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This ultimately depends on what exactly what we're looking at (e.g., the types of jobs considered tech, raw numbers of tech jobs, tech jobs as a share of total employment, GDP attributed to tech, growth in tech jobs, etc). Even so, I'm so sure about Seattle beating Boston although it's a close race. DC is up there as well and will be even more competitive once HQ2 is online. No one can question Austin's performance and ascendancy but in terms of total tech jobs, while impressive, it would trail Seattle due to its overall smaller size. As the premier destination for corporate relocations these days, Dallas has done especially well with the addition of corporate in-house tech jobs and its startup scene is growing, but it most likely would rank fourth of these four, which isn't at all suggestive of underperformance compared to the other three.
I'm in the industry and don't agree whatsoever about Seattle vs. Boston being a close race. Seattle is the HQ for both Amazon and Microsoft and has large offices for Google, Facebook, Uber, Airbnb, Dropbox, etc, etc.... IMO Austin vs. Boston is close, though I would pick Boston. DC and Dallas both have a lot of quantity but low quality.
I'm in the industry and don't agree whatsoever about Seattle vs. Boston being a close race. Seattle is the HQ for both Amazon and Microsoft and has large offices for Google, Facebook, Uber, Airbnb, Dropbox, etc, etc.... IMO Austin vs. Boston is close, though I would pick Boston. DC and Dallas both have a lot of quantity but low quality.
I presume you aren't including life sciences/biotech when talking about the sector. Otherwise, Boston has been established as one of the country's top tech hubs for some time now.
When looking at metrics such as net tech employment, tech sector jobs, and tech occupation jobs, Boston bests Seattle while Seattle leads when it comes to net tech employment as a percentage of the total workforce and the economic impact of the local tech sector. But for all practical purposes, they are definitely in the same tier and post similar numbers.
It's hard to see DC having a lot of "low quality" tech jobs when it has the highest median wage for tech occupations of all five cities under discussion.
Boston/DC is so much larger than the other two it's an odd comparison. It would win on measures of density, transit, universities, air connections, and so on.
Outside of them, Seattle is by far the most urban and transit-focused.
I presume you aren't including life sciences/biotech when talking about the sector. Otherwise, Boston has been established as one of the country's top tech hubs for some time now.
When looking at metrics such as net tech employment, tech sector jobs, and tech occupation jobs, Boston bests Seattle while Seattle leads when it comes to net tech employment as a percentage of the total workforce and the economic impact of the local tech sector. But for all practical purposes, they are definitely in the same tier and post similar numbers.
It's hard to see DC having a lot of "low quality" tech jobs when it has the highest median wage for tech occupations of all five cities under discussion.
I'm very skeptical of those numbers you posted. Those "averages" are quite a bit less than what people get starting out of college. My guess is that "tech worker" is being used liberally.
Boston has a good startup scene thanks to MIT, but the overall number of opportunities is much less than Seattle. The largest tech company in Boston is what, Wayfair maybe? That's a big gap from Seattle with Amazon and Microsoft.
What I mean by quality is companies where tech is a profit center, not a cost center. DC is far too heavy in government, and Dallas in F500 enterprise IT. Austin, Boston, and Seattle have tech scenes more in line with Silicon Valley, but clearly Seattle is the winner there. (Anyway, this is off topic at this point).
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Quote:
Originally Posted by whereiend
I'm in the industry and don't agree whatsoever about Seattle vs. Boston being a close race. Seattle is the HQ for both Amazon and Microsoft and has large offices for Google, Facebook, Uber, Airbnb, Dropbox, etc, etc.... IMO Austin vs. Boston is close, though I would pick Boston. DC and Dallas both have a lot of quantity but low quality.
DC and Dallas aren't in the same ballpark for "quality" on jobs. Dallas adds more jobs than all these, but so many of them are lower on quality in comparison. DC runs the table on all these cities overall when combining quantity, pay scale, and quality. Seattle comes in 2nd here overall, but maybe best in quality (although subjective), and since Boston>Portland here, the jobs category goes to DC-Boston easy. Lastly the public sector jobs provide stability for the DC market that it's not only most stable in this thread, but in the country.
Last edited by the resident09; 04-22-2020 at 10:35 PM..
I'm very skeptical of those numbers you posted. Those "averages" are quite a bit less than what people get starting out of college. My guess is that "tech worker" is being used liberally.
The numbers I referenced in the other post were median (not average) annual wages for tech occupations in those metropolitan areas.
You can also download the full report, which is pretty comprehensive.
Quote:
Boston has a good startup scene thanks to MIT, but the overall number of opportunities is much less than Seattle. The largest tech company in Boston is what, Wayfair maybe? That's a big gap from Seattle with Amazon and Microsoft.
In recent years, Seattle has added more "innovation" jobs (which go a little beyond actual tech jobs) than Boston and certainly Amazon's meteoric rise has much to do with that. But I haven't seen a source stating that the two are drastically different when it comes to the total number of tech jobs in each metro and it appears that Boston does lead there. But if you're referring to tech job openings at any given time, then I can see an argument for Seattle over Boston currently.
Quote:
What I mean by quality is companies where tech is a profit center, not a cost center. DC is far too heavy in government, and Dallas in F500 enterprise IT. Austin, Boston, and Seattle have tech scenes more in line with Silicon Valley, but clearly Seattle is the winner there. (Anyway, this is off topic at this point).
Sounds like you're saying the more theoretical IT jobs are higher quality than the applied/practical IT jobs.
You're taking it to mean the area from city a to city b.
I'm taking it to mean just the two cities they listed.
'm taking it to mean Boston and Washington DC, Seattle and Portland, and Dallas and Austin.
Maybe OP will clarify just so people don't misinterpret what the OP is looking for.
Why else would the two other regions happen to be neighboring metros if the point isn't that they may share a commuting population and similar cultures as a result?
Boston and DC are pretty far apart geographically, and to me on a surface level analysis because I know next to nothing about Boston would share little in common except they are part of the Northeast Corridor as both the north and south ends of it. They may share some things being that they are both part of the biggest economic region of our nation, and reap benefits of such, but I'm struggling to find the logic in "randomly" selecting these two cities that are so far apart if we are not including the fact that they share this corridor. Boston has weird cultural quirks that DC does not have. Like culture and just being in Massachusetts alone is enough of a reason to consider it polarizing from DC.
Whereas the other two metros share a geographic and cultural region Boston and DC do not share UNLESS we are considering the Northeast Corridor as a whole. They do share that. DC is not in New England and doesn't do New England things. Boston is not filled with a bunch of bureaucrats who choose to abide by bland lifestyles so to not raise any suspicions for their high security jobs.
To put it in the form of an analogy using food:
Portland and Seattle might be salmon and Dallas and Austin might be BBQ, but Boston is clam chowder and DC is a cherry tree.
Why else would the two other regions happen to be neighboring metros if the point isn't that they may share a commuting population and similar cultures as a result?
Boston and DC are pretty far apart geographically, and to me on a surface level analysis because I know next to nothing about Boston would share little in common except they are part of the Northeast Corridor as both the north and south ends of it. They may share some things being that they are both part of the biggest economic region of our nation, and reap benefits of such, but I'm struggling to find the logic in "randomly" selecting these two cities that are so far apart if we are not including the fact that they share this corridor. Boston has weird cultural quirks that DC does not have. Like culture and just being in Massachusetts alone is enough of a reason to consider it polarizing from DC.
Whereas the other two metros share a geographic and cultural region Boston and DC do not share UNLESS we are considering the Northeast Corridor as a whole. They do share that. DC is not in New England and doesn't do New England things. Boston is not filled with a bunch of bureaucrats who choose to abide by bland lifestyles so to not raise any suspicions for their high security jobs.
To put it in the form of an analogy using food:
Portland and Seattle might be salmon and Dallas and Austin might be BBQ, but Boston is clam chowder and DC is a cherry tree.
I understand what you're saying. I guess we just have to wait for OP to respond lol.
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