do any of you work there? is it anywhere close to other cities in terms of pay/cool companies?
Most FAANG is represented. Plus, Chicago is the largest fintech hub behind NYC.
Number of search results for "software engineer" jobs on Indeed.com in Chicago, IL: 1.0k in New York, NY: 1.9k in Mountain View, CA: 4.2k in San Jose, CA: 3.9k in Sunnyvale, CA: 4.1k There are opportunities, but they are relatively fewer. (You can do the analysis for yourself on other titles, and filtering by amount of experience, etc.)
Our Chicago salaries are quite a bit lower than coastal cities. Ballpark 10% lower than Seattle, 20% lower than Bay area for SDE 2. Of course, cost of living is commensurately lower.
If it were indeed just 20% difference - I'd choose Chicago in a heartbeat. The problem is - commute to downtown from where it's ok to live with a family would take 1.5-2 hours, at least.
You can drive to Wisconsin in 1 hour from downtown. What kind of commute are you talking about?
If you find the right places (mostly fintech), you will get paid more than any faang, and the CoL is much lower. There are several of them.
Who else besides citadel, jump, akuna, old mission?
Optiver, CTC, DRW, Citadel (HQ)
You know it snows there and there’s no In-N-Out, right?
I’m from there. I just never worked in tech there and want to know from others what they think of the scene. I’m used to the cold-as-fuck homeless people dying level winters 😂
Can't argue at all about the cold. However, In-N-Out sucks when compared to Culvers.
How is 4YoE offer, $150k base, $100k RSUs, 15k annual bonus, and 20k annual equity refresh for Chicago? Would it be dumb to leave big N for it?
Very solid for Chicago. Where’s the offer for?
"Big N" = ?
If you have to ask...