First, Austin is NOTHING like Texas. It is a beacon of progressive hope in an otherwise bass-ackwards state. I moved to Austin from New York City by way of Portland, Oregon so believe me, when I say that there is no way I would live in TEXAS; Austin is anything but that.
Also, other reasons Austin may be attractive to potential candidates:
1.) No state income tax. This is huge. If you make $140k a year in SF, you take home significantly less than you do in Texas. Also, there is no "city tax" like SF has.
2.) Cost of living is HALF, that's right, HALF of SF. Beautiful homes or urban condos are available and priced well below what you would spend buying OR renting in SF.
1 + 2 = lots of $$ in your pocket.
Not to mention the fact that Austin is arguably the hippest city in the country from a growth perspective. With events like ACL and SXSW (plus the thousands of live music shows throughout the rest of the year), the creative arts scene is flourishing.
Finally, the weather. It was 86 degrees, no humidity on December 19th last year. And yes, it is HOT in the summer, but with all that extra cash, you can go live in Europe for a few months to beat the heat.
I get recruited by companies in the midwest who tout that the cost of living is half of NYC. But, they also pay half as much as NYC, no relo package available. Whenever I do the math I still come out ahead in NYC.
The other downside I have found is that there are usually only one or two interesting companies and the rest is enterprise software.
I don't necessarily agree with this. I used to work at frog design and am now 100% independent (doing consulting/contract work). There are loads of companies from startups like Gowalla and Whaleshark to more established companies like Facebook and BazaarVoice. On top of that, there are some what I would consider "serious" startups with quality founders and funding, like Spacecraft and Mass Relevance.
Are you asking me to share my specific income? That's not gonna happen. Let's do some hypotheticals.
$140k in NYC (this is a common salary/comp)
$120k in Austin (this is a common salary/comp)
Nominal dollar amounts, yes, $20k is dollar for dollar, less. But now, factor in your taxes (NY State tax, Kings County, etc.) That $140k is now significantly less. Factor in cost of living being TWICE as much (literally, my rent per sq ft was more than twice what it was in Austin). You now are TAKING HOME less money.
So when I said net income, that's what I meant. If you're more concerned with a higher salary and less net income, then, well good luck to ya. I prefer to have more $$ in my pocket after it's all said and done.
You're welcome, but the reason I explained is the answer is yes AND no. Yes, because gross dollar amount is less but No because take home is much more.
I just asked whether you got paid the same in NYC as you do in Austin which is a yes or no question...no details required. Regarding take home, even with taxes and higher CoL I've still been able to save and invest more money in NYC due to much higher salaries. All that said it is good to know $120K is a common salary in Austin, thanks for the info.
So if you make $140k in NYC, but only take home say $95k.
Or you make $120k, but take home $95k. Then it's about the same.
Now factor in cost of living. The $$ in your pocket is higher. If you more concerned with the nominal/gross dollar amount as opposed to net income, I feel you are looking at the wrong metric.
Thanks. I was just asking because I have a program I use to calculate the actual net pay. Most of the time when people propose these sorts of moves to me, they either did not do the math, or their math is factoring in other CoL adjustments I don't care about, or they are actually lying. It's almost never been a decision between $120K in the Midwest vs. $140K in NYC. More like $75K in the Midwest.
FWIW it looks like $120K in Austin is indeed almost exactly the same take-home as $140K in NYC. Austin you would make about 20 more dollars per week.
"It is a beacon of progressive hope in an otherwise bass-ackwards state." If you thought about it, wouldn't you say the same thing about Portland or NYC?
Not exactly. Oregon has rednecks as does upstate NY (I used to live there as well). The delta is the level of racism, bigotry and religious fundamentalism that plagues the state is significantly higher in Texas than other states. Hicks and bigots exist everywhere, but from my experience, Texas as a whole has more per capita than "coastal" states like Cali, Oregon or New York.
I'm a contractor who lives in rural New Jersey. Back in late winter this year, I picked up one little Wordpress gig for a startup down in Austin. It went well. Since April, approximately 95% of the money I've made has come from companies based in Austin TX. I just got pinged yesterday from a contact about a potential long term dev gig that's looking to train the hire into the CTO over the next 2 years.
I'd love to move there because I'm really into the food and the music scene down there, but my Michigander wife is not into the brutal heat. I'm not sure what my point is, except that in my personal experience, Austin is absolutely exploding right now. There are at least a couple incubators down there, ala YC. The culture is really cool. It's pricey compared to Sussex county NJ, but there's also stuff to do there, not like Sussex county NJ.
You can say the same about Las Vegas, or living & working in Vancouver,WA (NOT Vancouver, Canada) and shopping in Portland,OR (no state income tax and no sales tax) or living in Seattle,WA. And employers pay fairly close to SF wages in Seattle. The weather, of course, is constant drizzly rain with glorious summers 3-4 months of the year, and scorching dessert in LV.
And there is Miami, FL. Nice weather, no income tax. I don't know anything about the housing market there, or culture.
You can also work in the UAE/Dubai, with 0 income tax! The laws are a bit oppressive and slavery in all but name fuels all the construction work. Or Singapore, with something around 9/10% total income tax at typical SF engineer wages. If your american, you still have to pay taxes to uncle sam after ~$94k if you work in another country.
I'm going to have to agree with most others here. I live less than five hours from Austin, travel there for business occasionally and rarely get calls from companies in Austin interested in hiring me or if I know anyone they should hire.
On the flip side, I am rarely in the valley (a few times a year at best) and I get calls or emails almost weekly asking either if I am interested in a job or if I might know someone who is, most of these even offering sign on bonuses and bounties for hires.
Yet the CEO's of companies in Austin are trotting out to the valley to find the talent while everyday good programmers from surrounding states go to the valley because they don't see Austin as a viable alternative.
They have a top tier engineering program only hours away (Rice) which has basically become a funnel for Microsoft and Amazon in Seattle yet they want to focus their attention on the valley.
Go to schools like Georgia Tech, Rice, Carnegie Mellon, Illinois, UT. Alot of those kids are coming from the south or the midwest and they end up in the valley because they think that is the only place they can make it.
At the end of the day this really comes down to marketing, and when you spend your money marketing to developers that have already been sold on another city often you are too late, but if you hit them earlier like the valley has gotten so good at doing they are MUCH more likely to see Austin as a viable solution
I agree, but maybe they're just treating this a warm-up/practice visit, and chance to scout their main competition for the rest of the country. The visits to other non-tech hubs will be the real outreach.
A direct appeal to founders and investors to start more ventures and offices in Texas, for the advantageous business climate, would make more sense.... but such an effort wouldn't be led by CEOs/recruiters from established firms... who probably don't want the competition of more employers.
I don't think this makes sense... I'm from MN and made a recent trip to the Bay area where all the local startups were clamoring over me. Meanwhile back in the midwest, I have to actively market myself to attract any attention. If you're really looking for untapped talent, go where nobody else is looking.
I've founded a couple of startups in Austin. The thing to know about Austin is that, at least right now, there are only about 6 consumer Internet startups of note who can afford real talent. Unless you move here for a specific position, or are a developer, finding a decent job will be tricky. If you like enterprise software, though, you'll be happier than a pig in mud.
Exactly what I was going to say! Calif is a terrible place to go and scout out talent, unless they're also trying to raise visibility in the same shot.
SFBA is a better place if you're willing to offer above market (or find someone who wants to leave the Bay Area), specifically to hire a couple of experienced people who can be the core of a company, or who have specific technical expertise. Basically this is the same pool as startup founders.
My startup is in SFBA. I'd love to be in Seattle or Austin instead (I like guns; taxes are secondary consideration; and I'd love a 5k ft2 house), but from a hiring perspective, it's easier to find people who have already done something successful in the bay area.
Maybe set up a second US office for development in one of those two later, but initially, it's hard to beat SFBA. (I guess I'm in the "boring enterprise software" space, at least more so than Facebook, but less so than SAP).
Recruiting from elsewhere (especially Boston/Cambridge) makes a lot of sense, but people are generally more willing to relo to SF than to either Seattle or Austin, at least from my experience.
This explains what they're looking for, but not why it's location dependent. Sfba is a startup hub, but that dosnt mean that talent doesn't exist elsewhere! What's the successful metric? Part of a startup? Founder? Product principal?
Admittedly, I may be slightly biased here because I wonder why much of the east coast tends to get marginalized when talking about startup activity. (I'm in Philly)
Looking for:
* deeply knowledgeable and passionate about computer security
* adequate developer (ideally in Python, C/C++, but specific languages don't matter) -- would take better developer and less experienced (but still interested in) security; ideally everyone is great at both the security/audit/ops side and the dev side, but a team with everyone having a different mix is most realistic
* compatible long-term goals which are explicit; if someone wants to use this to become a great startup founder in 1-2y, i'd be fine with that and then introducing to investors, or someone who wants a 10y+ job, but being explicit about desires seems essential, in exchange for the company being honest about status, long-term potential, etc.
* cultural fit: able to get along with the team, and also compatible with "how startups work" -- easier if someone's been part of a successful product launch at a startup in a similar role
There are way more of those people in the bay area (although, many more jobs, too) than in Philly (I am from suburban philadelphia myself). Recruiting from enterprises might be ok for employees 20+, but not as good on the cultural fit issues for #1-10.
NYC is basically out (they are a net importer); Boston is a major source; philadelphia, atlanta, north carolina, etc. might be minor sources, and DC is probably a net importer.
I'd relo candidates from places like that (we can't really do remote yet), but wouldn't personally want to set up an office anywhere but SFBA, Seattle, Austin, a few non-US places, or unfortunately DC-Metro (I hate DC Metro myself, but in the long run, it's necessary; not sure if MD, VA, DC makes the most sense).
Appreciate the insight! Makes the organizations like Dreamit Ventures and the university business incubators even more important in my eyes. We've got the developer talent, but more lacking in the xp of 'how startups work'.
I think internships/coop are more important; if you were e.g. a Waterloo student who spent 2y of 5y working for Facebook, Amazon, Google, or small great startups, you'd be in a good position to start a startup (or work for an early stage one) locally.
You know what makes a state seem 'super liberal'? 60% Democrat-leaning. You know what makes a state seem 'super conservative'? 60% Republican-leaning. That's a net swing of just 20%. The other 80% of the people? Similar between regions, or different in dimensions that are not political – as politics is a sideshow, not the main-act, of most peoples' lives.
You will see more Democratic lawn signs, bumper-stickers, and billboards in conservative areas of Texas than you'll see Republican signage in liberal areas of California... conservative politics is strong but does not enforce the same orthodoxy as in the cities of California.
Over the last four decades, Calfornia has been led by Republican governors for more years than Texas has. Houston is the largest city in the world to elect an openly gay mayor.
People, companies, communities, and regions are a lot more interesting, and compatible with each other, than reductionist left-right political averages might lead you to believe.
Austin is just about as liberal as it gets. There is a reason that local politicians will try to move the seat of government back to Houston or Dallas every so often ;)
Texas, though still a 'stronghold' for the Right at the moment, is getting whittled down. For example: in the Fort Worth area, one of the reddest in a red state, 12 years ago was voting 96% Republican. 4 years later it was 88%. These days it is around 65%. Strongly red to be sure but the trend is unmistakable.
Also, a lot of 'Rockstar, Ninja SuperHumans' in SF are eventually going to want to raise a family. I love SF (aside from the slight claustrophobic feeling it gives me) but it is terribly hard to raise kids there. Aside from the tiny living spaces and lack of places to play, child care is astronomical. Austin is a great place for raising a family.
Everybody's mentioned the cost of living.
Some differences with the Austin 'scene' as opposed to CA. Ideas are greeted with a bit more skepticism...the second or third question that will always be asked is 'Sounds great! How is it going to make money?' That can be a bit of a wet blanket but it could also serve to keep you focused. Not to say that there is a lack of enthusiasm. There is plenty of that, but it is a bit more sober. Also, entrepreneurs seem to be a slightly older set of people. Not much but it is noticeable. One problem is that traditional banks around here (Austin) seem to be next to clueless or just extremely cautious when it comes to technology (if someone has a favorite tech savvy bank(er) in the Central Texas area, please let me know).
Anyway, I have convinced people to move from SF kicking and screaming. They have had a lot of the same reactions of people here ("I never want to be a Texan!", "Where will I get good beer?", "Is there any good food there?", "The jobs are not as exciting." etc, etc.) and they have ended up being very happy here.
I moved from reasonably liberal parts of Illinois/Wisconsin to Dallas/Fort Worth about three years ago... I wouldn't recommend this.
When I decided to move from DFW to start a company I looked at Portland, Boston, San Francisco, and Austin. Austin made sense, financially. Texas has no state income tax (unfortunately the social services reflect this), jobs, and the cost of living is a fraction of what it is in other cities of its size. Also, winter is just another word for January here.
Unfortunately, Austin is still a reasonably small town surrounded by Texas.
I wouldn't have come here if I wasn't trying to sack away money in a town with a reasonable selection of 24-hour cafes and restaurants. While I know a few SF->Austin transplants who love it here, I'd rather be in San Francisco.
They moved down after I went away for school. After being away from them for about 6 years during/after school, I went down the summer before my brother got married and ended up staying for a bit after meeting a girl.
This was well before I considered Austin or the others. I didn't intend to settle in Texas when I first got here.
Austin is not like the rest of Texas. It's common to hear others here comment the same: "Austin is not Texas". "Keep Austin Weird" is also a common t-shirt and bumper sticker slogan.
Austin's certainly not as lush and beautiful as Northern California, but it's definitely not "dreary and worn looking". Yes, it gets very hot in the summer, but the rest of the year the weather is fantastic.
What about non-competes? If you take the offer of one of these companies, if their employee contract is of the standard type outside of California, you'd better save away enough money to move back to where they are non-enforceable as a matter of long standing public policy.
And most of California is nothing like LA or SF! This drives me a bit nuts... I've done a ton of traveling, and while I think you can generally and accurately describe life in a certain city, it doesn't expand well to bigger geographies. Parts of France are nothing like Paris. Parts of Japan are nothing like Tokyo. In general, when choosing where to live, it's best to make sure you are a match on the city level. (Perhaps, too, give points to a city for being enough of a hub to make traveling easier.)
The group is targeting engineers with experience in Java, Ruby on Rails and Python programming
I read this and thought, "hm, although the markets for RoR and Python are not massive, they have been growing at a good clip, perhaps that's a good area to focus on." (I'm from a background of C++ and PHP, and I'm thoroughly burnt out on them)
Then I realized that these guys are idiots. They're follow-the-crowd types who are ignoring masses of untapped talent elsewhere in the nation and flying around to recruit in the same "rockstar" seeking circle jerk as everyone else. It's no wonder they're short on talent, they probably don't have the slightest clue what it looks like.
So now I wonder, "hm, maybe those are actually just buzzword technologies and they won't hold up in the long run..."
I think you're right...except for the part about Python and RoR. I think those are here to stay, though I doubt many people know why to would pick one over the other, perhaps other than the buzzword value.
Oh, I'm definitely not knocking RoR or Python. But they certainly seem to be in significantly less use than PHP and ASP.Net (using Indeed's jobtrends as my ubiquitous measure of reality, RoR + Python jobs count approximate PHP or ASP.Net jobs count).
Since I assume that the total number of jobs in a given field are proportional to the number of open listings, and since I assume that the number of skilled developers is tied to the historical job number, I am led to imagine that there is a much bigger pool of skilled ASP.Net and PHP candidates out there.
Basically, it sounds like these guys are just manufacturing their own dearth of job applicants. They're using hot, newer technology and flying to the most high-demand location to seek talent. If they made their products in ASP.Net or PHP and hired from other areas of the country, I'll bet they would have no trouble getting their product done quickly. But that's less buzz-wordy and they couldn't live their rockstar-wannabe fantasies.
(Note that I'm not making any claim as to the superiority of any language, or potential speed of development)
Also, other reasons Austin may be attractive to potential candidates:
1.) No state income tax. This is huge. If you make $140k a year in SF, you take home significantly less than you do in Texas. Also, there is no "city tax" like SF has.
2.) Cost of living is HALF, that's right, HALF of SF. Beautiful homes or urban condos are available and priced well below what you would spend buying OR renting in SF.
1 + 2 = lots of $$ in your pocket.
Not to mention the fact that Austin is arguably the hippest city in the country from a growth perspective. With events like ACL and SXSW (plus the thousands of live music shows throughout the rest of the year), the creative arts scene is flourishing.
Finally, the weather. It was 86 degrees, no humidity on December 19th last year. And yes, it is HOT in the summer, but with all that extra cash, you can go live in Europe for a few months to beat the heat.