11 ms·

As someone who is trying to convince my girlfriend about why living outside the south for at least a few years is necessary to get a good career start, this art

As someone who is trying to convince my girlfriend about why living outside the south for at least a few years is necessary to get a good career start, this article is invaluable. I wish it were the case, but the good jobs (particularly technology-related jobs) unfortunately don't happen to be evenly spread over the United States.

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devonkim 11y ago
This applies for jobs outside of technology, but the unfortunate part my household is finding out is that even if you get a name brand institution on your resume, moving to an area with very scarce jobs like most areas in the South outside an international airport means your credentials don't matter perhaps as much as your last name because the tier of jobs you're looking for with a solid middle class job is the .1%er jobs of big cities equivalently.
- Tenhundfeld 11y ago
  Your exclusion of cities containing international airports seems odd to me. You're excluding most major cities. You're basically saying there aren't many solid middle class jobs in the rural areas of the South. I think it's generally true, outside of the South as well, that urban areas have more middle class jobs. I'm not trying to invalidate whatever experience you and your household are having. I'm just saying there are tons of tech jobs in the South. Many Southern cities are in the top 25 cities/metro areas for software jobs, e.g., Austin, TX; the DC suburbs in VA and MD; Jacksonville, FL; Raleigh, NC. And while they typically don't show up on lists, I know first hand that cities like Mobile, AL; Huntsville, AL; Tampa, FL; Richmond, VA; Nashville, TN; Knoxville, TN and Atlanta, GA have healthy tech sectors as well. I find it mildly ridiculous when people act like you can't find a good programming job outside of West Coast / Chicago / Boston / NYC.
  - jdhawk 11y ago
    Austin has an international airport...
    - Tenhundfeld 11y ago
      Right, I wasn't saying it didn't. I was saying that it's silly to exclude all of the major cities and then say the South doesn't have good jobs. No matter what region you're talking about, the good tech jobs are in typically in/near cities.
  - devonkim 11y ago
    All of those places have international airports except Knoxville, Richmond, Tampa, and Alabama. My point is mostly about having sufficient population density that an international airport is justifiable for the region, and that spurs sufficient mass of high quality information-centric jobs rather than primarily jobs low on the capitalist value chain. To further elaborate and simultaneously move the fence posts (but was part of my snarky intent) is that the tech jobs that are in these places aside from mobile software are almost always ones people on HN overwhelmingly do not want. These jobs are disagreeable from either an ideological perspective (defense, oil) or ambitious career perspective (industry-specific CMS apps, subcontracting support / maintenance on legacy applications, outsourced enterprise J2EE development, IT). To me, the equivalent of "there's tech jobs all over the place in the US" is "there's jobs all over Craigslist, why are you complaining about lack of jobs?" Trust me when I say that most of the jobs I've seen outside areas with strong tech sector presence are likely not very good "tech" jobs. There's absolutely exceptions, but they are oases in the Sahara desert to me.
    - ghaff 11y ago
      I suppose it's hard to argue with you if your point is that their aren't many SV-style mobile/web app companies outside of Silicon Valley. There are, however, a lot of software and other engineering jobs in many southern cities (e.g. Austin, Raleigh) albeit probably fewer than in the Northeast and the West coast.

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devonkim 11y ago

This applies for jobs outside of technology, but the unfortunate part my household is finding out is that even if you get a name brand institution on your resume, moving to an area with very scarce jobs like most areas in the South outside an international airport means your credentials don't matter perhaps as much as your last name because the tier of jobs you're looking for with a solid middle class job is the .1%er jobs of big cities equivalently.

Tenhundfeld 11y ago
Your exclusion of cities containing international airports seems odd to me. You're excluding most major cities. You're basically saying there aren't many solid middle class jobs in the rural areas of the South. I think it's generally true, outside of the South as well, that urban areas have more middle class jobs. I'm not trying to invalidate whatever experience you and your household are having. I'm just saying there are tons of tech jobs in the South. Many Southern cities are in the top 25 cities/metro areas for software jobs, e.g., Austin, TX; the DC suburbs in VA and MD; Jacksonville, FL; Raleigh, NC. And while they typically don't show up on lists, I know first hand that cities like Mobile, AL; Huntsville, AL; Tampa, FL; Richmond, VA; Nashville, TN; Knoxville, TN and Atlanta, GA have healthy tech sectors as well. I find it mildly ridiculous when people act like you can't find a good programming job outside of West Coast / Chicago / Boston / NYC.
- jdhawk 11y ago
  Austin has an international airport...
  - Tenhundfeld 11y ago
    Right, I wasn't saying it didn't. I was saying that it's silly to exclude all of the major cities and then say the South doesn't have good jobs. No matter what region you're talking about, the good tech jobs are in typically in/near cities.
- devonkim 11y ago
  All of those places have international airports except Knoxville, Richmond, Tampa, and Alabama. My point is mostly about having sufficient population density that an international airport is justifiable for the region, and that spurs sufficient mass of high quality information-centric jobs rather than primarily jobs low on the capitalist value chain. To further elaborate and simultaneously move the fence posts (but was part of my snarky intent) is that the tech jobs that are in these places aside from mobile software are almost always ones people on HN overwhelmingly do not want. These jobs are disagreeable from either an ideological perspective (defense, oil) or ambitious career perspective (industry-specific CMS apps, subcontracting support / maintenance on legacy applications, outsourced enterprise J2EE development, IT). To me, the equivalent of "there's tech jobs all over the place in the US" is "there's jobs all over Craigslist, why are you complaining about lack of jobs?" Trust me when I say that most of the jobs I've seen outside areas with strong tech sector presence are likely not very good "tech" jobs. There's absolutely exceptions, but they are oases in the Sahara desert to me.
  - ghaff 11y ago
    I suppose it's hard to argue with you if your point is that their aren't many SV-style mobile/web app companies outside of Silicon Valley. There are, however, a lot of software and other engineering jobs in many southern cities (e.g. Austin, Raleigh) albeit probably fewer than in the Northeast and the West coast.