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Montana, a land of National parks, natural beauty, fast internet, and a low cost of living has a number of high tech jobs open. Full disclosure, I own an inter
by client4 9y ago
Montana, a land of National parks, natural beauty, fast internet, and a low cost of living has a number of high tech jobs open. Full disclosure, I own an internet company here and want more tech savvy people in the area ;)
Social Finanace (SoFi) | Helena, MT
Oracle | Bozeman, MT
OnXMaps | Missoula, MT
Zaneray Group | Whitefish, MT
Submittable | Missoula, MT
Applied Materials | Kalispell, MT
- damnyou 9y agoHow friendly to trans people is Montana?
- client4 9y agoUsually if you don't be a dick (if you have one or not) nobody cares. Missoula would be the best town if you're looking for an inclusive city culturally. Our state pride is pretty big. https://www.bigskypride.com https://www.bigskypride.com
- dboreham 9y agoIt isn't Portland or Seattle or San Francisco but it isn't as bad as you might expect (based on what I hear from LGBT friends and my observations). There's a tradition of leaving people to do their thing. We have a democrat governor. Probably best to keep to the left half of the state though. The college towns and tech firms are in the western half.
- micro_cam 9y agoI'm outside of Missoula. There are a few trans people on the reddit and I've heard adds for clinics offering care on the radio. Generally Montanas seem to have a "you mind my business and I'll mind mine" attitude. So while there is a large right wing component they seem to be mobilized more by gun rights and logging/mining jobs then being anti gay/trans. Our rural county did stop taking federal money for the women's health clinic as a tea party grand stand which is unfortunate.
- Mz 9y agoHave you considered doing something more organized than a random comment on HN? I would very much like to see real solutions to some of the problems the US is experiencing wrt concentration of "good" jobs in a few places and them going utterly to hell because of it. I keep kicking around ideas and starting various small websites that often go nowhere. But, I think the internet is a potential means to start giving pushback against this trend and start creating a healthier fabric than we have currently.
- client4 9y agoI operate casually.
- Mz 9y agoSigh. I am really really bad at this. I ask a question. The reply is often defensive. Conversation fails to happen, often coming to a screeching halt. I am not trying to dump a project in your lap. I really appreciated your comment. It makes me want to do something with the info. Before my life was derailed, I was studying to become an urban planner, but was really more interested in regional planning. I have a sincere interest in trying to find real solutions that are lightweight and use existing resources. I am also a recent California escapee. If you are interested in seeing something more done with this info at some point, please drop me a line. I don't know where to go with it at this point in time, but having a contact on the ground that could feed me info to help jump start something might be useful. Thank you for making the comment and answering questions here.
- jamiek88 9y ago> More organized than a random comment on HN... You mentioned you are bad at this, just a little unsolicited help - I am not the guy you responded to but even initially got my back up reading that. I was thinking jeez this guy puts his hand out to help, agrees to meet one other local dev, comments how he knows half of them and basically gets accused of laziness / slacktivism! It’s clear you didn’t mean that now, tone from text is really hard to judge and people default to assuming the worst, even subconsciously so perhaps leading with your clarification in the second post or somtheing lkke it may increase your conversion to conversation rate! Sorry if this insults you, it is not meant to. Also, I’m putting words into the mouth of the OP of this sub thread too which are more than likely wrong.
- client4 9y agoOh, and if the outdoors aren't your thing, we have a different kind of trail map as well: http://montanabrewers.org/trail-map/ http://montanabrewers.org/trail-map/
- nnbosko 9y agoHow can we get in touch?
- JshWright 9y agoOne of the biggest YouTube production companies is also in Missoula. https://complexly.com/ https://complexly.com/
- client4 9y agoOh yeah! Funny story -- when he was first starting they had to FedEx their videos to a friend because upload speeds were so bad. That, and a bunch of other stories, is what inspired me to start an ISP (and party like it's 1999).
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago>I own an internet company here and want more tech savvy people in the area ;) I hope you enjoy crowded national parks and a high cost of living. Be careful what you wish for. Denver used to be what you've described. Now it's just California's ski lodge.
- enraged_camel 9y agoCounterpoint: it is a very conservative state, and one of their elected representatives choke-slammed a Guardian journalist who was trying to ask him questions, and he still got elected.
- client4 9y agohttps://meanwhileinmontana.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/18698367_10208862403948578_6254544344864840108_n.jpg https://meanwhileinmontana.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/18... Counter-counterpoint: Visit Missoula when they are naked biking.
- dboreham 9y agoWell...the guy in question is fairly widely disliked in the state (I've met him a few times -- seemed ok but he believes the earth is 4k years old which is .... just weird). He was elected I think because a) many people vote Republican regardless (see Trump) and b) mail in votes had already been counted at the time and this is a state with a high proportion of mail in ballots. I really wouldn't take his actions as any example of the vibe in the state. He isn't from Montana fwiw. If you want an example of bad political vibe from Montana you'd be more on the mark with Zinke.
- rsynnott 9y ago4k? The usual fundie lunatic number is 6k. Oh, well, Sumer don't real, I suppose.
- dboreham 9y agoIn 1999 I bailed out of the valley and moved to Livingston, MT. I had to build my own ISP to get connectivity to my house but otherwise it's been a success. Interesting to watch how the tech "scene" has changed over that time. I used to know all the developers in this half of the state personally!
- client4 9y agoStill live in Livingston? I'll buy you a beer at Katabatic just to say hello.
- dboreham 9y agoSure thing. My office is in town. We live about 10 miles to the west. Let me know when you're in the area.
- passthefist 9y agoI'd love to hear about what you had to do to get connectivity to your house and what was involved with being your own ISP.
- dboreham 9y agoOne of those blog posts that has never been written... Briefly, I had to deploy what is now a pretty standard WISP setup but back then almost nobody was doing that so I had to learn everything from scratch. I'm an EE by birth so it wasn't that hard, and I've worked in the networking/network application development sphere most of my career so that part wasn't too hard either. Being your own ISP is basically just a problem solved only by the application of a subtle combination of time and money. We exited the ISP market a couple of years ago though since it had turned into a deep money pit with the rise of Netflix. Today the network is still in place but only serves my home, fed by a traditional residential copper coax connection to our office building in town.
- jobu 9y agoAs someone that took a tech job in a (relatively) rural area, I can say there are some amazing perks, but also huge risks. Tech jobs pay roughly the same in rural areas as they do in larger cities, but housing costs are low enough that you can get a really nice house and still afford to put money in savings. The biggest downside is a lack of employment options. When the company had a huge layoff I started looking around for other jobs in the area and realized there weren't any. I ended up taking a great job 1000 miles away in a major city. That's when I realized another downside to smaller markets - it's really hard to sell a house and house values don't change. Even though we bought a foreclosed house in 2007, the value in 2014 was unchanged. After looking at what we had spend on improvements and upkeep we would've been far better off renting a house and putting more money into savings.
- client4 9y agoI agree that's a huge issue which is only slowly getting better. It's also rather normal for people to travel/work remote/move between the top cities. From Helena I drive to Missoula or Bozeman at least once a month to see friends / socialize. Regarding job movement, MT actually has a number of high tech companies per city, but it's a much smaller handful. Using Helena as an example (valley population ~80k), we have: Northrup Grumman, the State Agencies, SoFi, TSI&T, Boeing, Tempest (they work on KOA.com), Blue Cross Blue Shield, etc. Layoffs are not as usual here as we have a significant talent shortage. For instance I believe SoFi has ~200 devs in Helena when they would like 400 devs -- hiring being the biggest barrier.
- falcolas 9y agoIn Bozeman, I've done the tour of the major (and more than a couple of minor) companies, and there are still prospects available to me. Throw in decent internet and companies which hire remotely, and you're in good shape. That said, Bozeman is currently experiencing a housing bubble that doesn't seem to want to break (we attribute it to the older Californians who are trying to avoid taxes on the houses they sold there). Nothing like SF, but 2x-3x the rest of Montana.
- micro_cam 9y agoTheorem LP (YC 14) | Hamilton, MT Hillmap.com | Hamilton, MT (I work for the first remotely and founded the second so the presence isn't big but we're here!).
- Bedon292 9y agoHillmap is pretty sweet. Totally nerding out about it. Geospatial stuff like this is what I really enjoy. What are you looking to do with it in the future?
- micro_cam 9y agoMostly I plan to use it to ski and climb all over Montana! Its actually a few years old and I was thinking of trying to make it more of a money maker at one point but other interests have proven more profitable so I'm not sure I'll ever really push for it to become a true business. I and many of my friends do get a ton of pleasure out of trips planed with it which is its own reward.
- Bedon292 9y agoReasonable uses definitely. Might be hard to really monetize anyways, its really nice that you keep it available for people to use. If you don't plan on making more money from it, you could always open source it, and let others contribute too for fun.
- client4 9y agoSorry to not include those guys, I think there's a trucking logistics company over by there as well? And a GSK lab. And Lolo Peak Brewing.
- Bedon292 9y agoThanks for the list, MT has been a place I have admired for a while now. Just had not thought of being able to actually support myself there. I am pretty niche as far as my interests go (Geospatial Development) and there aren't a whole lot of options around. OnXMaps is quite interesting though, exactly up my alley. Didn't know about them before.
- client4 9y agoOur state GIS guys are pretty amazing IMHO. https://www.magip.org/ https://www.magip.org/
- lancefisher 9y agoI'm late to the party, but if anyone here is interested in opportunities in Missoula, I'm happy to talk. I work at Submittable (YC S12) and we'll be hiring more engineers in 2018. I have been back in Missoula since 2001, and worked a number of different tech jobs here from local government to remote to public companies and startups. The tech scene has grown a ton here over the last 15 years. There are good opportunities. The biggest hurdle I've seen is being able to find good work for your SO.