Austin, Denver, Detroit: Good Places to Be a Software Engineer Looking for a Job
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Seriously the drug use is pretty Rampant in Denver too. Not a turn off to all, but given the places I did work, you wouldn't expect it. Texas is so much better. The job I have is so much better, My coworkers are actually nerdy. Honestly. Sorry I just have to laugh at the idea that desert is a great place to look for work.
Here in Austin we can't even find android devs to apply. Denver I interviewed maybe 20 and found most to be just okay.
Having done both, Android development is a pain and just not fun. The simulator/emulator situation has improved a lot which helps, but it used to be a terrible development experience.
Throw in Swift and things get worse. On the other side, Java/Kotlin interoperability in Android Studio is great and the tooling keeps improving.
If you're into IoT, Software Defined Radio, and know the JVM pretty well... you'd be a perfect fit but we'll happily embrace people that demonstrate motivation and a desire to learn. We have a few core products that we work on for the defense industry as well as a random one-off research work. Some travel required periodically.
Apply here: https://cticinc.bamboohr.com/jobs/view.php?id=4&source=ycomb... or ask me questions.
What does this mean? If you mean cannabis use, who cares? It's legal and it's harmless. If you are talking about opioid abuse or something else, that's a different story.
It sounds like you had some subjectively bad individual experiences because you mixed with people that you are not socially compatible with, but there's nothing here (brogrammers that don't share your hobbies? weed smokers?) that seems like an indictment of the entire city of Denver. Similarly, while your new job is great and you have found your tribe in Austin, your nerdy coworkers are but a very small part of the selfhood of ATX.
I've lived all over as well. The Denver metro is about as friendly as Austin metro in my opinion. Texas as a whole is friendly because it's the south, but that pertains to non urban areas.
I do find people in the West to be poorly mannered but not unfriendly. Frankly, growing up in the South, people in other places have bad manners in general to me.
I think it's important to know that companies have different cultures, and your experience of Austin or Denver can be heavily affected by that.
Whether or not people use drugs or alcohol when they're not working shouldn't be relevant. If it leads to impairment in the workplace such that they cannot perform their job, then it becomes a problem.
Almost sounds like I have personal experience doesn't it?
The federal government sure does care. You won't be getting a security clearance if you are a user. This cuts you off from over a million jobs.
It's not harmless either, particularly if you breath it. Even non-drug stuff like Lysol and candle smoke will mess up your lungs. The drug aspect is real too; we don't have the term "pothead" for no reason.
Those jobs suck, and your attitude does as well. You sound like a stuck up prude.
It's nice having programmer co-workers who like to talk about almost anything else. If having other interests makes you a "brogrammer" then, well, OK, I guess I like brogrammers.
I also notice it stinks pretty bad from whatever those smoke stacks are doing near Colfax & I25, and north of Denver - like some metallic smell.
In areas like North Thornton there is hydraulic fracking, so I'll pass on that, along with Arvada near Rocky Flats.
There is a lot of homelessness, but i read about 75% of those people have jobs - but can't find a place to live affordably. Rents might not be as bad as SF or Seattle but they are going up, apparently from the influx of people coming for legal weed and affordable housing shortage (luxury stuff is being built)
Oh, and avoid the 16th Street Circus. Centennial, Parker, Boulder, or Golden all look nice if you can find opportunities there - but the commutes from those (also nice to live places) are too much into downtown.
We are in Broomfield, since Boulder got too expensive after we grew enough.
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? :)
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.
What is an "engineering style hobby"? I work in the SF Bay Area, and the most popular hobby of my coworkers is "parent".
My company is nerd to the core in the right way. Hate the brogrammer crap.
We regularly host tournaments for obscure board games, people hack on crazy languages like Haskell and elm for fun, and add to that the company wide obsession with rock climbing.
I love it. But some of the shops I've seen sound like what you described.
I heard spotx is a bunch of brogrammers for instance.
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 will also say I've worked with mostly young people. IE an old guy was a manager in his mid 30s.
I will also note, as someone who has worked at dino companies. That is not a reflection of the engineers. It's how the day to day works. How painfully slow work is because 3 departments need to get their act together. I'm sorry you took that as me saying your friends are bad.
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.
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, and I don't expect I'll be leaving remote work anytime soon. I expect my clients will be in LA, SF, and NY for the rest of my career.
And that's the crux of it. It's not just the money, in fact it's never the money for me. It's a total quality of life scenario. Being across a bridge from Windsor Canada is cool, the Detroit museum is a great place, and the area has a great lineage for quality pizza. But Detroit itself is like a hostile environment to me, where I can't even travel around without risking breaking my vehicle literally in half. I'd have to me making great money there, just to pay upkeep on vehicle maintenance.
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.
The real bugbear is insurance, which is a state policy issue (poor, white areas are starting to be hit by it too). My car insurance in the city is higher than my car payment (by about $100). Yes, it’s insane. I have good credit and I’m a good driver, but no-fault insurance and unlimited medical coverage makes it superbly expensive to insure Michiganders. If anything would make me move back to the suburbs, it’s actually the car insurance. Everything else I don’t really mind.
Otherwise, you have to take Detroit for all it is, both its faults and its treasures. Yes, street flooding is a problem and the schools are still not great, but property is cheap and some neighborhoods are recovering. You can get a mansion for $500k to $800k (in SF you would get a shoe box). And if you want the cheapest, most delicious donuts you’ve ever had, swing by Dutch Girl on Woodward and Seven Mile. They’re open 24/7.
It’s not for everyone, but it’s unique, and has 300 years of fascinating history. It’s not the war zone you see on the news either. Don’t write off Detroit just yet. :)
I drive that road every day. Just happened to be in the wrong lane.
(We are getting there... but we have a long way to go.)
I don't live in Detroit, I'm nearby in Toledo.
What lineage are you referring to? Domino's and Little Caesars? (Both are headquartered in the area). They are perfectly edible, but I've never heard those described as representing a "quality pizza" lineage.
[Detroit-style pizza]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit-style_pizza
[Serious Eats guide]: http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2017/02/detroit-style-piz...
I'm just not aware of a great local pizza tradition. And for me personally, Buddy's Detroit-style pizza (I grew up eating it) doesn't meet that standard.
Anecdotal story: I interviewed at a well known ad company here in the Metro Detroit area, and the recruiter let it slip that he had sent 16 people their way before me. While I'm sure that this guy was just throwing warm bodies at the position in hopes of earning a commission, it's kind of unbelievable that competition is that fierce here.
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 work." He was beyond pissed, I guess he was acclimated to dealing with idiots.
These amateur [psycho|soicio]paths have no balls. A real psycho would have hired me then fired me. Basically, he is confident enough to lie to someone to hire them, but not confident enough to simply fire them when needed.
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.
My grandfather had an AA from a city college, and supported his entire family, and retired at 55 with pensions, investments, etc. His wife is still alive at 88 and living off the money he earned. She's never worked in her life.
My parents, retired at 65, and have a very very comfortable retirement until Calpers dies.
I, struggle to find employment that isn't "slavery with extra steps", and will never, ever be able to retire.
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.
I'm the organizer of a bouldering meetup[1]. We started back in September but already have 250+ members. I'd say more than a third of them work in tech so it's great for networking too. :)
Besides what you already mentioned: the food is one major factor that I like Austin. From BBQ (Franklin, Salt Lick etc.) to Tacos (Torchy's, Taco Deli) to ethnic Indian, Korean etc. this city has it all and new restaurants are opening all the time.
If you like beer and breweries, Austin has many of them too. Oscar Blues, ABGB, 512, Adelberts, Jester King etc. are just a few that come to mind. There are lot of brewpubs as well and new ones are opening all the times.
If you're young and into the nightlife scene, Austin has a lively scene and you can literally go out any night of the week and find something interesting. From live music to famous bands, to music festivals, there's ALWAYS something to do, which is really fucking amazing.
Generally I don't like to say too many nice things since I like to keep this amazing city all to myself. But maybe HN crowd is ok :).
Something to keep in mind if you believe you might be similar to me. Austin is probably not worse than SF, but I don't intend to live there after I graduate either.
I lived in the bay area for ~4 years, lots of dudes, immigrants, and really wealthy people (in addition to a lot of the working poor). Interesting place just not my cup of tea.
Did make Buena Vista inspired Irish Coffees last night though.
Perhaps you're more attractive or patient than I am. I also just realized that I forgot to mention that I'm a teetotaler, which seem to be a major turnoff to people here.
If you don't mind me asking, how do you meet single women here?
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.
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).
Also an informal poll of coworkers find most of them live in SF or the south bay today.
It’s more of a Moneyball move - go for the underappreciated talent you can get cheap. There are companies doing that, but it’s not for everyone. If you get specific with the location, you realize Oakland and Pleasanton, Walnut Creek and Hayward are pretty far apart, so you don’t even get great access to the whole East Bay. You might as well move to Austin, Denver, or Detroit at that point and pay the same price for a better location.
Although you might see major companies open offices if there is a critical mass eg. maybe it would make sense for Google or Facebook to open a satellite office in Newark if enough employees are commuting across the Dumbarton.
Uber was going to make a big office in Oakland, but apparently canceled those plans.
It would be an awesome place for a startup with all the cheap property and rent.
People here are nicer than anywhere else I’ve ever lived
I miss biking and walking to work. And while thats possible here, it’s not easy to find.
But Detroit’s not an easy city and that’s one of its charms. Heh, though people generally don’t talk about Detroit’s hardships in terms of biking to your tech job.
Cleveland rocks.
Also if that's true, do alot of the Dallas devs in need of work go to Austin? Or is that not done for some reason?
That was my experience when I ejected 18 months ago. Yes, there are a lot of postings. There are also a lot of shitty or picky companies.
> Also if that's true, do alot of the Dallas devs in need of work go to Austin? Or is that not done for some reason?
Not sure. I tried, but I could hardly get interviews down there, either.
But Dallas has its own charms for sure. You can get really huge houses close to work for pretty cheap, the school systems are pretty great. The big Software firms (Google, Apple, Facebook etc.) are all moving to Austin though.
For affordable housing, you can definitely get it, but if you want something close to downtown/uptown, it's a good step up. Also, the housing market here is ridiculous, one of the fastest growing markets in the nation. You will be paying above ask in a bidding war for anything you find. And you better be ready to put your money down, no contingency, sometimes before you get to even walk in the front door to see the house. It's that insane.
As far as Austin, no. Only reason people go to Austin is more a lifestyle choice. More people come from Austin to Dallas simply because the number of available jobs. Last time I checked, Dallas has around twice as many developers as Austin as well.
Right now, people in Texas cities other than Austin are staying away too. 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. The city tried a couple of years ago to float a light rail proposal that was put up to a vote but shot down by citizens. Most of the infrastructure is still very road-focused. Although I'm hoping that the many downtown approach will easy the traffic somewhat (Domain, Mueller etc.)
The reason I see this happening is because I believe with the roots of live music in Austin, there is a lot of creativity growing around here. When you mix it with effective development and adventurous culture, there is a great mixture of support systems to really build a software-based community.
Weirdly enough, my company is actually looking for a CMO now in the area, and we are finding it difficult to fill the position at an early stage company. So shameless plug, if you are in the area ( which I am finding a lot of Austin is HN), please feel free to reach out!
1. There is a failure to clearly specify what is meant by a given city. In this case, linkedin is at least kind enough to use the word "region". For "SF Bay Area", would that count Davis or Santa Cruz? For "Boston", would that count Chelmsford or Braintree? For "Washington D.C.", would that count Arlington or Annapolis Junction or Ballston or Dulles?
2. Anything below a certain size is not considered. If the big city has 54321 people fighting over 12345 jobs, while the small city has 123 people considering 321 jobs, going for the big city might not be so wise. This is before even adjusting for quality-of-life problems in cities.
Our Austin office is where a lot of R&D happens and there is a huge push to re-platform into micro services. athenahealth also owns Epocrates, a very popular mobile app used by more than 600K providers. That product team is based here, too.
Great place to work, beautiful office, downtown location with parking included, and a very mission-driven culture. Find me on LinkedIn or my Gmail in my HN profile. Happy to connect you with the hiring managers.