Jobs in Austin
Submitted by digitaldroid on Thu, 06/12/2008 - 9:27am.
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What is going on in central Texas?
I recently moved back to Austin after having done the tour of Texas (Austin, San Antonio, Houston and Dallas). I have offers in all places except Austin....it's almost amazing to me. I have talked to recruiters, companies, postings, etc and I'm starting to worry that maybe I'll be forced back to Houston (yuck) or Dallas.
Just releasing my frustration and the current state of things ;-p
I know exactly where you are coming from. I have been looking for a long time and I easily get 10x the number of serious inquiries from DFW, Houston and elsewhere that I do from Austin. It seems like unless you have exactly a certain set of skills that employers around here are looking for the market is just basically non-existant, especially for software engineers. I'm lucky to currently be in the situation where I don't have to be in a hurry to find something soon otherwise I'd be a lot more worried, especially since with the slow housing market I am not sure I could sell my house or if I did how much of a beating I would take on it.
Well at least I know I'm not the only one in this situation. My Peggle scores have improved ;) though I'd rather be working.
I can't help but think that Austin is a bit saturated with tech workers and that is contributing to it. Perhaps I'm wrong but it seems every time I've interviewed there were 5 other candidates I am in competition with. I love Austin and am very happy to be back, but the markets in the other major Texas cities are much easier for the potential employee.
As for the housing market, I was surprised at that as well. I left in 2001 and so much has changed here, from toll roads to development all over.
There is definitely a huge glut of tech workers here in Austin relative to the number of opportunities. It is not uncommon to run into ex-IT folk who are working throw-away jobs in retail or food/bar service to make ends meet because there is a lack of jobs. Austin is such a nice place that people are willing to be unemployed or grossly underemployed just to stay and people from elsewhere continue to flock here relocating themselves and further glutting the market. Unfortunately all that has really depressed salaries and made the market so tough compared to other places. You are right about facing lots of competition. I've been on interviews where I asked the hiring manager how many resumes they got... answer in the many hundres... how many are they interviewing, in the dozens. There always just seems to be someone else who is more qualified or younger or hungrier or cheaper or all of the above.
The housing market is also glutted, and with the slowdown the amount of overbuilding has really made the market sluggish. It is better than the 2001-2003 timeframe when it seemed like 1/2 the houses in my neighborhood were for sale for months on end and dozens were foreclosed on, but its a lot worse again now than it was even a year or two ago.
Oh... I almost forgot... Welcome back, and I wish you the best of luck. Tell us what kind of job you are looking for (and maybe what you aren't) and make sure you've filled out your skill set on here so that recruiters can search and find you.
Anyway, I don't want to sound too negative... there are at least a few jobs out there, but when things are this tough it seems like you have to try harder and be more patient and persistent.
Well thank you for the welcoming. Regardless of Austin's downsides, I'm very happy to be back! Austin will always be home to me, there is simply no other place like it, and I should know ;-p
As for a job, my expectations have been lowered, lol, I am looking for a place to call home and know that I am making an impact and not just earning a paycheck. I have been titled several things, most recently Sr systems engineer, but I'm best at web applications, integration, web servers, PKI/PKE, SSL and other related items. I know this is a shot in the dark but perhaps someone will read this and give me some pointers. Having been gone for about 7 years there are a lot of companies in Austin I probably don't know about. I have loads of experience with DoD systems and security as well as banking and e-commerce.
Thanks again and it's great to be back.
If you've got security clearance there has been a company called ATS who have been advertising for software developers... maybe they might also have some system engineer opportunities as well. It is my understanding they are a defense contractor of some sort.
Here is a posting from them that might be a possibility, albeit maybe a little low-end:
http://jobnugget.com/view.php?job_id=33707
Here is their web site:
http://www.ultra-ats.com
Unfortunately their web site isn't very condusive to posting deeper urls into their job postings.
Thank you for the lead. Yes I do have a clearance. Also I sent a connection to you from linkedin.
Excellent... perhaps there is someone in my LinkedIn network who can help you out.
We are definitely looking for Engineers...check us out at www.snipr.com/ultra-ats and send your resume to hrdept@ultra-ats.com.
Best Regards!