If you're a software engineer and you've ever wanted to live in New York City, the time is now. Nearly every company in NYC needs software developers. For non-technical people, it is becoming a crisis. For software engineers, it's great news. Local developers are getting poached left and right, but we'd much rather fuel the NYC tech growth with more engineers instead of playing musical developer chairs.
Due to high demand and the growing accessibility of funding in NYC, salaries and equity arrangements for developers have never been better. It's routine to see developers just a few years out of school making >$100k or receiving generous equity grants, often over 15% as the first employee after founders. If you've ever felt undervalued as a software engineer, now is your time. Hiring managers and non-technical executives have realized the value of great technical talent and are working furiously to attract developers.
The technical community in NYC has really come together as well. You could go to technical and startup events every night of the week if you wanted (Ex: NYC Ruby, NYC Python, New York Scala Enthusiasts, Lean Startup, NYC Tech Talks, and Hack & Tell). There are burgeoning hacker spaces, cafes, and coworking spaces (Ex: New Work City, Hive, Ace Hotel, and General Assembly). There's even an awesome way for out of town developers to meet other techies or find a place to crash: Adopt A Hacker.
Here are a few examples of cool NYC tech companies: Gilt Groupe runs luxury fashion sales and built and open sourced Hummingbird to monitor them. SeatGeek helps you get the best ticket prices for sporting events using data. Etsy is a marketplace for handmade goods and treats code as craft. Yipit aggregates a multitude of daily deal sites and encourages hackers to become founders.
So, what's the best way get into one of these companies if you live somewhere else but want to join the party in New York?
Video Speed Interviewing with New York City Companies
For the past few months, Hirelite has hosted in-person and web-based speed interviewing events to unite software engineers and companies. Developers can quickly evaluate multiple companies through a series of 5-minute interviews over the course of 2 hours without having to take off work (the events are at 7pm). So far, we've only accepted developers and companies already in NYC, but for this event, we're opening up registration to all back-end and generalist software engineers who can work in the US.
Our next events will be on Monday, November 1st at 7pm EST and Tuesday, November 16th at 7pm EST. Both events will be web-based, using live video chat so that you can interview a series of companies without leaving home. It's a great way to sample the job market quickly. To register for either of these events, visit Hirelite.com. We've got a great group of companies lined up with more on the way.
