In Microsoft's Shadow, Seattle's Tech Scene Surges | Hacker News Reader

In Microsoft's Shadow, Seattle's Tech Scene Surges

reuters.com

65 pointsfrankus31 comments

When considering Seattle, also consider heading across Puget Sound. Here are some nice points for putting a company in Kitsap County.

1. Commuting from Seattle is easy, so employees who prefer to live in the city can. (I lived in Seattle for several years while working in Poulsbo, and the ferry ride was a wonderful time each day to catch up on my technical reading--or my science fiction reading. Or go up and get breakfast at the ferry's dining area and eat it and read the newspaper).

2. Low traffic, much more affordable housing, less noise, so employees who prefer those qualities for where they live can get them by living in Kitsap. And Seattle is just a ferry ride away for when you want the things the city offers.

Of course it is possible to live in Kitsap and commute to Seattle, but that commute sucks because a lot of people do it. If you want to travel anywhere near morning or evening peak commute hours you can have long waits to get a ferry, and deal with lots of traffic.

When you are going the other way, living in Seattle and commuting to Kitsap, it is a breeze even if you are working 8 to 5. I used to arrive at the terminal minutes before the boat was scheduled to leave and have no trouble getting on.

One of the problems with the new emergent tech scene in South Lake Union is that it's not really workable for on-foot ferry commuters the same way the financial district is.

Yes, it's possible to walk from the ferry terminal to SLU, I know someone who does, but it's quite the hike.

but you can take the trolley from Westlake

It takes less time to walk to SLU from Westlake than it does to wait for the next trolley.

Who is in South Lake Union besides Amazon?

Edit: Ah, missed that in the article. Salesforce and Facebook offices now.

As for the startup scene, TechStars & Founder's Co-op are also in SLU, right next to Amazon. We (bigdoor.com) are also in the same building.

There are a couple dozen startups in the Founders Co-op space at Boren and Republican (my startup included). The office is literally surrounded by Amazon's new campus.

It's an awesome space if you're looking for high energy and brilliant people. It also makes it easy to jump ship from Amazon if you want to join a startup :)

Not to quibble, but: 1) real estate is cheaper, but the cooler market works both ways - there's a surplus of RE that makes selling a slow and painful process 2) that ferry's not cheap either! :)

I have friends that make a motorcycle+ferry commute work for them. Coming from Southworth, they manage to get into the city faster than I can if I take the floating bridges from the Eastside.

I grew up on Bainbridge Island and it would be amazing to base a startup there, the quality of life is awesome. There is a startup there called Avalara with over 100 employees

This article only has a few of the biggest names. The real tech scene is somewhat larger: http://www.seattle20.com/startups.aspx

And Fremont is one more unmentioned tech neighborhood: Tableau Software, Ubermind, and Groundspeak wave hi from nextdoor to Impinj, Adobe, Google, and others...

We're in Fremont as well! Let's put a happy hour together next week at 9mm or Revel

We just moved Meeteor.com to Seattle, and it's been an amazing community to be a part of. Strong mix of design + developer talent, and the cost of living (and cost of hiring) is about half of the Bay Area's....

Seed Round Heaven.

Seattle is crazy awesome for startups, but man, SLU has changed a lot since I last worked there a couple of years ago at a research lab (and I think it changed for the worse - way more expensive food, not much variety.)

Pioneer Square is very low key, has cheap eats, and has lots of startups.

Zynga is coming to Pioneer Square as well...

Maybe they'll come in, then leave as soon as they're all settled in.

Expensive food at all the Tom Douglas restaurants, maybe. But since you've left a dozen food trucks have come to the neighborhood: http://www.seattlefoodtruck.com/index.php/by-neighborhood-2/... – the variety is pretty good now!

One thing that I wonder about is the tech scene in Seattle: is it very Microsofty, or is open to things like Ruby, Linux, or Lisp?

The great thing about developers is that they love to try new things, so even Microsoft's developers recognize that the Microsoft stack is not the best at everything.

Most of the people I find who have their heads stuck in the Microsoft stack are non-coders, and those are less common at startups.

At Amazon we do our part to turn Microsoft people on to Linux.

The joke at our startup was if we moved to the east side we'd have to switch over to a .NET stack.

I've been here 6 years, and my observation has been that the startup culture as a whole leans away from MS, if anything. Startups founded by ex-Microsoft employees do seem to be more likely to use Microsoft tech, but certainly not always. But remember that the wider tech scene here is much more than just Microsoft. Amazon is a big force, and Google has a respectable presence too. Also, mobile development is huge here now, and almost all of it is for iPhone or Android.

There are some crazy smart Ruby people there. Makes me a bit envious.

In the past 2 months, 3 of my friends have left Ontario to go work for large tech companies in Seattle.

my previous company was based in seattle, so i've taken several trips there, in general it's a decent area, but i definitely prefer the bay area.

though i can understand for companies and employees of the state, the lack of income tax and talent pool to be quite amazing.

Shh, don't let the word get out. The traffic is already bad enough around here.

This is bound to happen. Microsoft is an aging giant though it still has some of the best minds in the industry.

One concern I always have hiring from such old guard companies is that the people who have worked there for long, have skills too specific to the company they come from. They need some time adjusting to different technologies and development practices.

I've seen a handful of companies with employees who couldn't get the idea that practices that are appropriate for Microsoft aren't appropriate for small startups.

That said, I would take an ex-Microsoft over ex-Boeing or ex-Washington Mutual anyday.

I'm not entirely sold that the practices that are appropriate for microsoft are even appropriate for microsoft.

Some orgs are pretty solid patterns and practices wise and some divisons are like stepping back into the early 90s.

You can't generalise how Microsoft does anything, because each division -- each team, even -- has enormous latitude in how they do their work.

SEI boosters and agile fans can both say "Microsoft uses CMMI/Scrum" with a straight face and be correct.

The same is true of any location, not just Seattle.

There's a quantcast alumnus building a mobile analytics company there -- http://www.sewichi.com . It looks fascinating, and if any of you are looking for a cool young startup, it's probably worth a look. The founder, David, is a stand up guy who really understands the analytics space.

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