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Key word being Boston-"area" I think Boston is often taken to be a very large geographic area. For example, PillPack (one of the flagship examples in this arti

by throwaway2016a 8y ago

Key word being Boston-"area" I think Boston is often taken to be a very large geographic area. For example, PillPack (one of the flagship examples in this article) was actually founded -- and still headquartered I think -- in New Hampshire. But to put that in perspective, Manchester and Nashua New Hampshire (the two largest cities in the state) are both less than an hour drive from Boston. To be fair PullPack does have a Boston presence as well but I feel I need to point it out because I don't think New Hampshire often gets enough credit. It has a disproportionately high tech population for a state its size. I also don't think Boston gets enough credit. The shear amount of innovation and academia happening in Boston and Cambridge, MA is astounding.

sp332 8y ago
Manchester Airport renamed to "Manchester-Boston Regional Airport" so travel agents/websites would list them when people were traveling to Boston. Back when Logan Airport was really bad, you could plausibly arrive at MHT and drive to Boston faster than flying in to BOS and waiting for your luggage.
- bamboo_7 8y ago
  Yeah that was also back when Southwest wasn't at Logan but wanted to advertise that they had the lowest fairs "in the Boston area".
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
cowsandmilk 8y ago
PillPack started by two people meeting at a hackathon at MIT and the company's headquarters were in Davis Square in Somerville. They have a large operation in New Hampshire, but the positions there always seemed to be related to shipping and preparation of prescriptions (i.e. pharmacists, data entry techs) vs. the engineering, designing, HR positions in Boston.
- throwaway2016a 8y ago
  Thank you for the insight. I tried to do some research before my post but exact details of what the New Hampshire / Boston breakdown are is a little hard to find.
- mackey 8y ago
  Pillpack moved out of Davis last year, into a new office also in somerville. https://www.americaninno.com/boston/office-envy/office-envy-inside-pillpacks-new-vintage-style-somerville-hq-which-has-a-full-bar/ https://www.americaninno.com/boston/office-envy/office-envy-...
megaman22 8y ago
The Portsmouth area is really booming the last few years. It's starting to get a little bit of a Bay Area style housing/infrastructure crisis brewing as well, albeit on a much smaller scale. But house prices are up significantly over just the past three years, and rents are worse. So many offices have gone into the former Pease Air Force that traffic is starting to be a real problem, compounded by the the never-ending construction on the Spaulding Turnpike bridges north out of Portsmouth. It's not the sexiest tech company, but Liberty Mutual has a huge presence in the area and employs a significant number of people in IT.
- anon2346 8y ago
  I thought I read Liberty Mutual actually started a major layoff of their IT people the seacoast area (shortly after they advertised many IT job openings). Even people outside of IT were affected. I know of a business analyst who was given the option to take a code boot camp, or lose their job. From what I heard, many people in IT were given this option.
  - tclancy 8y ago
    That’s correct.
  - chris11 8y ago
    Replacing some of your experienced IT staff with bootcamp grads seems like a really short-sighted idea.
  - megaman22 8y ago
    From what I understand, they are making a big shift towards a more devops-y process, so I can believe that a lot of the more traditional IT roles are not emphasized as much. I can't say I've noticed an increase in the number of job postings, but there's always been a ton of open positions at Liberty, at least for the last six or seven years I've been around the area.
  - lardo 8y ago
    They did this to all of their BAs.
asmithmd1 8y ago
It is not arbitrary to include Nashua and Manchester NH in Boston statistics since those cities are included in the Boston Combined Statistical Area as defined by the US Census: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Boston#Combined_Statistical_Area_(CSA) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Boston#Combined_Statis...
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  Much to the chagrin of anyone who lives on the free side of the NH line
  - sgt101 8y ago
    some local politics? I am very curious please could you explain for an "English"?
    - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
      Northern New England hates southern New England, particularly Massachusetts (aka Taxachusetts) and the Boston area. The dislike between New Hampshire and Maine vs Boston is particularly strong because rich people in the Boston area tend to buy vacation homes in the former two, move their permanently when they want to retire and bring their politics with them. Lumping part of New Hampshire in with Boston is like lumping Northern Ireland in with London. One side considers it a horrible insult and the other doesn't see why you wouldn't want to be associated with them. Historically (like since the 1600s) southern New England has been a far more controlling and paternalistic society than Northern New England hence the north side of the MA/NH line being the "free" side.
      - pivo 8y ago
        > One side considers it a horrible insult and the other doesn't see why you wouldn't want to be associated with them. It's worse than that. I've lived in Boston for 30 years and was unaware that this animosity even existed. I have had many nice vacations in Northern New England and have friends, relatives and colleagues in NH and Vermont and I have yet to hear any serious anti-Boston sentiment uttered by any of these people (aside from their hatred of our traffic, which I share.)
DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
Also, sometimes I see job openings, etc. to the west of Boston (Natick and Worcester in particular) that make me wonder if that region has more going on than most realize.
- ghaff 8y ago
  Boston long had and still has many computer industry companies outside the city, especially in the Western suburbs. Maybe 25 years or so ago, there was essentially no tech of note within the city limits. It was mostly along Toute 128 and 495.
- colanderman 8y ago
  The route 128 and 495 corridor is where people with cars find tech jobs. A lot of established tech companies in that area. EMC, Bose, iRobot, a bunch more I drive by all the time that I can't remember off the top of my head.
jpindar 8y ago
>Manchester and Nashua New Hampshire (the two largest cities in the state) are both less than an hour drive from Boston. I know Google says it's an hour from Manchester to Boston, but that must be in the middle of the night.
- joemi 8y ago
  Doesn't have to be middle of night. But you definitely can't do it that quickly during rush hour. Also depends on where exactly you're going and just how deep in the city it is, since the in-the-city traffic can really slow down your trip.
amyjess 8y ago
> I think Boston is often taken to be a very large geographic area. Indeed. This is the Boston—Cambridge—Newton Metropolitan Statistical Area: http://zaidan-x.org:8192/highlight/cbsa/14460/states/counties http://zaidan-x.org:8192/highlight/cbsa/14460/states/countie... Or if you prefer a more fine-grained approach, the Boston—Cambridge—Nashua Metropolitan NECTA: http://zaidan-x.org:8192/highlight/necta/71650/states/subdivisions http://zaidan-x.org:8192/highlight/necta/71650/states/subdiv... Either way you cut it, both are huge. And the CSA/CNECTA is even bigger (the CNECTA in particular is one of only two OMB-defined regions in the US that span five states or state-equivalents, the other being DC's CSA). (edit: I do apologize for the HTTP links. I've been meaning to set up Let's Encrypt for a while, but I haven't gotten around to it)

sp332 8y ago

Manchester Airport renamed to "Manchester-Boston Regional Airport" so travel agents/websites would list them when people were traveling to Boston. Back when Logan Airport was really bad, you could plausibly arrive at MHT and drive to Boston faster than flying in to BOS and waiting for your luggage.

bamboo_7 8y ago
Yeah that was also back when Southwest wasn't at Logan but wanted to advertise that they had the lowest fairs "in the Boston area".

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

cowsandmilk 8y ago

PillPack started by two people meeting at a hackathon at MIT and the company's headquarters were in Davis Square in Somerville. They have a large operation in New Hampshire, but the positions there always seemed to be related to shipping and preparation of prescriptions (i.e. pharmacists, data entry techs) vs. the engineering, designing, HR positions in Boston.

throwaway2016a 8y ago
Thank you for the insight. I tried to do some research before my post but exact details of what the New Hampshire / Boston breakdown are is a little hard to find.
mackey 8y ago
Pillpack moved out of Davis last year, into a new office also in somerville. https://www.americaninno.com/boston/office-envy/office-envy-inside-pillpacks-new-vintage-style-somerville-hq-which-has-a-full-bar/ https://www.americaninno.com/boston/office-envy/office-envy-...

megaman22 8y ago

The Portsmouth area is really booming the last few years. It's starting to get a little bit of a Bay Area style housing/infrastructure crisis brewing as well, albeit on a much smaller scale. But house prices are up significantly over just the past three years, and rents are worse. So many offices have gone into the former Pease Air Force that traffic is starting to be a real problem, compounded by the the never-ending construction on the Spaulding Turnpike bridges north out of Portsmouth. It's not the sexiest tech company, but Liberty Mutual has a huge presence in the area and employs a significant number of people in IT.

anon2346 8y ago
I thought I read Liberty Mutual actually started a major layoff of their IT people the seacoast area (shortly after they advertised many IT job openings). Even people outside of IT were affected. I know of a business analyst who was given the option to take a code boot camp, or lose their job. From what I heard, many people in IT were given this option.
- tclancy 8y ago
  That’s correct.
- chris11 8y ago
  Replacing some of your experienced IT staff with bootcamp grads seems like a really short-sighted idea.
- megaman22 8y ago
  From what I understand, they are making a big shift towards a more devops-y process, so I can believe that a lot of the more traditional IT roles are not emphasized as much. I can't say I've noticed an increase in the number of job postings, but there's always been a ton of open positions at Liberty, at least for the last six or seven years I've been around the area.
- lardo 8y ago
  They did this to all of their BAs.

asmithmd1 8y ago

It is not arbitrary to include Nashua and Manchester NH in Boston statistics since those cities are included in the Boston Combined Statistical Area as defined by the US Census: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Boston#Combined_Statistical_Area_(CSA) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Boston#Combined_Statis...

dsfyu404ed 8y ago
Much to the chagrin of anyone who lives on the free side of the NH line
- sgt101 8y ago
  some local politics? I am very curious please could you explain for an "English"?
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    Northern New England hates southern New England, particularly Massachusetts (aka Taxachusetts) and the Boston area. The dislike between New Hampshire and Maine vs Boston is particularly strong because rich people in the Boston area tend to buy vacation homes in the former two, move their permanently when they want to retire and bring their politics with them. Lumping part of New Hampshire in with Boston is like lumping Northern Ireland in with London. One side considers it a horrible insult and the other doesn't see why you wouldn't want to be associated with them. Historically (like since the 1600s) southern New England has been a far more controlling and paternalistic society than Northern New England hence the north side of the MA/NH line being the "free" side.
    - pivo 8y ago
      > One side considers it a horrible insult and the other doesn't see why you wouldn't want to be associated with them. It's worse than that. I've lived in Boston for 30 years and was unaware that this animosity even existed. I have had many nice vacations in Northern New England and have friends, relatives and colleagues in NH and Vermont and I have yet to hear any serious anti-Boston sentiment uttered by any of these people (aside from their hatred of our traffic, which I share.)

DoofusOfDeath 8y ago

Also, sometimes I see job openings, etc. to the west of Boston (Natick and Worcester in particular) that make me wonder if that region has more going on than most realize.

ghaff 8y ago
Boston long had and still has many computer industry companies outside the city, especially in the Western suburbs. Maybe 25 years or so ago, there was essentially no tech of note within the city limits. It was mostly along Toute 128 and 495.
colanderman 8y ago
The route 128 and 495 corridor is where people with cars find tech jobs. A lot of established tech companies in that area. EMC, Bose, iRobot, a bunch more I drive by all the time that I can't remember off the top of my head.

jpindar 8y ago

>Manchester and Nashua New Hampshire (the two largest cities in the state) are both less than an hour drive from Boston. I know Google says it's an hour from Manchester to Boston, but that must be in the middle of the night.

joemi 8y ago
Doesn't have to be middle of night. But you definitely can't do it that quickly during rush hour. Also depends on where exactly you're going and just how deep in the city it is, since the in-the-city traffic can really slow down your trip.

amyjess 8y ago

> I think Boston is often taken to be a very large geographic area. Indeed. This is the Boston—Cambridge—Newton Metropolitan Statistical Area: http://zaidan-x.org:8192/highlight/cbsa/14460/states/counties http://zaidan-x.org:8192/highlight/cbsa/14460/states/countie... Or if you prefer a more fine-grained approach, the Boston—Cambridge—Nashua Metropolitan NECTA: http://zaidan-x.org:8192/highlight/necta/71650/states/subdivisions http://zaidan-x.org:8192/highlight/necta/71650/states/subdiv... Either way you cut it, both are huge. And the CSA/CNECTA is even bigger (the CNECTA in particular is one of only two OMB-defined regions in the US that span five states or state-equivalents, the other being DC's CSA). (edit: I do apologize for the HTTP links. I've been meaning to set up Let's Encrypt for a while, but I haven't gotten around to it)