Advice on Relocating to Austin area (my heart's already there)
Submitted by anaegle on Mon, 05/19/2008 - 8:46pm.
I currently reside in Detroit, MI, but have always had a heart for Texas. Now that I've completed my Computer Science degree, I'm determined to fulfill my dream of relocating to Austin this summer. Does anyone have any advice on relocating to the area? Anything specific about job hunting in Austin, especially for entry-level OpenGL coders?
Hi there :) So what do you want to do? Do you have a sense of what companies are working in the OpenGL space?
I'm interested in real-time interactive graphical applications, holography, graphics tool kit dev - just about anything involving computer graphics. I've applied at Zebra Imaging, Nvidia, and numerous game studios in Austin. Any advise on my approach? Should I expand the scope of companies?
You should probably expand your scope because most of the major employers looking for 3D developers are fairly insistent on 5+ years experience. If its game companies they mostly want people who already have credits on successful released titles.
You should consider talking to oil/natural gas exploration companies, as they are often looking for people to work on imaging software and they may have more entry level opportunities. Those companies are mostly located in DFW or Houston though. One exception to that I know of is Austin Geomodeling if you've also got Motif and/or Qt experience, but I haven't seen a job posting from them lately.
focus on building a network. Austin's still a small town and a lot of open positions are word of mouth. you're competing with the local computer science degree students, so you'll need to be a little more creative about your job search.
since you're a recent graduate, your school alumni association will be really helpful. get a list together of other alumni in Austin and email them that you're planning to move there, could they provide any advice having come from the same school.
find the association/networking group that's most in line with what you want to do and start participating in their email list/web forum/etc. a lot of them will have recent graduate rates for membership, so don't be afraid to ask.
if you don't have a lot of overhead (car payments, etc.), you might want to consider just moving here and taking anything that'll pay food & rent until you can break in to the career you want. don't get discouraged! there's always a way.
read: Marty Nemko's advice for new grads
good luck!
tamer's advice about working your network is excellent...
Be careful just moving here w/o job prospects though, Austin is a fairy expensive place to live, especially compared to where you are coming from -- Detroit from what I've heard is one of the cheapest places in the country.
And the bias towards UT (or A&M) grads around here is also a real thing that people from out of state have to deal with. Same thing is true in most places though.
Re: The UT / A&M comment, I'm not so sure about that. Some hiring managers like to define diversity as not hiring new grads from the same schools.
The Alumni association comment is excellent. If you haven't already, you should also start using LinkedIn.com and searching through your network to see who may be relevant in Austin to help you out.
I've not run into a hiring manager who followed that definition, at least not outside the academic world. There is perhaps at least a subtle bias towards schools who are known in the local area to turn out a "known commodity" vs. schools that people have had less contact with the graduates from or that generally aren't as well known. At any rate over the years I have run into a fair number of people who tend to prefer to hire people from their alma mater, which is why networking through your school's Alumni association is often an excellent way to get an inside track to opportunities.
I appreciate all of the advise. I really hadn't thought of the siginificance of my alumni association as a networking tool.
You might want to get introduced on LinkedIn to Glenn Medalle who is a recruiter for Pogo which is part of EA. I talked to him a while back about opportunities in Pogo's Austin offices. While game studios normally are looking for mainly well seasoned programmers you might ask him about entry level development opportunities.
You might have to work your way into a game company through play testing or QA before you get an opportunity in development. Getting your foot in the door will give you a chance to meet people who you could show code you've developed on your own time.
I would stay away from the game companies unless you are desperate. Pay is lousy, pressure is high.
And I REALLY agree about the networking thing. Friends can get you a back stage pass.
Finally, since we are talking first job, I'm guessing that you're not married. It is probably better to land something relatively quickly than to be ideal. Consider Dallas (defense & oil), Houston (oil) and San Antonio (defense) as options to get money coming in. Then, after a couple of years, you have the precious experience everybody wants, and the precious money everybody needs while you look for work. I've looked for work with & without a current job. I really prefer the former.
On the other hand, if he has ambitions to the gaming scene then he probably needs to do it now, because that is a young man's game and it looks to be much more difficult if not nearly impossible to break into for an other developer.
You are right about getting a job quickly. Recent grads who have a big gap from their graduation date are at a disadvantage in finding good employment for largely the same reasons employment gaps are bad for experienced workers. The biggest of those is often the subtle impression that the good candidates will get snapped up quickest. Of course we know that in a bad market that isn't always fair, but it is one of those things that can be hard to shake.
And as you point out, it is often easier to look for a job when you have one.
nzook - would you consider Austin to be out of reach for a recent grad? Also, just to clarify my current situation. Even though I'm a recent grad, I've worked full time as a Sys Admin for the past three years, so It's almost as if I need to make a career shift to get into low-level/graphical software engineering. And to make it more complicated, yeah I have wife + 2 kids :-)
Not at all! I'm just concerned that you don't go too long without work. As softwarejanitor said, doing so hurts you professionally. First, get a job. Then, get the job want.
Now for the good news: full-time employment + getting your degree + wife & kids = all kinds of goodness from a (non-gaming) employer's standpoint. You have demonstrated (as in past tense) an ability to manage your life far, far above most green grads.
I would be nervous about taking an admin job with a company if you want to be a programmer there. I've seen people get pigeonholed. Not that it has to be that way.
Oh--and DO make use of your school's placement services--that stuff actually can be very helpful.
I agree about the pigeonholing thing... I'd say that if a person takes a sysadmin position as an interim job that they not expect to move into development at that company. Instead it may be better to take whatever sysadmin job is available and then worry about finding a development job once settled in. The only downside to that is that coworker contacts and connections may not be quite as valuable in finding the next opportunity if the job is in a different industry. That would really just mean that some additional effort to network with locals in a preferred industry would be necessary.
One thing to consider is that if your children are school aged that parts of Austin with good schools can be expensive. Many of the schools in less expensive areas are struggling and several have been repeatedly rated academically unacceptable by the state. A few of those are in danger of being closed. You might want to consider suburbs like Round Rock or Pflugerville for more affordable housing with better schools (than the cheaper parts of Austin). Then again, I'm not sure Detroit's public schools are much better, so you would need to get a more knowledgeable opinion on the comparative quality. The bottom line is research what rents are in parts of the Austin area you would like to live in and what housing will cost you there because it varies a bunch. If possible you may want to visit the areas before you commit so you can see for yourself what they are like. If your children aren't yet of school age you have a little more flexibility at first since you can move into a better school territory later once you are more established.
It is in your favor that you have some sysadmin experience, that may be an "in" to a job in the IT business until you can find a way to get into development. Once you start building up your network of people here things should get easier for you.
To highlight what SJ said, there are places in South Austin can be affordable too w/ decent schools. Circle C is a possibility, or down in Buda & Kyle, Texas.
matt is right, Buda and Kyle are essentially South Austin's equivalents to Pflugerville, Cedar Park and Round Rock... I was always under the impression that Circle C was pretty spendy though. Looking at some real estate listings for there would seem to confirm that. A couple listings I picked out more or less at random were houses a couple years older and a bit smaller than mine out in Pflugerville but listed for about 2x the price. That can vary a lot based on neighborhood to neighborhood though after paging through several pages of listings for Circle C I have yet to find anything very much under $300k, and that is way out (way way out) of my price range, let alone someone who is a recent grad. Unless I suppose they come from a wealthy family which you can probably guess I don't.
Thanks, SJ. We homeschool, so I hadn't thought about that one. I have a good friend who is a GREAT realtor. He grew up here & has been helping people buy & sell houses for 30 years. He really works for his clients. The name is Scott Sousares. 512-837-1122.
I suggest the renting thing for people moving in from out of state partially because if they take a interim job, its easier to move to somewhere closer to work if you are renting rather than if you have to sell a house. Buying a house is, for most people, a much better idea in the long run.
I was actually kind of figuring that someone who was a recent grad would probably have to rent for a while until they got settled into a long term job situation, but if buying is a financial reality, then you are absolutely correct that finding a good realtor is very important.