4 ms·

Detroit engineer here. There may be a lot of openings around here as Detroit industry continues to modernize and the startup scene matures, but salaries are st

Detroit engineer here. There may be a lot of openings around here as Detroit industry continues to modernize and the startup scene matures, but salaries are still lagging. Some of the large companies (autos, insurance, etc) will occasionally offer higher-paying gigs, but competition is fierce and interviewing (like everywhere) is a crap shoot. I'm currently contracting remotely with a company in the Los Angeles area, and I don't expect I'll be leaving remote work anytime soon. I expect my clients will be in LA, SF, and NY for the rest of my career.

bittermang 9y ago
Last time I was in Detroit the roads were the worst I'd ever seen. You couldn't even call them pot holes, they were just scars in the earth. For a place nicknamed The Motor City, it was a sad state of affairs. And that's the crux of it. It's not just the money, in fact it's never the money for me. It's a total quality of life scenario. Being across a bridge from Windsor Canada is cool, the Detroit museum is a great place, and the area has a great lineage for quality pizza. But Detroit itself is like a hostile environment to me, where I can't even travel around without risking breaking my vehicle literally in half. I'd have to me making great money there, just to pay upkeep on vehicle maintenance.
- commandlinefan 9y ago
  I grew up there. As bad as it might have been when you were there, you should try going in the wintertime. Orders of magnitude worse. You couldn't pay me enough to go back there.
  - ghaff 9y ago
    But, assuming you just hate winter/snow, you've just described the entire northern tier of the US that's not right on the West Coast. Which is of course your prerogative. I'm just not terribly sympathetic to arguments that life isn't livable outside of the Bay Area because of the weather.
    - tachyoff 9y ago
      I somewhat hate winter, but I like seasons; they give a nice tempo to life. Personally, I’d rather have snow than earthquakes, wildfires, mudslides, tornadoes, and hurricanes, which the rest of the country gets some combination of. Michigan, though? Maybe there’s a tornado in the hinterlands once in a while, but otherwise it’s just the occasional blizzard, and that’s hardly life-threatening for most. Plus, we’re surrounded by fresh water.
      - da_chicken 9y ago
        If you stay away from the west side of the state, you'll even avoid most lake effect snow.
    - microcolonel 9y ago
      > But, assuming you just hate winter/snow, you've just described the entire northern tier of the US that's not right on the West Coast. Which is of course your prerogative. I'm just not terribly sympathetic to arguments that life isn't livable outside of the Bay Area because of the weather. I think what he was getting at was that a northern winter makes the infrastructure problems considerably worse. Potholes big enough to bathe a toddler can be hidden by snow, and snowplows don't operate regularly and efficiently on roads where they are at serious risk of destroying an axle, wheel, or tire on any given day; and even if they could dodge the potholes, they couldn't clear the snow where it counts! If our road infrastructure here in Toronto, or my previous city, Calgary, were any more poorly maintained, winter could make life considerably harder for those who can't afford to travel by foot. I recently had a ride on what IIRC our ministry of transport has deemed the worst maintained road in the country, and it's better than 50% of the roads near Pittsburgh, and in my (old, 2011-2012-ish) experience, better than 80% of the roads in Detroit. I can not imagine snow on these roads making life any easier.
- tachyoff 9y ago
  To be fair, and I don’t know when you were last here, Detroit is somewhat slowly improving. Some of the roads are still terrible, but that’s Michigan in general (I have some friends in the suburbs, and when I visit them, I specifically avoid certain problematic roads that have left me asking if I permanently damaged my car). The real bugbear is insurance, which is a state policy issue (poor, white areas are starting to be hit by it too). My car insurance in the city is higher than my car payment (by about $100). Yes, it’s insane. I have good credit and I’m a good driver, but no-fault insurance and unlimited medical coverage makes it superbly expensive to insure Michiganders. If anything would make me move back to the suburbs, it’s actually the car insurance. Everything else I don’t really mind. Otherwise, you have to take Detroit for all it is, both its faults and its treasures. Yes, street flooding is a problem and the schools are still not great, but property is cheap and some neighborhoods are recovering. You can get a mansion for $500k to $800k (in SF you would get a shoe box). And if you want the cheapest, most delicious donuts you’ve ever had, swing by Dutch Girl on Woodward and Seven Mile. They’re open 24/7. It’s not for everyone, but it’s unique, and has 300 years of fascinating history. It’s not the war zone you see on the news either. Don’t write off Detroit just yet. :)
  - eckza 9y ago
    Definitely lost a fucking tire to a pothole yesterday morning at Fischer and Springwells at 30mph. I drive that road every day. Just happened to be in the wrong lane. (We are getting there... but we have a long way to go.)
- tropo 9y ago
  Suppose that The Motor City wanted to help the local car industry. Would they build roads that favor keeping a Honda Accord or Toyota Camry for 20 years, or would they build roads that require yearly purchase of a huge SUV or a full-size AWD pickup truck?
  - jdhn 9y ago
    Trust me, when it comes to road infrastructure, there is no conspiracy to help the Big 3. The amount of broken down vehicles that I see on the sides of the roads due to tire issues spans domestic & foreign brands. If there's a conspiracy, it's a conspiracy to benefit body shops and tire/rim manufacturers.
    - kdot 9y ago
      Michigan is have a somewhat state of emergency due to the poor road conditions, pot holes everywhere.
  - weirdkid 9y ago
    Or, it's the sandy base you get when geographically surrounded by water. Or, it's the laws that removed weight limits for the trucking industry. Or, it's the lack of funds in poor areas. Or, it's the extreme changes in temperature combined with high water tables and wet weather. Or, it's a combination of all the above.
    - smashingfiasco 9y ago
      It's a combination. Plus it seems like the region has replaced manufacturing with never-ending construction. I don't live in Detroit, I'm nearby in Toledo.
- CyberDildonics 9y ago
  Detroit is actually a pretty cool place in a lot of ways but the streets as you mentioned are absolutely terrible. On top of how torn up they are, there is practically no light on the street. A few dim street lights scatter much too far apart gives you major arteries where you can barely see anything. Then there is the fact that the actual design of the streets is terrible, with lots of odd mechanics you don't see anywhere else, one way streets, and the old 'michigan left' (turn right, then find a place to turn around.
- danans 9y ago
  > and the area has a great lineage for quality pizza What lineage are you referring to? Domino's and Little Caesars? (Both are headquartered in the area). They are perfectly edible, but I've never heard those described as representing a "quality pizza" lineage.
  - burkemw3 9y ago
    There is also [Detroit-style pizza][]. Buddy's is great. I've enjoyed Emmy Squared in NYC, and I'm looking to make one following the [Serious Eats guide][] sometime this year. [Detroit-style pizza]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit-style_pizza https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit-style_pizza [Serious Eats guide]: http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2017/02/detroit-style-pizza-recipe.html http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2017/02/detroit-style-piz...
  - segmondy 9y ago
    Detroit has great foods. For great places to eat, trust that you have never heard of them. Not nationwide chains. There are tons of random hole in the wall joint with amazing food. You just have to know them usually through luck or referral because you could walk past them many times and not know there's amazing food in there.
    - danans 9y ago
      I'm from the area, so I definitely know that there is great food there, from little local delis to the best middle eastern food in the US. I'm just not aware of a great local pizza tradition. And for me personally, Buddy's Detroit-style pizza (I grew up eating it) doesn't meet that standard.
jdhn 9y ago
Same goes for UX designers. Very few direct hire positions, and almost everything is a 6 to 12 month "contract to hire" that magically never turns into an actual position. Plus, I'd say that for every job that a company advertises, there's at least 5 or 6 recruiters who will post ads for that same exact job. Anecdotal story: I interviewed at a well known ad company here in the Metro Detroit area, and the recruiter let it slip that he had sent 16 people their way before me. While I'm sure that this guy was just throwing warm bodies at the position in hopes of earning a commission, it's kind of unbelievable that competition is that fierce here.
- oceanghost 9y ago
  The balls on some of the C2H people are amazing. I had been at a position for 10 years-- some CEO calls me and says my skillset would be PERFECT for his company, would I be interested in talking. We get into details, its C2H, I decline. He was absolutely incensed, he says, "well, its just to make sure you're a good culture fit!" To which I reply, "I'm not going to leave a stable job for what is essentially contract work." He was beyond pissed, I guess he was acclimated to dealing with idiots.
  - ryandrake 9y ago
    You likely dodged a bullet there. A CEO getting “beyond pissed” over what is essentially a business deal is weird. Does he also get beyond pissed when he loses a customer or when a deadline slips? Super red flag when a company rep (let alone the CEO) loses their cool during something as pedestrian as hiring!
    - oceanghost 9y ago
      Oh I know I did. If I'm PERFECT for the role-- why contract again? I'm not going to pull my trigger if you're not going to pull yours. These amateur [psycho|soicio]paths have no balls. A real psycho would have hired me then fired me. Basically, he is confident enough to lie to someone to hire them, but not confident enough to simply fire them when needed.
  - 9y ago
curiouscat321 9y ago
The salaries, sadly, are really lagging. I just graduated from UMich and I can name a small handful of people who stayed in the state. The vast majority of them moved out west. Even when you account for the lower COL, the salaries are just too low in the Detroit area. It’s getting better, but the area needs more real tech employers who value software engineers. The automotive companies still seem to treat them as cost centers.

bittermang 9y ago

Last time I was in Detroit the roads were the worst I'd ever seen. You couldn't even call them pot holes, they were just scars in the earth. For a place nicknamed The Motor City, it was a sad state of affairs. And that's the crux of it. It's not just the money, in fact it's never the money for me. It's a total quality of life scenario. Being across a bridge from Windsor Canada is cool, the Detroit museum is a great place, and the area has a great lineage for quality pizza. But Detroit itself is like a hostile environment to me, where I can't even travel around without risking breaking my vehicle literally in half. I'd have to me making great money there, just to pay upkeep on vehicle maintenance.

commandlinefan 9y ago
I grew up there. As bad as it might have been when you were there, you should try going in the wintertime. Orders of magnitude worse. You couldn't pay me enough to go back there.
- ghaff 9y ago
  But, assuming you just hate winter/snow, you've just described the entire northern tier of the US that's not right on the West Coast. Which is of course your prerogative. I'm just not terribly sympathetic to arguments that life isn't livable outside of the Bay Area because of the weather.
  - tachyoff 9y ago
    I somewhat hate winter, but I like seasons; they give a nice tempo to life. Personally, I’d rather have snow than earthquakes, wildfires, mudslides, tornadoes, and hurricanes, which the rest of the country gets some combination of. Michigan, though? Maybe there’s a tornado in the hinterlands once in a while, but otherwise it’s just the occasional blizzard, and that’s hardly life-threatening for most. Plus, we’re surrounded by fresh water.
    - da_chicken 9y ago
      If you stay away from the west side of the state, you'll even avoid most lake effect snow.
  - microcolonel 9y ago
    > But, assuming you just hate winter/snow, you've just described the entire northern tier of the US that's not right on the West Coast. Which is of course your prerogative. I'm just not terribly sympathetic to arguments that life isn't livable outside of the Bay Area because of the weather. I think what he was getting at was that a northern winter makes the infrastructure problems considerably worse. Potholes big enough to bathe a toddler can be hidden by snow, and snowplows don't operate regularly and efficiently on roads where they are at serious risk of destroying an axle, wheel, or tire on any given day; and even if they could dodge the potholes, they couldn't clear the snow where it counts! If our road infrastructure here in Toronto, or my previous city, Calgary, were any more poorly maintained, winter could make life considerably harder for those who can't afford to travel by foot. I recently had a ride on what IIRC our ministry of transport has deemed the worst maintained road in the country, and it's better than 50% of the roads near Pittsburgh, and in my (old, 2011-2012-ish) experience, better than 80% of the roads in Detroit. I can not imagine snow on these roads making life any easier.
tachyoff 9y ago
To be fair, and I don’t know when you were last here, Detroit is somewhat slowly improving. Some of the roads are still terrible, but that’s Michigan in general (I have some friends in the suburbs, and when I visit them, I specifically avoid certain problematic roads that have left me asking if I permanently damaged my car). The real bugbear is insurance, which is a state policy issue (poor, white areas are starting to be hit by it too). My car insurance in the city is higher than my car payment (by about $100). Yes, it’s insane. I have good credit and I’m a good driver, but no-fault insurance and unlimited medical coverage makes it superbly expensive to insure Michiganders. If anything would make me move back to the suburbs, it’s actually the car insurance. Everything else I don’t really mind. Otherwise, you have to take Detroit for all it is, both its faults and its treasures. Yes, street flooding is a problem and the schools are still not great, but property is cheap and some neighborhoods are recovering. You can get a mansion for $500k to $800k (in SF you would get a shoe box). And if you want the cheapest, most delicious donuts you’ve ever had, swing by Dutch Girl on Woodward and Seven Mile. They’re open 24/7. It’s not for everyone, but it’s unique, and has 300 years of fascinating history. It’s not the war zone you see on the news either. Don’t write off Detroit just yet. :)
- eckza 9y ago
  Definitely lost a fucking tire to a pothole yesterday morning at Fischer and Springwells at 30mph. I drive that road every day. Just happened to be in the wrong lane. (We are getting there... but we have a long way to go.)
tropo 9y ago
Suppose that The Motor City wanted to help the local car industry. Would they build roads that favor keeping a Honda Accord or Toyota Camry for 20 years, or would they build roads that require yearly purchase of a huge SUV or a full-size AWD pickup truck?
- jdhn 9y ago
  Trust me, when it comes to road infrastructure, there is no conspiracy to help the Big 3. The amount of broken down vehicles that I see on the sides of the roads due to tire issues spans domestic & foreign brands. If there's a conspiracy, it's a conspiracy to benefit body shops and tire/rim manufacturers.
  - kdot 9y ago
    Michigan is have a somewhat state of emergency due to the poor road conditions, pot holes everywhere.
- weirdkid 9y ago
  Or, it's the sandy base you get when geographically surrounded by water. Or, it's the laws that removed weight limits for the trucking industry. Or, it's the lack of funds in poor areas. Or, it's the extreme changes in temperature combined with high water tables and wet weather. Or, it's a combination of all the above.
  - smashingfiasco 9y ago
    It's a combination. Plus it seems like the region has replaced manufacturing with never-ending construction. I don't live in Detroit, I'm nearby in Toledo.
CyberDildonics 9y ago
Detroit is actually a pretty cool place in a lot of ways but the streets as you mentioned are absolutely terrible. On top of how torn up they are, there is practically no light on the street. A few dim street lights scatter much too far apart gives you major arteries where you can barely see anything. Then there is the fact that the actual design of the streets is terrible, with lots of odd mechanics you don't see anywhere else, one way streets, and the old 'michigan left' (turn right, then find a place to turn around.
danans 9y ago
> and the area has a great lineage for quality pizza What lineage are you referring to? Domino's and Little Caesars? (Both are headquartered in the area). They are perfectly edible, but I've never heard those described as representing a "quality pizza" lineage.
- burkemw3 9y ago
  There is also [Detroit-style pizza][]. Buddy's is great. I've enjoyed Emmy Squared in NYC, and I'm looking to make one following the [Serious Eats guide][] sometime this year. [Detroit-style pizza]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit-style_pizza https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit-style_pizza [Serious Eats guide]: http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2017/02/detroit-style-pizza-recipe.html http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2017/02/detroit-style-piz...
- segmondy 9y ago
  Detroit has great foods. For great places to eat, trust that you have never heard of them. Not nationwide chains. There are tons of random hole in the wall joint with amazing food. You just have to know them usually through luck or referral because you could walk past them many times and not know there's amazing food in there.
  - danans 9y ago
    I'm from the area, so I definitely know that there is great food there, from little local delis to the best middle eastern food in the US. I'm just not aware of a great local pizza tradition. And for me personally, Buddy's Detroit-style pizza (I grew up eating it) doesn't meet that standard.

jdhn 9y ago

Same goes for UX designers. Very few direct hire positions, and almost everything is a 6 to 12 month "contract to hire" that magically never turns into an actual position. Plus, I'd say that for every job that a company advertises, there's at least 5 or 6 recruiters who will post ads for that same exact job. Anecdotal story: I interviewed at a well known ad company here in the Metro Detroit area, and the recruiter let it slip that he had sent 16 people their way before me. While I'm sure that this guy was just throwing warm bodies at the position in hopes of earning a commission, it's kind of unbelievable that competition is that fierce here.

oceanghost 9y ago
The balls on some of the C2H people are amazing. I had been at a position for 10 years-- some CEO calls me and says my skillset would be PERFECT for his company, would I be interested in talking. We get into details, its C2H, I decline. He was absolutely incensed, he says, "well, its just to make sure you're a good culture fit!" To which I reply, "I'm not going to leave a stable job for what is essentially contract work." He was beyond pissed, I guess he was acclimated to dealing with idiots.
- ryandrake 9y ago
  You likely dodged a bullet there. A CEO getting “beyond pissed” over what is essentially a business deal is weird. Does he also get beyond pissed when he loses a customer or when a deadline slips? Super red flag when a company rep (let alone the CEO) loses their cool during something as pedestrian as hiring!
  - oceanghost 9y ago
    Oh I know I did. If I'm PERFECT for the role-- why contract again? I'm not going to pull my trigger if you're not going to pull yours. These amateur [psycho|soicio]paths have no balls. A real psycho would have hired me then fired me. Basically, he is confident enough to lie to someone to hire them, but not confident enough to simply fire them when needed.
- 9y ago

curiouscat321 9y ago

The salaries, sadly, are really lagging. I just graduated from UMich and I can name a small handful of people who stayed in the state. The vast majority of them moved out west. Even when you account for the lower COL, the salaries are just too low in the Detroit area. It’s getting better, but the area needs more real tech employers who value software engineers. The automotive companies still seem to treat them as cost centers.