Hiring for tech jobs has increased more than 100% in these Midwestern cities

https://www.purpose.jobs/blog/hiring-tech-jobs-has-increased-in-midwestern-cities

by KaiserSanchez • 6 years ago

119 290 6 years ago

purpose.jobs

Fiahil• 6 years ago

Their data only covers 2010 to 2018. It's not related to the pandemic.

nirav72• 6 years ago

Surprisingly the pandemic has had very little impact on IT dev jobs here in the Midwest.

blakesterz• 6 years ago

I'm not quite sure on the reliability of this site, but assuming it's reliable...

"And, as icing on the cake, seven of the top 10 most affordable states in the nation are in the Midwest."

Name any big city you've heard of in the Midwest, and it's on the list. Chicago, Detroit, and so on. The list is, for the most part, "rust belt" cities that are all doing pretty well these days.

I'd say the one thing they all have working against them is weather. I'm in Buffalo, and I can see why folks flock to SoCal and places with better weather. Winter can be a real drag sometimes. Working from home makes it much more bearable, commuting in a snow storm can be really rough, dangerous and even deadly.

encorekt2• 6 years ago

That's not wrong, but as a Midwesterner, I think you also have people have legitimately enjoy experiencing all four seasons. And in cities with good public transit systems (like Chicago and Minneapolis) the damper of driving in crappy weather isn't as present.

dahfizz• 6 years ago

As a new englander, I can confirm that it's really nice to have weather and seasons. It would be boring if every day all year was the same.

nightski• 6 years ago

Agreed, winter has its hardships but having lived in the south I'd never give up winter, fall, and spring ever again. Winter is my second favorite season after fall.

asdff9• 6 years ago

When I moved from the midwest to southern california, everyone told me I would get bored of the lack of seasons. What a load of crock. There are seasons here and they are quite distinct.

The summer is dry and hot, but it's much more pleasant being out and about in 95* weather with no humidity than 85* after a july thunderstorm in the midwest with humidity you can cut with a knife. I only sweat when I do cardio, whereas in the midwest you could be drenched in sweat sitting in the shade in that humidity.

The fall still happens, you can still drive 45 minutes to an apple orchard and see beautiful fall scenery and get your pumpkins and pick your apples, because there are massive mountain ranges nearby. Winter weather here is perfect fall weather everywhere else. 60-70 degrees by day and light jacket and jeans weather by night.

Winter is also the rainy season, so you will see some dramatic storms and very interesting fog and mist, and the hills will turn to emerald green while the midwest enters its 6 months of brown mud, salt, and dirty snow phase.

Things are in bloom all year at different times, but the spring brings on the jacaranda season, and the region erupts into purple. I've never seen a more glorious spring.

As a former midwestern transit user, crappy weather doesn't go away once you are on transit. You still have to hoof it through the snow to and from your stop and wait for the vehicle which is far worse than driving door to door and spending maybe 30 seconds on each end outside. The vehicles aren't adequately heated. Plus no one ever plowed the sidewalks in the morning, so you are blazing your own trail through the slush, getting your feet wet if you weren't prepared with Sorels.

phkahler• 6 years ago

You gotta get away from that lake-effect snow. Detroit area winters dont get that, but the western half of the state does. Chicago and Wisconsin are colder but offer clearer skies in the winter, as moisture and heat are picked up from the water as the weather moves west to east.

qualitydrew• 6 years ago

Former Buffalo resident in Colorado right now - I've been attracted back to the area due to climate change for the most part. The Great Lakes are the one part of the country that will get (relatively) more habitable in the next ~100 years [0]. Even today, I'd happily trade 6 months of snow and clouds for breathable air year-round.

[0] https://projects.propublica.org/climate-migration/

castratikron• 6 years ago

Stats are from 2018, any idea what the trend has been in the last six months? Are a significant amount of workers truly leaving places like SF and NYC for a cheaper place in the Midwest?

mox1• 6 years ago

From what I have read a lot of the movement during COVID has been from major metro are to nearby smaller city.

For example in my midwestern city (Minneapolis) there was a recent article in the paper about home prices in a smaller (but touristy / historic )town ~2 hours away (Duluth,MN). The claim was a lot of people from Minneapolis were moving there.

I've read the same about SF residents moving to Sacramento or something like that.

You can work from home, still hit the office 1-4x a month, see family, etc. so it makes sense.

user59944612• 6 years ago

Yes. Droves of workers who got laid off and graduates who can't find a job. It's impossible to remain in the tech hubs without a job given how incredibly expensive the rent is. The average HN commenters at a comfortable FANG really don't grasp how bad the situation is for the rest of the people.

gonehome• 6 years ago

Even many of those at a comfortable FANG still live with roommates in shared housing and have no hope of buying a house on the peninsula where the median price is approaching $3M.

The anti-housing people are mostly locals that bought their house for $300k 20yrs ago and pay no property tax on its new value due to prop13.

claudiulodro• 6 years ago

For people that work in any of these cities, how have you been enjoying it? What sort of tech companies are around? What do the job interviews and salaries out there look like?

slimed• 6 years ago

Interviews are really tough. Salaries are awful.

Seriously. Please stay in your coastal enclave. It's terrible here :)

RobRivera• 6 years ago

Don't forget the terrible bbq and crowded traffic and Ferris Buehler's crashing all the parades!

rubidium3• 6 years ago

For programmers in Indianapolis, there's numerous opportunities. Salesforce has helped advance the salary curve.

Job interviews are pretty straightforward. Nothing like the FAANG grind. Salaries are $80K fresh out of college. Surpassing $200k is doable at places like Salesforce, Eli Lilly, etc..

Lots of "routine" programming jobs are in the $100-$140k range going from Senior to Staff. Higher levels of IC and management of course go up from there.

A nice house costs $200k.

pb75• 6 years ago

Can you link to a nice house as a reference?

whimsicalism4• 6 years ago

Salaries are $80K fresh out of college.

I think this is changing (for the higher) in some low cost of living areas (although I can't speak for the midwest) as tech talent moves out of SF. My good friend just got a $120k offer for a pretty "routine" new grad job.

e: for clarity

geogra42• 6 years ago

similar here in detroit but anything above 140k is going to be extremely rare. You probably would have to have some serious negotiation power/leverage to be able to get that.

throwaway713• 6 years ago

The problem is the compensation ceiling in these cities. It’s not the Midwest, but when I was searching in Atlanta for tech jobs to stay closer to family, the upper limit was about $150k, which I think was at Square. There are other non-tech companies that offer SWE positions (The Home Depot, Warner Media), but you will always be treated as a cost center and the career growth is limited.

Meanwhile, SWE comp at FANG can end up closer to $350k for senior engineers and $600k for staff positions. With a lot of these companies now offering permanent remote work, even a 50% pay cut is better than the local offerings.

encorekt2• 6 years ago

I think it runs the gambit, but for sure medical, biotech, and ag companies are huge. One of the biggest and fastest growths we've seen in Madison (even if we weren't cool enough to make the list) is Exact Sciences -- a company that provides and tests mail-in poop kits to test for early signs of colon cancer.

DavidPeiffer• 6 years ago

Not working at a tech company, but I live in the Des Moines area. I bet most people don't realize Des Moines is a finance and insurance hub, with Wells Fargo as the largest employer, Principal Financial headquartered here, and numerous other insurance companies.

The cost of living is quite low, and it's routinely ranked very highly on the "good places to live" lists that pop up periodically.

Mc91• 6 years ago

Last year I was lured from New York City to one of the US's big 25 metro areas, not in the Midwest.

In New York, I would go to topic-focused programming meetups at Facebook's NYC headquarters and there would be over 200 people there, meeting after meeting. There's nothing like that here. The local university has some tech meetups, and there are some in the city center, but they look nothing like in New York. Due to Covid, I have not gone to any (and they seem to be cancelled any how).

Right now here, there are a handful of job openings that I am well-qualified for, but I can count them on one hand. In New York there are more job openings I could go in for. It's one of the biggest drawbacks in terms of a long term future here.

I have friends in the Phoenix metro area. The Phoenix metro area is larger than the Bay area metro area population wise, but the tech scene is smaller, and it small enough that everyone seems to know each other.

One nice thing in 2000 is as the dot-coms imploded, the job market in New York was not as heavily impacted as the Bay Area market. I started 2000 working for a startup that had IPO'd and ended it working for an investment bank. My salary was bumped up slightly, whereas some more junior people I knew in the Bay Area were laid off as their startups went bust and had trouble finding jobs out there as the market was flooded with junior or even mid-level talent.

I do know good, senior people who are tied to this area for one reason or another, who have moved around the handful of companies that are here. There are only a few big companies here employing a lot of programmers, so just like Phoenix, everybody seems to know each other here. When people are unhappy at my company, they contact former co-workers who moved to one of the other big companies and get pulled into their teams at their companies.

There aren't many "tech" companies, you're working for a Fortune 1000 company in their IT department usually here. Or a smaller company, although startup funding is not fantastic here.

I am not capable of senior level pay on my current stack yet, and a nice, large apartment in a nice, convenient neighborhood is cheaper than in NYC (although not incredibly cheaper). So I don't have much to complain on the salary front. But as it stands, there are less openings on the job market locally, and as I become more senior, it might even feel more constrained. Local companies have trouble attracting and retaining senior talent, and there is a reason for that. My company has been changing compensations rates around and making other changes in order to lure more talent.

Primarily due to the smaller number of job openings locally I don't see much of a long term future here outside of my current company. If I ever decide to look around, it will probably be in New York City or in the Bay Area. And my reasons for going back to New York City would include personal ones. Although one very good young programmer I know said he would prefer New York over San Francisco as he thinks New York would have more of a nightlife etc.

davio• 6 years ago

In St. Louis, almost all of the engineers working for me in the past 5 years have had total comp between 100 and 170. New grads were in 60-80 range, but I think one or two job changes should have you at 100 in your first 3-5 years.

35fbe7d3d5b93• 6 years ago

(Obvious throwaway ;-))

I live & work in one of these cities and have my entire career. I currently work in a midsized tech company but my experiences and numbers hold with my previous work at a non-tech enterprise.

In general, the numbers I see:

* Individual contributor salaries range from 80k to 120k, with a bonus structure from 6%-8% annually.

* Upper-tier ICs and people managers tend to be around 110k-145k with 8-10% bonuses

Currently as a principal engineer I make ~$165k with a 12% annual bonus target. Previously as an enterprise architect I was on around ~$155k with a 15% bonus. A friend at a senior director level is around $185k and I'm not sure about the bonus but I know it is 15%+.

There are a variety of tech companies in the area, but many jobs are tech jobs at a "non-tech company": banking, insurance, healthcare, manufacturing. Even then, don't underestimate the size and scope of what is done; my last job had an IT department of around 200 and was responsible for running a ton of complex systems.

You'll probably skew towards midsized companies to large enterprises. While there are some regional startup incubators you just don't have the same access to capital that you do in the Bay area.

It's ludicrously affordable to live here:

https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/43-Fairfie...

I could find a similar home for around $75k.

There's plenty of cultural activities, dining, nightlife - I couldn't be happier.

The biggest risk is likely the limited amount of "slots at the top": there are probably at most a few dozen top-tier positions to fill in this market, so job changes have to be carefully considered and planned.

wackk• 6 years ago

Not a typical situation, but I work at a FAANG office that's located in the midwest (I grew up here, so it's all I know culture-wise). The salary is great (paid similar to non-bayarea west coast), but the job interview was the same process as with the coasts and there were a lot of good and experienced applicants per position since this is one of the best-paying opportunities here.

Personally, I strongly prefer this to the hustle and bustle of the big and expensive cities - that's my preference though, and I know that it's not for everyone.

curiousllama5• 6 years ago

Chicago is vibrant (lots of restaurants, theaters, etc), easy to get around (great, safe transit and often dense neighborhoods), and cheapish (really solid places to live for just about any budget >$700/month).

This article is misleading about tech jobs, though. They're tech roles at non-tech companies. Even our local unicorns are companies like ShipBob (great co, to be clear, just not that _sexy_).

Sindrome• 6 years ago

No thanks

chrisco255• 6 years ago

How does this increase compare with other regions?

bradlys• 6 years ago

And importantly, how does this increase compare with the amount of engineers available?

It’s all fine and dandy to say there have been cities where “tech jobs has increased more than 100% in these cities” but it says nothing of the labor market. I am under the presumption that labor is exploding for software/tech.

My biggest reason for not moving to non-tech hubs is the lack of companies employing engineers. There are only so many, whereas in the Bay... you could make interviewing your full time job and likely never run out.

swashboon3• 6 years ago

I worked with two developers in Boston who were DINK (Double Income No Kids) and they sold their Boston condo, moved to the Midwest (Minneapolis) and bought a six bedroom house on a lake and two jet-skis for the same price as their condo. Their cost of living went down tremendously. By their own standards they lost nothing compared to Boston (food/services/entertainment actually got better) except that they had to deal with people on the Coast saying how boring it must be - scratch that - they weren't listening because they were having to much fun on their jet-skis...

jrockway• 6 years ago

Not that winter in Boston is particularly pleasant, but I feel like the jetskis are going to be a lot less fun when it's -40 out.

samschooler• 6 years ago

Trade out jetskis for snowmobiles my friend

myself2482• 6 years ago

Jetskis in summer, snowmobiles in winter.

Bass boat in the summer, ice-fishing shanty in winter.

Hiking in summer, hiking wearing more layers in winter.

We do just fine. :)

vdnkh• 6 years ago

This is a very consumerist world view (get big house, get fun toys) that not everyone believes in. I choose to live in a more vibrant city where I essentially trade my money for opportunity, experiences, and community.

oblongx• 6 years ago

to each their own I suppose

mountainb• 6 years ago

Versus the highly spiritual experience of living in the pod, eating the bugs, paying the $4,500 every month to the landlord of the one bedroom, answering e-mails at 11:24 pm to be able to pay for it etc.

toomuchtodo• 6 years ago

They could have also sunk all of the equity into index funds, and done the digital nomad thing [1], using investment income to boost quality of life.

I believe the point is, don't waste income on servicing housing debt unnecessarily (efficient use of capital). If jet skis and McMansions are your thing, cool. If you'd rather party it up in Medellín, Columbia while living off of dividends, also cool.

[1] https://nomadlist.com/cost-of-living/in/

iancmceachern• 6 years ago

And weather where you can enjoy the outdoors more than 3 months a year.

nip180• 6 years ago

Minneapolis would have significantly different opportunities, experiences, and communities than Boston. I’m not sure I’d declare one over the other. In this example having the opportunity to spend a lot of time on or by the lake would be highly desirable, not directly consumerist, and more available in Minneapolis than Boston.

cvhashim2• 6 years ago

Agreed. But on the other hand, we live in a connected and distributed world. You could always meet new people and colleagues through virtual networking events, virtual hackathons, even niche subreddits/HN/indiehackers etc.

BurningFrog• 6 years ago

What do people mean when they say a city is "vibrant"?

swashboon3• 6 years ago

They were on track to be retired by the time they turned 40 by for the most part having very high incomes and very low overhead - they were planning on spending much more time on experiences then they were able to before.

konjin3• 6 years ago

This is a very consumerist world view (get opportunity and experiences) that not everyone believes in. I choose to live frugally so I can drop jobs when I find projects that interest me more than whatever I'm doing at the time.

For example I have spent the last week reading a very interesting book on transcendental number theory which is completely pointless for any job but has given me a lot more satisfaction than trying the latest ethnic fusion $500 a plate cuisine my peers seem to go insane over. Were it not for forest fires I would have moved to the mountains since sci-hub has made university libraries largely pointless.

scudd• 6 years ago

I think many people can resonate with the desire for more physical space than afforded by a city condo. To describe it as "consumerist" seems a little excessive. The ease of access to nature is another huge plus of getting outside the city

dogman14410• 6 years ago

Those 3 tend to have diminishing returns past 35/40, which is around the time lifestyle concerns that more trend towards safety (financial and otherwise) and stability start mattering much, much more.

It's like the professional equivalent of finally owning a paid-off car and realizing what a difference it all makes.

A nuked mortgage by a tech salary, a home with an extra bedroom that can support your ailing parents who lost their retirements in '08 and then again in '20, a stable school system that balances non-urban but also not bible belt, and the concept of actually being able to save up nearly full college for 3 kids.... all lives in midwestern tech jobs. Of course there are some cultural tradeoffs the less Minneapolis/Chicago and the more Boise/Des Moines you get, but it's a spectrum that's worth considering.

ericye16• 6 years ago

What do two developers who are DINK need 6 bedrooms for? Genuinely curious.

stagger87• 6 years ago

Who said they needed 6 bedrooms?

swashboon3• 6 years ago

they each had home offices and they were "centrally" located for family gatherings. mostly they just wanted the location.

user59944612• 6 years ago

1 bedroom for them + 2 bedrooms for the future kids + 2 rooms for office/storage/miscellaneous.

It's really not hard to find use for rooms.

leetcrew• 6 years ago

I don't think DINK implies a lack of desire for children, rather the current state of not having any (and consequently a large amount of disposable income).

in my experience, people with large incomes often have more rooms in their house than they actually need for day-to-day life. sometimes it's just a flex, but often they expect to host their extended family and/or friends (and even their families) over the holidays. nobody needs a second kitchen and four extra bedrooms, but it does make bringing the whole family together under one roof a lot less tense.

nunez2• 6 years ago

1 bedroom for themselves, 2 offices, 3 cat rooms, one spare

tzs• 6 years ago

I live alone and managed to find uses for 3, and I sleep on a couch in the living room, so am not using a bedroom for a bed. If I slept on a bed, I'd be able to make use of 4 bedrooms.

One is an exercise room. It's the first photo here [1].

The one in the second photo is the electronics and music room. Table on the left for my electronics stuff, and piano on the right (and guitars out of frame on the right, along with a bookshelf full of music books).

Third bedroom is the library, covered by the next two photos. 10 bookshelves.

I could easily see two developers use 6 bedrooms. 1 for sleeping, 1 for a library, 1 for exercise, 1 for a join hobby for interest, and 1 for each for a hobby or interest that the other doesn't share...and that's without even considering using a bedroom as a dedicated office for working from home.

[1] https://imgur.com/a/lVmMv86

danans• 6 years ago

I get what you're saying, but even though I also think that's a ridiculous amount of space for two people without kids, plenty of people's purchase decisions are based on factors beyond the functional.

Some people like feeling of living in a palace. We have after all for millennia equated living in huge spaces with class and prosperity, and The industrial age, especially in last 30 years, has enabled more people than ever to live in palaces.

Of course, heating a six bedroom palace in Minnesota is no joke.

pavlov2• 6 years ago

Why does a childless couple need six bedrooms? They must have a lot of guests coming to Minneapolis.

lwhalen• 6 years ago

Last time I checked, this country wasn't "to each according to their need". They wanted it, they could afford it, so they went out and got it :-)

hardwaregeek3• 6 years ago

I'm skeptical that the food/services/entertainment is actually better. What's the Asian food scene in Minneapolis? Can you get Sichuan, Hunan, Henan, and Yunnan or is it just that one Sichuan place?

How about the movie theaters or theaters? I went from New York to Seattle and finding a theater that showed non-blockbusters was really hard. When I did find one, they were always three months behind New York. If I wanted to watch, say, Parasite, when could I do that? Four, five months after New York?

There's definitely some appeal to Minneapolis. You can't rent a jetski in New York and you certainly can't afford a mansion. But you also can't watch the latest Palm D'Or and get Yunnan noodles in Minneapolis.

strictnein3• 6 years ago

There are well known theaters in Minneapolis that focus on indie films.

The restaurant scene regularly wins James Beard awards.

Asian food seems to lean more Korean, Vietnamese (possibly from the large Hmong population in the state), and Thai.

Also, it would be hard to sound more pretentious.

renewiltord• 6 years ago

Well, I think that's just a mismatch in your desire vectors. A couple I know moved to Austin and the guy visited me recently in SF. He was just so happy to be able to eat all the Asian food here. I'm like him as well: I'd like a variety of cuisine that is actually simply not available in most places in America. I also want to be close to major airports, live in a highly ethnically diverse place, the ocean, and a general non-authoritarian vibe. If I lived in the Midwest I'm probably not going to be hyper thrilled.

My genuine hope is that people who don't want the things I do go to places where they're happy. Jobs being located where I want to live actually harms my overall QoL.

Anyway, I hope the dot product of feature availability and desire rise for places that are not San Francisco.

curiousllama5• 6 years ago

For those jealous: they probably could use their jetskis from mid June to the late August, and stored them the rest of the year.

Minnesota is cold.

ryathal2• 6 years ago

Then you just switch to snowmobiles...

throwaway0a5e• 6 years ago

I worked with two developers in Boston who were DINK (Double Income No Kids) and they sold their Boston condo, moved to the Midwest (Minneapolis) and bought a six bedroom house on a lake and two jet-skis for the same price as their condo. Their cost of living went down tremendously. By their own standards they lost nothing compared to Boston (food/services/entertainment actually got better) except that they had to deal with people on the Coast saying how boring it must be.

Not understanding that other people might not want to live exactly the way you do is probably the most stereotypical Massachusetts thing ever.

rezeroed2• 6 years ago

Off-topic - for any other non-Americans wondering why this eastern area is considered western: "The term West was applied to the region in the early years of the country. In the early 19th century, anything west of Appalachia was considered the West"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midwestern_United_States#Backg...

AnimalMuppet2• 6 years ago

Right, but news flash: It's not 1840 any more. Chicago isn't the frontier. Chicago and anywhere east of there is east.

... at least geographically. Culturally, those places are midwest, just like everywhere from just west of Pittsburgh to just east of Denver. (Culturally, Pittsburgh is at least partly east, and Denver is at least partly west.)

rezeroed2• 6 years ago

You're news-flashing me? I know what east and west are, hence the explanation for a name that currently makes no sense.

dexwiz4• 6 years ago

Moved from the Midwest to the Bay Area, and tech comes in two forms: IT departments at major industrial firms (manufacturing, chemical, pharma, etc), or companies that are eventually bought by West Coast companies. The pay cap is much lower. Becoming a millionaire through stocks and wages is harder, but you will still be in the top 10% of earners overall.

If you want to live in a mansion, the Midwest makes this dream obtainable. Buy a 6 bedroom, lake (reservoir) side, 4k sqr ft home for less than a million. Of if you want an acre of lawn, but not live too far in the country.

What you will find is that people are friendly, as long as you look like them (white). (EDIT: This gets more pronounced the more rural you are. Cities tend to be more accepting. What you will find is that rural areas have more relative sway on thought compared to the West Coast.) Towns outside of major metropolitan areas are dying as most major industries that supported that last two generations have left. Drugs are a huge issue, but its not as obvious because the floor for homelessness is so much lower. The only major infrastructure and building projects that get approved are sports stadiums, because idiots in local government rather have sports teams than functioning schools.

What the Midwest does have is solid engineering and research universities, that graduate thousands of STEM oriented students a year. Unfortunately there are often over an hour from the nearest 250k+ city. I went to one, and I think less than 25% of my friends stayed in state. The brain drain is real.

humbleMouse• 6 years ago

This is a good summary

shortandsweet• 6 years ago

What are the big schools? I always thought that what was holding the Midwest up, not enough high quality schools.

coreycr• 6 years ago

Most midwestern states have a world-class research university. Northwestern, U of Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Purdue...

DetroitThrow10• 6 years ago

There are plenty FAANG engineers minted from the top Midwestern schools - think CMU and other state schools - even if they rank behind the top schools on the coasts.

Top paying tech jobs tend to be found on the coasts though as well.

santaclaus5• 6 years ago

University of Illinois Urbana Champagne, University of Michigan, university of Wisconsin Madison, and Purdue are all top 20 in CS.

dexwiz4• 6 years ago

Most of the Big Ten Schools are decent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Ten_Conference They aren't Ivy League, but they do compete internationally. My alma mater, Purdue, boasts the most amount of astronaut alumni of any nonmilitary school.

analog31• 6 years ago

In my view, what holds the Midwest up, is that not everybody gets to live in the high-wage cities, yet we don't just give up on inventing and making things. Wherever smart, creative people live, there will be stuff happening, albeit perhaps at its own pace.

I tend to look at the high-wage regions like silicon valley, like they are a different country. Some folks will emigrate to that country, and I'm happy for them. Those of us who are left behind, for whatever reason, get on with our lives and find what there is to enjoy in our humble surroundings.

ryansmccoy• 6 years ago

Washington University in St. Louis?

throwawaygh4• 6 years ago

The midwest has the following top 20 CS schools: Illinois (tied for #1), Michigan, Wisconsin, Purdue, maybe Carnegie Mellon (also tied for #1).

In addition, the midwest also has the following universities which are top institutions in some fields: Northwestern, University of Chicago, Washington University in St. Louis, Ohio State, Minnesota. I'm probably leaving out at least one Chicagoland school. Indiana is also quite good for CS, but is just not big enough to show up at the top of the rankings.

The problem is not a lack of top-tier universities. The problem, especially in Computer Science, is that everyone leaves after university. E.g., here's a map from CMU (page 4): https://www.cmu.edu/career/documents/2017_one_pagers/scs/BS_...

From CMU, only 2% go to the midwest while 67% go to the west coast and 17% go to the northeast. Similarly, from UW-Madison, only about half stay in the midwest: https://dataviz.wisc.edu/views/FirstDestinationSurvey_0/Empl...

-------

US News 20 CS schools by state/region (note that UIUC is now in the tie for top):

1. Carnegie Mellon (Pittsburgh, regionally ambiguous)

1. MIT (New England/Northeast)

1. Stanford (California/West Coast)

1. Berkeley (California/West Coast)

1. UIUC (Great Plains or maybe Upper Midwest/Midwest)

5. Cornell (New England/Northeast)

6. UW (PNW/West Coast)

6. Georgia Institute of Technology (South)

8. Princeton (New England/Northeast)

8. UT-Austin (Texas/South)

10. California Institute of Technology (California/West Cost)

11. University of Michigan--Ann Arbor (Upper Midwest/Midwest)

13. UCLA (California/West Coast)

13. Wisconsin (Upper Midwest/Midwest)

13. Harvard (Northeast)

16. UCSD (California/West Coast)

16. University of Maryland--College Park (Mid-Atlantic/Northeast)

16. University of Pennsylvania (Mid-Atlantic/Northeast)

19. Purdue (Midwest)

20. Rice University (Texas/South)

20. USC (California/West)

20. Yale (New England/Northeast)

20. Amherst (New England/Northeast)

pratik6614• 6 years ago

I think you will find the engineering brain drain from any US region that doesn't (currently) have high paying tech jobs. I went to Georgia Tech and a significant number of CS grads from there moved to NYC, Bay Area, Seattle, or Austin.

strictnein3• 6 years ago

When factoring in the cost of living, there isn't much of a pay difference. This is especially true once you have a family and have to care about living in a good school district.

cptskippy2• 6 years ago

Atlanta has a lot of high paying tech jobs, they just aren't as fashionable as Google or Facebook.

jacobriis4• 6 years ago

"What you will find is that people are friendly, as long as you look like them (white)."

Be aware that when people say things like this they often do so to feel virtuous themselves like only they are so enlightened that only they even consider being friendly to non white people.

The idea that people in the Midwest (which has a population of over 65 million people similar to France and the UK) are only friendly to white people is pretty crazy.

tolbish2• 6 years ago

Yes, people who have seen trends of racism in the Midwest against minorities firsthand should be disregarded. They are the real racists.

Have you considered that their experiences may actually be true?

scarmig10• 6 years ago

Or maybe they themselves have experienced discriminatory behavior in the Midwest?

As an LGBT guy, I'm always direct when pointing out that I left the South partially because of discrimination, and someone is always happy to butt in to say I'm making it all up and the South is perfectly open and tolerant. It gets tiring.

Andhurati• 6 years ago

How do I know that they aren't giving me misinformation about everything else? Being non-white feels like I have to constantly avoid getting gaslighted in the US about my "race".

disease• 6 years ago

How is stating your observations, as the OP did, "virtue signaling"? The act of denying that racism exists is a popular tactic of white supremacists.

DetroitThrow10• 6 years ago

I keep hearing that the Midwest has a racism from kids who have lived in two cities their entire lives... It's very quotable, but when then you realize that black people are very underrepresented in west coast cities and people treat you accordingly there. And don't get me started about the claims of how color blind people have gone in southern cities like Nashville...

theflork• 6 years ago

OP should have said "What you will find is that SOMETIMES people are friendly, as long as you look like them (white), WHICH IS THE SAME THING AS IN BIG CITIES."

I can't believe the backlash here - surely generalizing ALL OF MIDWEST to be racist is the wrong thing to do?

gamblor956• 6 years ago

Or, you know, it could be based on personal experience with the many racists that dwell in the Midwest.

Years ago I moved back to CA from the Midwest, leaving a very-well paid job to be unemployed, because of it.

nharada• 6 years ago

Nobody is saying every single person in the midwest is only friendly to white people. This is so obstinate it doesn't even seem genuine to me.

At the risk of feeding the trolls -- I grew up in the midwest. I can tell you that I both experienced racism myself and saw a lot of it in my high school both in students and from my classmate's parents. Of course everyone isn't racist, and most folks are friendly and accepting. But comments like this downplay the experience that many people in these places do have. In my experience, it takes a relatively small number of racist people and a whole bunch of folks who don't call that shit out to make it less comfortable for someone who isn't white in their day to day lives.

lewisinc• 6 years ago

You're right, the above declaration should probably be refined a bit. You should be both white and straight.

I would say it's hard to take what you've said seriously having personally known people who have left the midwest specifically due to the discrimination they faced.

Except I do have to have to take it seriously because it's a toxic attitude that belittles the struggles that people face due to discrimination by attempting to minimize their experiences.

q845712• 6 years ago

I lived in the midwest for over a decade and am married to a midwesterner. I'm also ethnically one of the 'model minorities' so to some people I'm white, while to white supremacists I'm assuredly not.

Most people in most places are basically friendly. However. Even just being recognize you as 'other' can get old, like being asked "where are you from" or riding the bus in Chicago and having to answer questions about my ethnicity from whoever was feeling tipsy enough to ask them.

Here's one story of folks being un-friendly: I was at a public event, basically a version of a county fair with my wife's family somewhere in the rural midwest. There's a stage with small-name bands performing, food vendors, and a small carnival-ride section. As the sun sets we lose track of her parents, and as we're looking for them I also got separated from my wife. I felt like the crowd was also slowly changing and like I was starting to attract attention in the form of unfriendly looks. I find my wife and try to express this, but her face clearly says it's all in my head and why am I talking about anything other than how we can find her parents. Just then a physically imposed man walks up, plants himself firmly in front of me, and asks in the least friendly way possible, "how's it going brother?" I answer him in unaccented neutral native-born american english (don't remember what i said, but likely something like "good how you doin"), and my wife is like, "ok you're right, we have to find my parents and leave."

So just to be clear - I can't know what might have been, but I strongly suspect that having grown up here and being a native speaker made that evening simpler. And again, I'm someone who many people look at and just process as "white" so I can easily take my experiences as a shallow sample from the tip of the iceberg.

And that kind of "unfriendly" experience is something that happens more often if i leave coastal metropolitan areas.

ok_coo• 6 years ago

If you're native american in the midwest, you will experience discrimination and your life will be harder than it needs to be. Similar to the difficulties that other POC experience. It's just the way it is, better than it used to be but it's still there and it's naive to think this is a problem that has gone away.

Source: my family.

asdff9• 6 years ago

People might not be objectively racist, but if you grew up in a school district where the high school of 14,000 kids only had 10 black people attending, you will hear some disgusting stereotypical comments and some very off color jokes eventually whether you are a minority or not. People uttering these things might not even see how damaging these comments are to the groups they target, because they've never met very many of these groups or ever been around someone who would check their behavior. It's just a fact of life when you grow up lacking any perspective of another culture, and the national culture encourages you to adopt biases that aren't rooted in reality, and you have no personal experiences to disagree with them.

People also so kindly forget that the midwest experienced white flight like nowhere else. That sentiment is still in living memory among the older generation.

vangelis2• 6 years ago

It's true, you just have to go thirty minutes outside the city.

_qulr4• 6 years ago

The "Midwest" is approximately 20% of the US population.

Therefore, all generalizations about the Midwest are false stereotypes. The Midwest is large and varied.

sarora27• 6 years ago

What you will find is that people are friendly, as long as you look like them (white).

Grew up (Indian-American) in the midwest and can confirm this is true with a large majority of people there.

If you don't look like them, they will be cordial to your face but then subtly make it very clear how they actually think about you.

d33lio2• 6 years ago

Even between Austin and NYC I've noticed these differences. I'd still take the latent bible thumping in Austin over the insane political cliques of NYC though.

RickJWagner• 6 years ago

"What you will find is that people are friendly, as long as you look like them (white)."

I grew up in snow-white South Dakota. In my hometown of 15,000 I knew of only one African-American family. The father was the town mayor.

I guess we had different experiences.

goodells• 6 years ago

I'm surprised not to see Madison, WI on this list. Our tech sector has been strong and growing for several decades - locally we have Epic Systems, Exact Sciences, Promega Corporation, Thermo Fisher Scientific, several large insurance companies like American Family Insurance, Sentry Insurance. It might be easy to miss the agglomeration of these companies in one area because some of them are technically in different municipalities than the City of Madison. But it's a great area, and most of the big players here have been spared or even strengthened by the unique circumstances of the pandemic.

managerclass2• 6 years ago

Probably because it's measuring the last 3 years and Madison already had a sizable tech workforce for many years now.

Good area. Wish more people wore masks though.

_qulr4• 6 years ago

Good area. Wish more people wore masks though.

Huh? We have a mask mandate in Dane County. Everyone wears them, by law.

congxing_cai• 6 years ago

It is hard to tell if this is general trend or workforce relocation, when only looking at data in these picked cities and for past few years. Job posting data from this year due to pandemic may tell a better story.

shekharshan• 6 years ago

"Take him to Detroit"!!

bobwall2• 6 years ago

Yup, just did this. Got an extra master suite, and 1.75 more bathrooms with much bigger yard and garage for $1100 less. And neighbors that actually talk to you. Not to mention half the price for gas and food. Oh, and the swings aren't chained up. Good-bye LA, I will not miss you one bit.

silexia2• 6 years ago

I did the same thing, I traded a third of an acre in Los Angeles for over a hundred acres in Washington State.

williamstein2• 6 years ago

Me too; two weeks ago I traded a small house in Cap Hill, Seattle for a lot more space and friendly neighbors in more rural Washington about 20 minutes from the city. Loving it!

konjin3• 6 years ago

And neighbors that actually talk to you.

It's things like this that keep me living in the big city. I can have a mental break, run around naked for 8 hours and be back to normal with no one ever realizing anything happened.

bobwall2• 6 years ago

Haha. Pre-kids I was right there with you.

sjg007• 6 years ago

Minneapolis has a bunch of tech and startups. Microsoft, Cray, Amazon, AWS, Target, Best Buy, then a bunch of medical tech and insurance companies as well as associated startups. I imagine the med tech AI space will develop here as well. Google is working with the Mayo in Rochester for example.

silexia2• 6 years ago

Just wait till all the companies start to figure out that they can hire highly talented people in places like the Philippines or India for one tenth of the price of the Midwest.

strictnein3• 6 years ago

Most large companies in the US have offices in India and have had them for a while now.

nunez2• 6 years ago

They have, which is why on-shoring has been making a comeback for the last five years

dogman14410• 6 years ago

Here I was just recently eyeballing Minneapolis tech jobs and as salaries vs. 5 bedroom non-mcmansion houses with front porch and some woods nearby. Man it's getting to be an interesting sell. Chicago too if NYC is more your vibe.

lliamander2• 6 years ago

What states other than California have reasonable protections for employees' side projects and protections against non-compete agreements?

lotsofpulp7• 6 years ago

I don't think any do. Washington almost had a non compete ban, and hopefully it goes through next time.

I would never consider a state that didn't even have parental leave benefits, simply because I would rather my descendants live in a state with some level of protections for employees versus employers. Although a mix of California's laws about overtime pay, giving option of sitting, non competes, and personal projects plus Washington's minimum wages for both hourly and salaried exempt employees would be ideal.

lliamander2• 6 years ago

I would never consider a state that didn't even have parental leave benefits, simply because I would rather my descendants live in a state with some level of protections for employees versus employers.

I can understand that, thought I don't personally relate. Once they're grown my kids will likely be able to live in whatever state they want, I just want to make sure they have a good environment for growing up. For me, things like school choice are more important (which California is actually pretty good on).

Also, I haven't personally been in a position where using the state sponsored parental leave made sense. Instead, a combination of saving up vacation time, working from home, and whatever benefits my employer provided for me made more sense. Not a complaint, just an observation.

bmd399113• 6 years ago

Edit: The below applies to people who don't want kids. I get why you wouldn't want to raise kids in somewhere like NYC (though I can also see the inverse).

I don't comment often on HN but I feel like I had to chime in here with a bunch of questions. These may sound inflammatory but I mean them sincerely, I just don't see where people are coming from. I understand that a lot of the things I'm listing are negatives for some people, I'm just shocked that it seems like they're negatives for 99.99% of people. Like, I'd expect at least a little more of a balance

I don't understand all of the hate for big cities recently. I mean do THAT many people truly hate living in a big vibrant city? Do that many people really want to have to get into their car and drive 25 minutes to the only (probably subpar) ramen shop in town. Does everyone just want a big 6 bedroom house that they can sit in and read/watch TV all day? Are you gonna go out on all that land more often then you would go out to eat world class, multicultural food? No one likes/wants public transit anymore? Having tons of theaters, shops, bars, etc around? You don't want access to the [some of the] most interesting jobs in the world? Surrounded by people who are world class at what they do? Being able to go to a bar and find someone who's a musician, someone who's an actor, someone from wall street, someone who sells hotdogs, etc all in the same place? How could you go from NYC to Madison, WI and not be so bored that you want to blow your brains out? It's a completely different world.

Maybe it's just the midwestern cities that I've been in, but they're all so dead. Everyone just seems to be ok with the status quo. Everyone just goes home and watches TV until work the next day. Maybe once a year they take a beach vacation, and then the other week they have off they see family for the holidays.

I mean yes, I get that it's expensive. I'm just surprised that SO may people have been seemingly staying in this place that they hate, driving up rent prices for everyone who wants to be in the city, just so they could keep whatever job they have. I mean if you really hated the city wouldn't you have looked elsewhere by now? It's not like it's competitive to get a job in one of these midwestern cities, so surely that great job you had in NYC that tied you there would guarantee you a way out of the city.

ng12• 6 years ago

At a certain age a backyard for your kids to play in matters way more than being close to authentic ramen.

bmd399113• 6 years ago

Yeah definitely a valid point. I understand (more or less) for people who want kids, I need to add that to my comment. Of course I can still see some benefit to raising kids in a place like NYC, but that's much more nuanced

war10252• 6 years ago

You adapt to where you live.

The fun things you do in the city are different from the fun things you do not in the city or in a different city.

You need to live somewhere for longer than a weekend to settle in and figure out what is noteworthy about an area.

bmd399113• 6 years ago

Yeah, I mean it's fair that I haven't lived in every midwest city in America. But I've lived in 3 for multiple years each and I disliked them all for more or less the same reasons. Obviously it all just boils down to what you want out of life, so at a certain point it just becomes "agree to disagree"

tjr225• 6 years ago

I have a family(kid, partner, dogs) and just relocated from the Midwest back to Seattle.

I couldn't stand living in the Midwest and lasted just under a year. I grew up there, and have lived in a couple larger cities throughout the midwest. The weather is absolutely terrible and if I lost my remote tech job I'd be SOL until I could find another one. It is harder to find other parents/families/friends with things in common with, as well.

Another thing people don't talk about is the crime. Here in Seattle we have a lot of crime but not a lot of violence. In larger midwestern cities there are huge poor black neighborhoods, even entire parts of cities encompassing many neighborhoods, where the violence and suffering is incredible. Years ago, I used to live on Troost Ave in Kansas City, for example. Troost itself can be dangerous but is mostly fine- go a half a mile east and drive around and it is almost unrecognizable as America as someone who grew up white and did not have to see it. Bullets literally went through the window of the library my wife worked at.

I think either leaving or wanting to leave or big cities or job hubs/writing articles about leaving big cities or job hubs is something that is "in vogue" right now.

Probably a symptom of expensive housing and a pandemic that forced everyone to go remote. People, for some reason, love to dog on big cities/west coast but these coastal cities have undeniable positives to living in them; Weather, nature/mountains/ocean/public lands, interesting work, high pay, cultural stuff, etc- all things I want my child to grow up with even if it is expensive.

dogman14410• 6 years ago

Yeah parts of St. Louis past the bridge/river and going west were out of this world. Hard to believe it's the same country.

williamstein2• 6 years ago

There are also lots of more rural areas within 45 minutes of Seattle, with even lower crime and more space.

vangelis2• 6 years ago

They call it the Troost Line for a reason unfortunately.

justin66• 6 years ago

Here in Seattle we have a lot of crime but not a lot of violence. In larger midwestern cities there are huge poor black neighborhoods, even entire parts of cities encompassing many neighborhoods, where the violence and suffering is incredible.

I don't think those living and working in San Francisco are exactly strangers to human misery and poverty.

dogman14410• 6 years ago

It's a big country I guess, and I don't mean that to be sarcastic and snarky. That's usually the disconnect. There are places between the poles of NYC to Madison, WI, York, PA, and other suburban hell. And, they also aren't millennial ex-pat havens like Austin/Nashville, where the "culture" is a strip of craft breweries and expensive pizza places and basically Brooklyn 2.0. When you throw in cities with more access to the West's geography, you start to see why places like Denver and Bozeman got huge (and joined millennial ex-pat land).

So what do these in-between places offer, besides the cost of living? You tend to get off the beaten path nature where the cost of living in the city means you can actually afford a vacation home (Minneapolis and Chicago get the great lakes northern coast lines), funky college towns that grew some tech talent for various reasons and are college-y and by great natural areas (old Bozeman, old Austin, old Boulder, current Ft. Collins), and lastly I'd say genuine immigrant population and their subcultures, and food to match. There are legitimate Little Italys out there, but they just left NYC because it's too expensive (or also refugee resettlement plans). Minneapolis, Syracuse, parts of Tennessee, parts of TX that aren't Austin, etc.

You throw a tech salary into that mix, and it becomes really fascinating.

bmd399113• 6 years ago

Agreed about the trendy medium sized cities - people love them but they seem so bland to me for the same reason (great another craft burger place...).

You're right that there are probably more natural little Italy's out there, but no way you'll find an equally good Chinatown within a 2 hour drive of that little Italy. But, if you love Italian food and hate Chinese, then maybe that's a trade you're (not you specifically) willing to make.

I can see the access to nature as a reasonable trade off, if you're out hiking every weekend then maybe that could make the M-F in the smaller town more liveable

It definitely is an interesting situation

hardwaregeek3• 6 years ago

Honestly we see the hate because any opinion to the contrary is punching down. Downvote me all you like, but if a New Yorker says "Milwaukee/St Louis/Cleveland is worse than New York for these reasons" they get seen as elitist, coastal snobs. If the reverse happens and someone says "New York sucks for these reasons", nobody blinks an eye. When really, both options have their pros and cons. I'm not going to claim New York is always better, but I don't think we should assume Cleveland is the best either.

bmd399113• 6 years ago

Good point. I don't know that this explains everything, but it would be silly to think that this isn't at least part of it

lotsofpulp7• 6 years ago

I mean yes, I get that it's expensive. I'm just surprised that SO may people have been seemingly staying in this place that they hate, driving up rent prices for everyone who wants to be in the city, just so they could keep whatever job they have. I mean if you really hated the city wouldn't you have looked elsewhere by now? It's not like it's competitive to get a job in one of these midwestern cities, so surely that great job you had in NYC that tied you there would guarantee you a way out of the city.

The level of divergence of economic growth opportunities between some economic regions over others can make it rational for people to stay in a place they hate. Even if you can get a job in any other city, maybe it might not last for the next 10 years. The real risks in your life start coming around age 50 when your health starts faltering, and your healthcare costs go up and at the same time your employability might go down.

Also, quality of life as you get older in VHCOL like SF and NYC is definitely not as nice if you're not very high income. You spend all your time commuting to work, and I found that people were basically unavailable Mon to Fri. Whatever life they had was all on weekends, and even then it's allocated scheduled events. Whereas in less competitive areas, you can go have dinner at a friend or family's house after work on a weekday, and you can go to the gym, and be there for your kids because you're not spending 90 min + on the subway or train or having to allocate extra time due to public transportation service outages.

bmd399113• 6 years ago

All good points, nothing to counter on my end lol

curiousllama5• 6 years ago

Don't forget Chicago is the 3rd largest city in the country. It's a wonderful foodie town, has great theaters, public transit, etc - everything I always hear is great about NYC. You're thinking Cleveland (yes - that's dead), not Chicago, Minneapolis, or Pittsburgh.

bmd399113• 6 years ago

You're right, but I personally don't count Chicago. A distinction needs to be made between "big city" and "midwestern city" - they aren't mutually exclusive like some are alluding to (probably not on purpose). I think that it actually goes against the trend, since I'd consider it a "big city". It is interesting that so many people are moving there, considering the hot thing these days is moving away from big cities. Of course part of that is the fact that it has a good COL, and a lot of big city perks

dogman14410• 6 years ago

Putting aside that Prince and the LGBT capital of the midwest make Minneapolis the coolest of cool, Chicago is the real dark horse in all of this.

The costs there, especially for apartments, and in really interesting areas(as in actually interesting to a NYC person), are honestly no slouch. Add in legit fintech jobs and salaries, it sounds like only the state politics and city challenges are keeping people away.

talentedcoin2• 6 years ago

Maybe because not everyone is a brainwashed victim of jumped-up consumer society. Maybe you don't care about the new ramen place, and maybe you don't care about other people's ideas of "world class:". Maybe you'd rather spend time with your family.

If you go to Madison WI and want to "blow your brains out" maybe the problem is not Madison WI. Some of us do like the peace and quiet. Different strokes for different folks.

bmd399113• 6 years ago

Yeah I mean I was trying to convey that I understand why SOME people would like that, and maybe I failed at that. Though, to be fair, I don't think wanting to enjoy a good bowl of noodles as often as possible is as bad as a thing as you're making it out to be lol. I don't think there's anything objectively wrong with Madison. I'm just surprised that it seems like 99.999% of people would prefer that lifestyle to one in a bigger city. Family is something that throws a wrench into my whole comment lol, I understand I'm in the minority when it comes to that

mensetmanusman3• 6 years ago

If you want excitement, you can drive through parts of Chicago with bullet proof glass and experience a war zone.

bmd399113• 6 years ago

ok granny ( just playin ;) )

oramit• 6 years ago

My thought on this is that a lot of people were already anti-city for various reasons and the COVID shock has provided "proof" that their preference for non city living is best. A large amount of people seem to be unable to accept that others just prefer living in cities or the burbs or rural. I guess it's part of our social hard-wiring. We can't just accept that we like this thing, we also need to believe that it's the best, and denigrate others who choose a different path.

I miss my public transit commute, my gym, my soccer club, and being able to go out with friends and just come across stuff happening. COVID has actually made it more clear to me that I'm a city person.

bmd399113• 6 years ago

True, I do think that's what's driving all of this negativity around cities. Maybe it's just a bunch of people who hated living in the city but were surrounded by people who liked it, but now they can finally come out with their true feelings. I'm in the same boat, COVID has cemented my feelings on the matter. I don't like that [some] people are celebrating the fall of big cities, because we already only have like 3 of them and some people actually like them

jjav• 6 years ago

NYC is a wonderful place, I spent my 20s trying to find ways to afford living there but never could (so I lived across the river in NJ and spent all my time in Manhattan).

The compromises to live there full time are brutal though. You need to be content to live in what amounts to a closet anywhere else. No space for anything and you better have zero hobbies or interests that take more space than a laptop.

Do that many people really want to have to get into their car and drive 25 minutes to the only (probably subpar) ramen shop in town.

This is a common misconception by big city dwellers, but stuff does exist outside as well!

I live in the outskirts of Silicon Valley in a town/village, of ~10K people surrounded by forest. And no I don't have to drive 25 minutes to get to a restaurant. I can walk to great sushi, thai, mexican, etc. I can walk to multiple supermarkets, pharmacies, everything pretty much. In fact other than for a few lumber yard runs I haven't really driven anywhere since March. Everything is walking distance. But at the same time I can have a yard, garages, space for woodworking and planting trees, ride a bike on quiet streets and forest trails and all that. And while silicon valley area is expensive, all this is still probably cheaper than a studio in NYC.

In a fantasy world where I'm ultra-rich, I would also have a NYC apartment to visit every now and then. It is a fun place.

bb611• 6 years ago

I can walk to multiple supermarkets, pharmacies, everything pretty much.

This is an essentially nonexistent characteristic of the kinds of places people are moving in the Midwest. The walkability of most of suburban America is ~0.

dredmorbius4• 6 years ago

1. Chicago: 8th overall US, 344,146 positions, 17.9% growth 2010--2018.

2. Detroit: 11th , 241,135, 37.2%

3. Minneapolis, 14th, 196,151, 17%

4. Kansas City, 24th, 100,782, 17.3%

5. Cincinnati, 28th, 82,088, 23.9%

6. Cleveland, 29th, 76,698, 16.3%

7. Indianapolis, 31st, 74,615, 24.2%

8. Milwaukee, 32nd, 71,755, 9.2%

9. Omaha, 40th, 37,508, 10.7%

10. Des Moines, 42nd, 28,693, 26.9%

TFW article is basically a textualised spreadsheet.

Not listed: wage levels, cost-of-living, industries, skillsets.

curiousllama5• 6 years ago

They should normalize by population/

Chicago has a lot of tech jobs, but also a lot of people. 3rd in population and 8th in tech suggests it's the opposite of a hub. I wonder how much of the hiring is companies like McDonalds, United, or Boeing rather than FAANG.

dredmorbius4• 6 years ago

Maybe, but I think probably not. Market rates (a measure of local supply and demand) would be more useful.

Applying network theory, though up to a substantial fraction of total employment, it's absolute and not relative size that matters.

As of May 2019, total SF Bay Area tech employment was 835,600, an increase of 116,900 over the December 2000 dot-com peak. That increase alone would rank 4th on this midwest list.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/07/05/tech-jobs-soar-all-ti...

In that 835,600 Bay Area workforce, what you're going to find is both breadth 8and* depth. Need the best, or a top-ten, or the top-ten devs in a specific skill? You'll likely find it. Need 10, or 100, or 1,000, or 10,000 bodies within a given specialty or skillset? Likely there as well, certainly more8 likely than elsewhere.

Want to attract* remote talent? Pretty good odds. At least until housing got too rich and smoke too thick. Want to swipe local talent? Noncompetes illegal FTFW, just make a good enough offer.

It's not as if tech talent competes against non-tech talent. It doesn't. At least not for jobs. For housing and transport, yes, but that's where the SF Bay Area by and large loses.

And I'm not making the case for the midwest hubs, mostly the opposite. Unless there's some specific centre of excellence ... they're simply not going to attract talent. The body counts are likely for basic tech skills generally.

The West coast offers entertainment (VFX/CGI/gaming), search, social, ads, business automation (Oracle, Salesforce), commerce, HW & devices (Apple), and some relic defense tech, plus modest manufacturing. NYC has more ads & entertainment, and finance. DC has government, defence, and surveillance.

The midwest has ... relic manufacturing, some new manufacturing, healthcare, food & ag, a lot of back-office work, and ... not too much else that really comes to mind. Real estate? (Cratering.)

Plus a lot of tech-unfriendly legal and political legacy.

Chicago ... kind of has scale? But at 40% the size of the Bay Area's scale, even if equally complex and skilled, by Metcalf's law it would have one sixth the net value.

(There are plenty of issues with Metcalfe's law, this just illustrates how much scale effects alone might affect net prospects.)

dredmorbius4• 6 years ago

SF Bay area, May 2019: 835,000.

padseeker• 6 years ago

I work for a sizable consulting firm with multiple offices including one in Chicago. We saw a lull during the early months (april-june) of Covid/quarantine, we froze hiring, and a few projects were cancelled (one was a major airline). We had a heavier bench for a short time, and utilization fell 10-20%.

That lull is over, at least in Chicago, and not just our office. We have almost no bench, utilization is reaching 100% for at least tech centric practices, and we're hiring again. Front end, back end, devops, salesforce implementation and integration, you name it, demand is exceeding supply for resources available.

On one hand it's comforting to have job security. But it's also surreal to hear reports about 13% unemployment. These are strange times. It does feel like anyone in the tech profession that we are insulated from the worst effects of this catastrophe. Most of us can easily do our jobs remotely. My brother and his girlfriend are both chefs living together in Chicago. Enhanced unemployment benefits expired in July and their lease ended in August so they both moved back in with their parents. I know what is happening out there but at times I feel like we live in a bubble.

asdff9• 6 years ago

It really makes you wonder how this will go down in the next 5 years. Rents are high in cities because of highly paid workers who are capable of paying those rents. Now the middle class is priced out because their wages have been stagnant despite highly paid workers reliably getting raises. Either wages for the middle class has to go up dramatically, or rents have to crash, and rents aren't going to crash if the whole reason why they went up is because demand from highly paid workers, who haven't gone away. Something will have to give, people can't live in their parents house or commute 3 hours one way forever.

myself2482• 6 years ago

It's remarkable to see Detroit on this list, and I'd love to learn how they gathered these numbers. Years ago, I heard the quip that "the janitor at Apple is counted as a tech worker, but the supercomputer engineer at Ford is counted as an auto worker".

Clearly this analysis has solved that. Why have so others missed it?

ryathal2• 6 years ago

It's not the auto companies that are bringing Detroit up for tech. They are ancient outdated behemoths working on auto focused things. There are a handful of smaller tech companies that do the sexy work for the big 3 though. It's the places like Quicken or Dominos that are putting Detroit on the map for tech.

curiousllama5• 6 years ago

These jobs are tech roles in non-tech companies. Boeing, United, McDonalds, Koch Industries... all are big in the midwest, all need lots of tech folks, none are particularly techy companies.

All the really good tech people I've met either (1) leave for SV/NY or (2) work for quant trading shops.

For context, FAANG job postings in the midwest are all satellite-office positions: they'll hire good engineers here, but you're kinda working remote in the downtown office at a certain point.

d33lio2• 6 years ago

Well yeah, you can pay people pennies on the dollar here while they're convinced it's "cool" to live in bum-f*ck middle america. If you're lucky they might even buy a house, adding another barrier to leaving and moving to a real tech-hub once covid is no longer an issue.

Hiring for tech jobs has increased more than 100% in these Midwestern cities

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