4 ms·

I moved from a medium sized city that had ~5 dev shops to work at. They all sucked. I had friends from college at each one, and we all basically spent our days

I moved from a medium sized city that had ~5 dev shops to work at. They all sucked. I had friends from college at each one, and we all basically spent our days plugging fixes into 8 year old java or .net apps and trying to keep our brains entertained. I did the usual and moved to "an expensive city" of portland. There's hundreds of places hiring, from "work on our inventory system in java" to healthcare to high tech to whatever. It's a bit more expensive here (housing-wise) but my raise alone paid entirely for my housing expense for the year. Plus it has a vibrant meetup community, tons of beer/biking, etc. I hate that I didn't stay east to try to build this type of community myself, but I haven't regretted it in the least.

Eric_WVGG 10y ago
I lived in the "affordable city" of Portland about fifteen years ago. There was ~5 dev shops to work at. They all sucked. :) My career didn't turn around until I bailed and went to NYC. It is nice to see that the city has turned around, but I have to confess that I don't miss it in the slightest.
pmiller2 10y ago
I moved away from a mid-sized city where the tech employers consisted of: * Giant defense contractor. The kind of place you'd have to fill out paperwork to enter some of the rooms at. * The University * Local government * A couple of hardware companies and like 2 software startups. Needless to say, I am much happier with my job prospects in the Bay Area (not to mention my paycheck).
- deleted 10y ago
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- tropo 10y ago
  The giant defense contractor probably has amazing projects once you get past the paperwork. If you want to change the world, well there you go. You probably won't work overtime, but if you do there are federal limits before they have to pay you extra. Age discrimination is unlikely. The university is probably interesting. Actual pay is probably terrible, but you might get free tuition for your kids. The "couple of hardware companies" sounds promising. That might be real programming, with C or even assembly.
humanrebar 10y ago
> tons of beer This sort of thing confuses me. It's not difficult to get fancy alcohol anywhere, especially wines and spirits, since they have better shelf lives, but you can get niche beers as well.
- lordCarbonFiber 10y ago
  For those into the craft beer scene, it's about locality. Many local breweries simply don't have the scale (or sometimes desire to scale) to ship outside of the state, or even the city in some cases. You're correct in your assessment that you can get a certain selection of niche brews almost anywhere, but for many metro cities in the US there's a huge host of options you can only find there.

Eric_WVGG 10y ago

I lived in the "affordable city" of Portland about fifteen years ago. There was ~5 dev shops to work at. They all sucked. :) My career didn't turn around until I bailed and went to NYC. It is nice to see that the city has turned around, but I have to confess that I don't miss it in the slightest.

pmiller2 10y ago

I moved away from a mid-sized city where the tech employers consisted of: * Giant defense contractor. The kind of place you'd have to fill out paperwork to enter some of the rooms at. * The University * Local government * A couple of hardware companies and like 2 software startups. Needless to say, I am much happier with my job prospects in the Bay Area (not to mention my paycheck).

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
tropo 10y ago
The giant defense contractor probably has amazing projects once you get past the paperwork. If you want to change the world, well there you go. You probably won't work overtime, but if you do there are federal limits before they have to pay you extra. Age discrimination is unlikely. The university is probably interesting. Actual pay is probably terrible, but you might get free tuition for your kids. The "couple of hardware companies" sounds promising. That might be real programming, with C or even assembly.

humanrebar 10y ago

> tons of beer This sort of thing confuses me. It's not difficult to get fancy alcohol anywhere, especially wines and spirits, since they have better shelf lives, but you can get niche beers as well.

lordCarbonFiber 10y ago
For those into the craft beer scene, it's about locality. Many local breweries simply don't have the scale (or sometimes desire to scale) to ship outside of the state, or even the city in some cases. You're correct in your assessment that you can get a certain selection of niche brews almost anywhere, but for many metro cities in the US there's a huge host of options you can only find there.