I still feel like Chicago developers miss out on being exposed to the culture of SV or Seattle. I've worked and lived in Chicago all of my professional career,

I still feel like Chicago developers miss out on being exposed to the culture of SV or Seattle. I've worked and lived in Chicago all of my professional career, and one of the intangible non-money aspects to this field to consider is how you grow as an engineer. If you love writing software, this isn't a very good place to work compared to SV/Seattle. There just isn't a very large or strong culture of software development here like there is in those cities. Also the tech scene here feels super small and tight knit. If you work for a startup here its hard to interview or talk to people outside your company without somebody knowing somebody from XYZ company who can get the inside digs on you. That's been fine for me in my career, because I think I'm a decent performer, but it makes things awkward when you want to move on.