Traditionally actors headed for Hollywood while techies made a beeline for Silicon Valley. But times are changing, and with technological job opportunities expanding, new hotspots are emerging that offer fantastic opportunities for tech jobs and startup companies in the industry.
ZipRecruiter, an online recruitment and job finder business, has identified the top ten cities that are poised to become the new tech capitals of various US states. They tracked hiring patterns, and analyzed the various metropolitan areas that currently show positive employment growth and appear to be on the verge of a boom in the tech industry.
They also identified common factors these cities share including:
Additionally, the company reports that the tech industry as a whole is revitalizing economies that were previously depressed essentially refocusing what has been referred to as the Rust Belt at the forefront of the American economy.
One of the top ten tech cities is Indianapolis, and today we spoke to two Indy-based startups to get an indication of how successful they have been. We also tracked the top tech cities listed by ZipRecruiter, to see which tech jobs are on offer.
1. Austin – Round Rock, Texas, known as “Silicon Hills”, where companies including Google, Facebook, and eBay are currently offering more than 50,000 tech positions for Java developers, development analysts, technical writers, software engineers, and network administrators.
2. Raleigh – Cary, North Carolina, in the so-called research triangle where companies are looking primarily for infrastructure architects, design engineers, tooling engineers, Java developers, and SQL developers.
3. Provo – Orem, Utah, where many software companies operate and which is a pilot location for Google Fiber. There are currently about 8,570 jobs available in IT, the top one offering positions in technical support, and as Python developers, field technicians, software engineers, and net developers.
4. Fort Collins – Loveland, Colorado, that is home to computer companies including Hewlett Packard and Intel. Fort Collins’ top five tech jobs are software QA, SQL server database developer, application software developer, test engineer, and lead systems programmer.
5. Hartford (West and East Hartford), Connecticut, where the top tech jobs are applications engineer, systems analyst, infrastructure engineer, Java developer, and data architect.
6. Indianapolis – Carmel, Indiana, that boasts a high quality of life coupled with a low cost of living, and has recently attracted numerous tech companies to the area. Top tech jobs are available for senior Java developers, infrastructure architects, Java developers, operations managers, and net developers. Startups are more varied (see below).
7. Boise City – Nampa, Idaho, that currently has about 8,180 IT jobs available, the top five being positions for application engineers, firmware engineers, software engineers, mobile software developers, and net software engineers.
8. Manchester – Nashua, New Hampshire, which seems to have an increasing number of tech jobs available. The top five here are for UI software engineers, systems architects, Java developers, senior IT project managers, and sharepoint administrators.
9. Nashville – Davidson – Murfreesboro – Franklin, Tennessee, which while number nine on the list, has more than 20,000 tech jobs available right now. The top five are for senior programmer analysts, information security engineers, systems administrators, IT managers, and iOS developers.
10. Eugene – Springfield, Oregon, known as the Silicon Forest because they manufacture a great deal of tech hardware and they emphasize clean, renewable technologies.
The two startups interviewed by CloudTweaks were Formstack, an Indy business that provides data capture solutions, and Roust Community, a social network that connects like-minded people.
Formstack started out nearly a decade ago, in 2006, and has subsequently become very involved within the Indy tech community, recognizing the importance of giving back to the city in which they are currently based after relocating from San Francisco.
The company has subsequently experienced a 110 percent increase in new revenue over the last year, and it expects to see a further 80 percent year-over-year revenue growth in 2015. This illustrates how a successful startup can – and has – helped the Indy community develop, and how it is operating on what has become one of the top ten havens for tech startups.
An advantage of headquartering out of Indy, says Ade Olonoh, (Founder of Formstack), is that the city has the ability to “bring in members from all over the world, but still help increase the overall revenue of the city and have an impact on our city’s economy.”
Roust Community, created by Mark LaFay to move dialogue off Facebook and provide real value for those wanting “good conversation” relating to polarizing topics including politics, religion and social issues, also has it’s heart and soul in Indianapolis. “Indiana continues to become not only the crossroads of America, but also a growing technology metropolis,” says LaFay.
Certainly these are two startups that are doing their best to nurture talent within their own fast developing tech communities.
By Penny Swift
