklyn for a while but work remotely and more or less exist outside of the tech community but would like to get involved.

I like the BoroJS family of meetups. Their schtick is "people focused" javascript. Good talks, venues, and interesting company. But sometimes it can feel a bit cliquey because the organizers are obviously good friends.

http://borojs.com/

Oops, I thought you said "meetups" not stuff outside of tech. I personally like to climb, bike, and visit breweries. Biking is fun because you can stop off and explore wherever you feel like.

Meetup.com has many great tech meetup groups. Most of the active niche tech meetups are hosted in NYC on weekday evenings, but there are some more general Brooklyn tech meetups.

I have only spent a week in NYC but this place was amazing, granted I am a jazz enthusiast so potentially biased.

https://www.smallslive.com/

I don't know what you're talking about, but the rents are easily the 2nd worst, possibly the worst, in the country. COL adjusted, it is the worst of all the major tech cities [0] for software developers. 0. https://hired.com/state-of-salaries-2017

I've lived in NYC in 75, 80, and 100k salaries and I've been fine in all cases. And that's without roommates and my SO being a student (so she can only contribute a bit for groceries, not rent). Rents are high, but so are software engineer salaries. Almost all of my friends who work in other industries make do with 50-60k salaries - we're fine.

If you really want to save, get a 2 bedroom apartment with someone. If they make >70k you will have a good amount of money for fun/saving/loans.

NYC has a great ecosystem of experienced people who know how to program, know math, and understand how businesses/product work. In this regard there are many amazing qualified data science practitioners.

But, the data science startup scene is not really thriving in NYC yet. Compared to the Bay Area, I see two main issues: a lack of data scientists with strong software engineering skills, and a lot less angel money (probably due to very few large successful exits).

>>lack of data scientists with strong engineering skills >>less angel money

absolutely. this article is a great 30k feet up review of the scene and what you add is true.

i operate NYC but literally live 100s of miles away as my affordable housing policy, because I am building an open data science consultancy that is revenue driven.

what i'd add happens is that your scientists and tech people are a step removed from the real-world disciplines put in their petrie dish. they are not working in business settings, but institutional ones, because there isn't quite a silicon valley thing, and public-private-partnerships in NY mostly mean corruption, not innovation.

that said, what makes the NYC scene really amazing is that most of us are doing our part as a civic project.

NYC has a much more diverse business environment than the Valley and that grounds the tech industry a lot more to focus on solving problems. There's much less acceptance of "Uber for lawn gnomes" app companies and a lot more pressure to deliver true value (in my observation).

As someone who grew up in the NYC area, and who is currently feeling the crushing suffocation of SF Bay Area cost of living, I'd love to go back. But aren't the problems similar? In order to afford to own a home I'd likely have to live in Pennsylvania and commute 2+ hours--not much different than in SF. Plus, my understanding is that back east, tech is what companies use rather than what companies make, so at most companies you'll be in a supporting role rather than building the products. Is this true or are my assumptions outdated?

If you can afford a child's closet in SF, you can afford a small house in NJ that is far closer than the 2+ hours you'd need to spend each way from PA.

> In order to afford to own a home I'd likely have to live in Pennsylvania and commute 2+ hours--not much different than in SF.

Why do you want to own a home so badly? Most people in NYC are perfectly happy to rent. But if you plan on staying in the city long term and have a tech salary you can definitely buy and save money eventually.

> Plus, my understanding is that back east, tech is what companies use rather than what companies make, so at most companies you'll be in a supporting role rather than building the products.

The first part is definitely kind of true, the second part depends. If you're really passionate about tech as an industry then yes you might like SF more, but if you care about products that provide value to everyday people and not Uber for X then maybe you'd like NYC companies more.

Buying a home in NYC is expensive and not really worth it considering the alternative return you would get for the money in an index fund. Renting is actually not that bad though, especially these days in the segment of the market that a software engineer would be looking in. There's been a glut of luxury/luxury-ish new construction that has been driving prices down. And there's many more rentals coming on the market in 2018 [1], so I anticipate rents dropping even more. Like I said though, buying is still expensive for what you get because you're competing with professional investors and other folks who blindly think NYC housing is a good investment no matter what.

[1] https://ny.curbed.com/2017/8/2/16082774/nyc-vacancy-brooklyn...

From what I gather from friends who have moved out of the expensive boros / neighborhoods, you can easily get really affordable housing just over the river in NJ. I grew up in CT and there are also way more affordable options there (Stamford, Norwalk, etc).

The "NJ option" in particular is definitely trending - a friend just bought a house near Union City for around 300k and its a 35-45 min commute into Manhattan.

You don't have to live in PA to find something affordable. From what I know about the bay area, that radius of "I just can't afford this" housing is much larger.

I used to live in Brooklyn (quite far) and a colleague in Stamford. Most days it used to take him less time to get to Manhattan than me! You don't have to live in Manhattan - there are relatively cheaper places if you don't mind an hour or so in the train, including NJ/CT and Queens/Brooklyn etc.

One very good thing about NYC is the subway. It might be crowded, dirty etc but it runs almost all times. I remember during severe winter and during Sandy, very few trains were canceled and that too just a handful of days.

> In order to afford to own a home I'd likely have to live in Pennsylvania and commute 2+ hours

An hour on Metro North gets you into reasonably priced home areas.

If you are looking to relocate, why go to a place that offers the same challenges. Isn't going to Denver or Portland or Seattle a better option ?

In case anyone wasn't aware of the existence, the Open Data Law[1] means that there are lots of fun data sets to play with [2]. Plenty of fodder for data science projects. And if you want to get involved BetaNYC is one of the larger civic hacker communities.

[1] https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doitt/initiatives/open-data-law.pa...

[2] https://opendata.cityofnewyork.us/data/

[3] https://beta.nyc/

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