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Ask Slashdot: Undervalued, Livable American Tech Towns?

Posted by timothy on from the don't-worry-plenty-of-room-in-alexandria dept.

An anonymous reader writes: I've been working in tech as a software developer for about 15 years. As I've gotten older I'm starting to see the appeal of living in a city that's not crazily blown out and expensive like most established tech markets (think San Francisco, Austin, Seattle, Los Angeles, etc.). Are there are any good tech job markets that are normal, affordable, livable, American cities, or am I forever doomed to be subjected to the rat race found in these overheated and overcrowded markets? Lots of cities have at least some vibrant tech scene; Omaha, NE, Raleigh, NC, and Ann Arbor, MI are three that spring to mind, but everyone's tastes and tolerances will vary. What do you find in your neck of the woods? (Even if it's one of those "crazily blown out" examples.)

6 of 464 comments (clear)

  1. Austin? by Kohath · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What's wrong with Austin? Did something change in the last 2 years? Did Austin suddenly become coastal-California-level expensive?

    1. Re:Austin? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Obviously you like Texas.

      But not all of us want to be surrounded by right wing gun toting rednecks, and if you have experience with Texas you know that is what makes up the majority of the Texas population.

      Also, it's the state that brought us the Bushes, and Lance Armstrong. Texas creates ASSHOLES, and those assholes make the world
      a less pleasant place to live. You might be stupid enough to think Texas is a great place, but not all of us are so stupid.

  2. Colorado by Niris · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Colorado is still relatively cheap to live in with a lot of smaller cities with tech, and worth checking into. Parts of the state are growing fast, like Boulder and Denver, but Fort Collins is an amazing town, and you can definitely do alright with tech in Colorado Springs as well without being overly crowded and expensive. You will run into a fair amount of assholes who refuse to accept that the state is growing (they almost all have a "Native" sticker on their car), but they tend to not be in tech.

  3. Find where you love to live by Timmy+D+Programmer · · Score: 2, Interesting

    And the rest becomes minimally important.

    --


    (If at first you don't succeed, do it different next time!)
  4. Boise Idaho by Camel+Pilot · · Score: 4, Interesting

    More than famous potatoes...

    http://www.hcn.org/wotr/boise-...

    Outdoor town also with skiing close by, climbing, mountain biking, Sawtooths, etc.

  5. Utah by SecretSquirrel33 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Utah has a rather low cost of living with a very vibrant and active tech community. Driving down the main highway through the state you will see billboards every few miles for developer related hiring. There are dozens of established tech companies as well as many many smaller startups. A few are:
    Qualtrics
    Pluralsight
    Novell
    Adobe
    DOMO
    WorkFront
    MX
    InsideSales
    FusionIO
    Instructure
    L3 Communications
    Boeing
    Oracle
    Microsoft
    Overstock.com
    HireVue

    See more at http://siliconslopes.com/deal-...

    There is also a vibrant tech community in Utah with a variety of meetups including:
    AngularJS Utah ~1400 members
    Utah Java Users Group ~1100 members

    There are also Python, Elixir, Elm, Haskell, ReactJS, Go, Lambda Lounge, Ionic, F#, Big Data, DevOps, Drupal, C++ and BitCoin meetups.

    Also the most common profession currently in Utah is Software Developer - http://apps.npr.org/dailygraph...

    Utah is also a great place to live: http://siliconslopes.com/about...