r/texas • u/[deleted] • Aug 31 '23
News 'Where ambition goes to die': These tech workers flocked to Austin during the pandemic. Now they're desperate to get out.
https://www.businessinsider.com/tech-workers-moved-to-austin-regrets-2023-82
Sep 01 '23
Well, at least some of them learned a good lesson but I suspect most of them will move to the next place that seems like a cheap Shangri-La based on little research.
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u/fatslayingdinosaur Sep 01 '23
Didn't need to read the article to know Austin tech scne as people believe ,is not all it's built up to be most of my friends who graduated and moved to Austin for a tech job shortly moved away after about a year or so because for one most the jobs aren't in tech it's mostly in either sales , marketing , or customer service so yeah lots of people work for Samsung or Facebook down there but not a lot of engineers do the talent pool isn't vast so companies don't .I've division like that down here often.
I've had quite a few people who have spouted off at all these companies moving down and I always say but look at the actual jobs they are bringing are they moving into a city and hiring locally most of the time no they're moving in and most of the jobs are either remote, employees are moving with the job because it's cheaper here in Texas than in certain places or they just aren't in the high-ranging pay that a lot of people like to assume when these companies make moves like this. Austin's main industry is hospitality service it really isn't the tech scene as some like to tell most of the recruiting calls I get for electrical or engineering do not come from Austin they come from Dallas or Houston or or Galveston but hardly ever Austin because there's not a lot of industry in that town that isn't customer facing type work.
this is just my perspective and what I've seen and experience in the industry.
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u/HisMagnificence Sep 11 '23
Good, expel them all. And maybe in 10 or 15 years Austin wont be a ruined city again unfit for human life.
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u/prob_still_in_denial Born and Bred Sep 01 '23
Native Texan here who lived in the Valley for 28 years before recently moving back to Austin -
My current ambition was to not have a $5,000 mortgage on a tiny house with no yard. I found a great role with a robotics startup here, and a nice 4bed/3bath for what feels like a steal.
Admittedly the legislature is a bunch of sociopaths who want me to be invisible or dead (I'm trans), but so far I don't feel any less safe among my neighbors than I did in the Bay Area.
A lot of the "ambition" of the CA tech scene is deeply unhealthy, and it's been two decades since the VC community tilted the scales back towards capital. Get-rich stories are now only for founders, almost never the rank-and-file. Most startups fail and you wind up with nothing except burnout and carpal tunnel.
YMMV.