tech careers in Chicago (apartment, neighborhoods, living)

[tjasse]

Originally Posted by chet everett

Well it is not so simple. I have a fair number of friends that have been long time residents of the various towns that make up "Silicon Valley" and the ability of folks with good skills and decent connections to move back and forth from either traditional employment or contracting gigs with either established firms (think Oracle, HP, Intel) or iffy start-ups, or new ecommerce /social media type web firms is excellent.

In contrast you do not see much "cross pollination" in Chicago from firms that are the traditional large established IT employers in finance, insurance, healthcare, consumer products type firms and the more "web age" places. .

This is what I was wondering about. There is no cross pollination in Minneapolis. Especially going from startup back to corporate. The startups here have no money so it's hard to make a living only working at startups. However, there's also mostly no 'escape hatch' back to a big company. So you either pick the corp IT track and live out in the burbs and move into management, or you're basically just one level up from being a slacker who works at a print shop. Luckily there are tons of cheap houses so even the slackers aren't living under a bridge. IMO that is about all this city has going for it though.

[marothisu]

It all depends on culture and how you fit in, and this goes for most companies in the world. Teamwork is extremely important, and if someone doesn't think you're going to be able to work well with others, then they'd rather get someone else. This is true of almost any company anywhere.

The cross pollination thing is pretty much extremely circumstantial. Categorizing people as one thing because they worked in some traditional role and thus can't work for a startup or something is pretty generalizing IMO and I don't buy into that. I've worked in traditional, big corporate campuses in the typical type of not so fun environment where the work is pretty serious, and there are so many different personalities it's not even funny. I've known many people to switch from that to a startup with zero problems. I have numerous co-workers at my time in Chicago for an extremely large typical IT firm who have gone to work for a startup no problem.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by chet everett

...
The folks that go to meetings where some metra riding VP who wears a suit and has the equivalent of TPS reports to be recorded bimonthly is not likely to be compatible with a room full of bearded, fixed gear bicyle riding, full of themselve, bad attitude types that think once they get six figure of options to vest they can buy a hard edged modern urban home...

Originally Posted by marothisu

...
I've known many people to switch from that to a startup with zero problems. I have numerous co-workers at my time in Chicago for an extremely large typical IT firm who have gone to work for a startup no problem.

It does depend a lot. I'm 41, but I commute by fixie, did use a six-figure stock option win to buy an urban home, and also work with plenty of guys tied to a Metra schedule. I've made six figures at both startups I worked at - the first one I worked my way up to it, the second one I demanded it to come aboard. I've seen people with great attitudes and terrible attitudes at both startups and established companies. I'd say that attitude is much more important at a startup because working together is critical. At a big company, you can go around people you don't like, at a small company one bad attitude can spoil the entire company. I think the bigger problem with big company people moving to startups is breadth of knowledge. At a startup you have a to know more, or at least be able to learn what you need quickly. When we were trying to hire a junior person to work with me and back me up on some of what I do, it was really hard interviewing people from large companies because they'd know how to do one thing, but often were handed that one thing after someone else had done the parts leading into it, and then they'd hand it off to another team to complete the rest of a task. At a small company, know things soup to nuts is usually critical. You don't necessarily have to know every detail of every task, but you at least have to know what the tasks are. A senior person from a big company might have enough time served to know that, but sometimes they'll have decided to just do their one part of the job really well and not know the surrounding pieces. At the end of the day, attitude is very important - wanting to know more, wanting to know how tasks fit together into cohesive activities, wanting to just make things work and not care who made a mistake is critical. CYA isn't something that yields productivity anywhere, but at a small place you can't afford to waste time assigning blame, you find out enough about the problem to avoid repeating the mistake, but don't waste time trying to pin mistakes on people.

As far as age discrimination goes, I haven't noticed it in any of the places I've worked and when I've been involved in hiring processes, I've gone out of my way to make sure candidates are evaluated and given a chance to interview entirely on their merits so that the only way age comes into play is if the person allowed their age to pigeon-hole them into some old technology.

[Avondalist]

THE VALLEY AND THE UPSTARTS: THE CITIES CREATING THE MOST TECH JOBS

(Their caps, not mine)

At the top of our list is a group of cities that have long been identified with tech growth. Our No. 1 city, Austin, Texas, boasts the strongest expansion in tech sector employment of any of the nation’s 52 largest metropolitan areas from 2004 to 2014, 73.9%, as well as 36.4% growth in STEM jobs, the fourth-highest growth rate in the country. Coming in a close second is Raleigh, N.C., part of the renowned Research Triangle region, home to outposts of multinationals like Bayer, BASF, GlaxoSmithKline, IBM and Cisco. The Raleigh metro area posted a 39% increase in STEM jobs from 2004-14, the fastest growth in the nation, albeit from a smaller base than many of the other biggest metro areas.

However, the Bay Area continues to reign as the tech center with the most momentum. San Jose, which covers most of Silicon Valley, ranks third with 70.2% growth in tech sector employment since 2004 and a hefty 25.8% increase in STEM employment. The San Francisco metro area, which includes San Mateo to the south, ranks fifth with a 67.4% jump in tech industry employment as well as a STEM jobs increase of 27.5%.

Relevant to you:

Yet despite all the noise, Chicago ranked a mediocre 33rd on our growth list, with 20.3% tech industry employment growth from 2004-14 and a mere 3.8% growth in STEM jobs. Both numbers are below the national average, as is the region’s percentage of employees in tech and STEM.

Chicago technology jobs are mostly corporate gigs and business consulting.

I don't know what you personal situation is, but there is an upside to less tech:

West Coast or Breast Coast?

[tjasse]

Originally Posted by Avondalist

THE VALLEY AND THE UPSTARTS: THE CITIES CREATING THE MOST TECH JOBS

(Their caps, not mine)



Relevant to you:



Chicago technology jobs are mostly corporate gigs and business consulting.

I don't know what you personal situation is, but there is an upside to less tech:

West Coast or Breast Coast?

Yes, the bay area is well known as a dating wasteland. However, I didn't have issues with that since I used to have a 2nd life as a party promoter and DJ. The times have changed though and I don't feel like I fit in out there anymore. Good info on the Chicago tech scene although that doesn't sound very promising for me personally.

[marothisu]

^ As a tech person in Chicago, I wouldn't put too much stock into that. Of course yes, places like Austin, Bay Area, Seattle, etc are better than anywhere else in the US, but Chicago is nowhere near bad. Plenty of jobs available right now with tech.

[emathias]

Crain's reports that Chicago's growth in tech jobs recently has been the third-fastest in the U.S. behind only Seattle and Houston:

Chicago Beats Even Silicon Valley in tech-job growth

Chicago was one of the fastest-growing cities for tech jobs coming out of the recession.The number of tech jobs in the city rose 25.8 percent between 2010 and 2013, according to a report on the nation's top tech markets by commercial real estate firm CBRE. That was the third-best showing among the nation's 10 markets with the largest number of tech jobs.
Seattle had the highest tech-job growth in the top 10 at 37.3 percent, followed by Houston at 26.4 percent.
Chicago, the nation's third-most-populous city, had the fifth-most tech jobs of any U.S. city—133,170, according to CBRE, or about 3.5 percent of all jobs.

[MassVt]

NYC is an awfully expensive place to relocate to, especially if you have no real desire to live there.
Try Chicago, and save yourself a lot of aggravation....and money.

[tjasse]

Originally Posted by MassVt

NYC is an awfully expensive place to relocate to, especially if you have non real desire to live there.
Try Chicago, and save yourself a lot of aggravation....and money.

I agree as I've already lived in NYC once. However, I don't have much desire to live in Chicago, either. I'm just trying to find balance between career and affordability, and maybe live closer to one of my siblings.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by tjasse

I agree as I've already lived in NYC once. However, I don't have much desire to live in Chicago, either. I'm just trying to find balance between career and affordability, and maybe live closer to one of my siblings.

Which is why Chicago is good