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Comment by aidenn0 | Hacker News Reader

I graduated from Purdue in '04 and the job market in-state was terrible. The best offer I received in Indiana was a one year contract @ $35k in Fort Wayne. Several talented people I knew took software jobs at $40k or under to stay close to family.

I didn't even have to go to a tech hub to get more than double that $35k job offer.

As an aside: I will never work for Caterpillar after seeing the way the recruiters treated students at the job fair. An actually overheard sentence (and whatever tone you are hearing in your head is likely less harsh than what was used): "Our requirements list a minimum 3.5 GPA, why are you wasting my time with a 3.2?" this was not a particularly egregious example either, but rather the typical way they talked to candidates once they found a reason to throw away their resumé.

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With your opinion on Caterpillar, I feel like I need to share that I once spilt the contents of about 10 beers on top of some of their bigwigs.

You're welcome.

While I was in school from 2011-2015 I noticed the GPA requirements seemed to drop significantly! Cat, John Deere, and Boeing all had 3.5+ requirements when I started. Last I heard, John Deere was at 2.8, and the others dropped as well.

At the time Cat really knew they were the belle of the ball.

They were local and they hired from pretty much all majors in the College of Engineering. IIRC they weren't particularly interested in entry-level software people at the time despite listing it as an opening.

I'm currently at Purdue, and these companies currently have hard requirements of 3.0. If you're below the system won't take you. Other companies have soft requirements and will take you below 3.0, which is becoming more accepted I believe.

Did some custom AutoCAD software for CAT back in the late 1990s. Their IT department auto-deleted our package, had to drive our tech back to Illinois to re-install it.

While 34k is and probably was very low, Fort Wayne Indiana is one of the lowest CoL cities in US. I wish they would tech take more seriously there, but they're in for an uphill battle if they do with Detroit, Indianapolis and Chicago competing for talent in the close proximity.

I think there is a real opportunity for state side digital nomads who want to live cheap while starting a business. Places like fort Wayne Indiana give them access to a lively downtown, cheap housing and access to 1st tier cities in a few hours drive. Source - I grew up there.

Did you graduate from the Engineering College?

I am on the Engineering Accreditation Board now and this is the feedback that we need from alums.

I graduated from the College of Science. Since that time there has been a huge increase in software openings in the Midwest.

I was looking at software jobs, with a preference for embedded. At the time there were very low paying jobs in the Fort Wayne area and some startups in Indy.

Now Cincinnati is booming, with Indianapolis falling not too far behind. Big 10 wise, Madison and Ann Arbor both seem to have more of a tech hub than Lafayette. The company I currently work for recruits fairly heavily from Illinois and Rose Hulman. I can track down some recent grads if you want recent midwest job-hunt info.

I think that Indianapolis' job market is much stronger than Cincinnati's is, right now, at least in the DevOps/Linux Tech space.

Most companies around the Cincinnati area don't want to pay more than 80k/year for a good, mid-to-senior linux resource (15+ years). In Indianapolis, I've had a job offers come in at 130, 140, 150, and 180K, but, I'm very hesitant to relocate to Indy because of the RFRA legislation that's in town.

I'm a Linux Sysadmin in the Indy area. I feel like Linux is growing up in the Indy area. Dev-ops positions are paying more, but there are still alot of older style Unix-to-Linux positions at more established manufacturing-centric companies. They don't pay well at all, and they tend to have much older technology, maybe 3 to 5 years behind what you see on the coasts.

When I looked last year it seemed like the midwest was mostly behind the coasts and Denver / Austin were maybe a year or two behind. When I say that, I mean that many of these midwest companies are running old RH 5/6, little cloud, operator style system admin. You have to manage your career to make sure you don't get stuck somewhere that lets your tech skills atrophy.

From talking with my friends the developer compensation and job availability is reversed from that (but not a 2x factor in pay difference; that's crazy!). Also, DBAs seem to do well everywhere in the Midwest (The only person I know who is doing really well in the KS/MO area is a DBA).

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