Austin's Dirty Little Secret... It Kinda Sucks

“Regrets? I’ve got a few,

But then again, too few to mention.” - Frank Sinatra, “My Way”

I had a guilty pleasure of reading a professional blow hard/recruiter’s blog. This wizard of the recruiting industry and judge of technical talent, besides having never worked in the tech business, only works with elite engineers and only has amazing opportunities. His yarns usually center around PhD’s in machine learning being highly sought after by local well-funded startups. Anyhoo, the author in one of his post’s bragged about telling someone to “pack up the family and move to Austin.” (Source) Without a job. The implication being that the risk he faced moving to Austin jobless would be more than made up for by the potential reward. Almost the modern day equivalent of, “There’s gold in them thare hills!”

I don’t believe in crying over spilled milk, but this was some serious crappy advice. I have worked professionally in Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, Salt Lake City, Baltimore, Dallas, San Francisco, and Melbourne, Australia. Very recently, a former co-worker I have known for well over ten years asked me my opinion about moving from Seattle to Austin. I let him know, in no uncertain terms, that Austin really sucks. Here are some things that you will never see on this blow hard’s blog.

THE COST OF LIVING MYTH

In today’s connected world, it is super easy to get data. I have gone through various periods of absolute infatuation with the website/app Zillow. With it, I can quickly and easily see the house of real estate, see pictures, and get a 1-10 rating on the nearby schools. This app convinced me that living in California again was an absolute pipe dream. However, home prices on Zillow seem much lower than equivalent home prices in my adopted home of Seattle. Do not be deceived!

The property taxes will vary a bit from location to location throughout Settle, but I paid roughly 0.9% on my home in Redmond. It didn’t click with me when I was looking at homes that were 33% cheaper in Austin that my monthly payment would be almost exactly the same because my property taxes in Austin are an eye popping 3.1%. The data was all there, but I willfully ignored it until it was too late. While the overall price of a home may be significantly lower, the property taxes are so much higher that it becomes a wash.

When having this conversation amongst Austinites, they are quick to point out that Texas does not have a state income tax. Well, neither does the great State of Washington. The next question is, “Well, where do they get their money?” I can’t answer that question, but I do know the facts. No state income tax. A 1% higher sales tax with groceries and staples excluded. Much lower property taxes. When looking at real estate, please do not make my mistake and be sure to factor in these insane property taxes.

Yet, to make up for the equivalent real estate cost as my adopted home of Seattle, I have found the salaries to be 30-40% lower. Part of me always thought that if I didn’t find a fulltime role right away, I could always go back to contracting. In Seattle, the contract rates paid more than the fulltime rates, as they should. With contracting, there are inherent risks, no benefits, and no vacation. Yet in Austin, the contract rates pay far less than the already low, low salaries.

So, equivalent cost. Lower salaries. What more could you want?

AN ABBREVIATED LIST OF REAL THINGS THAT HAVE HAPPENED TO ME PERSONALLY OVER THE LAST FOUR YEARS…

Maybe it’s not fair to blame all of this on Austin, but this has never happened to me outside this market:

• Shown up to a formal interview. Been interviewed by multiple people as scheduled. One person on the interview loop does not show up and I am left in a room by myself for an hour. TWICE.
• Interviewed with a small consulting firm and was asked to spend the day doing work, for free, for the company as part of the process.
• Accepted an offer from a hiring manager only to have the hiring manager quit within six weeks. TWICE.
• Worked at a “startup” founded in 1997 that routinely claimed that they would be the next Facebook, but in the span of a year half the company either quit or got fired
• Worked at a startup that was in business for two years. The company consisted of twenty people and had a CEO, COO, CTO, Enterprise Vice President, two regular Vice Presidents, and two directors. 25% of the employees were direct relatives of the CEO. The company never made a dime in revenue. To this day, I am pretty sure the whole thing was a scam to bilk a rich, clueless investor, but this one company has now spawned two separate companies trying to peddle the same dumb idea as part of the broader Austin Software Ponzi ™ that runs rampant here. Rich clueless investors in fear of missing out give money hand over fist to non technical managers who promise to make them billions in tech. They hire their friends and family, produce nothing, then attempt to sell out. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. If they don’t, they just leach onto the next clueless investor and the whole cycle repeats itself.

• Gone through three rounds of interviews. Received an offer for $30k less than my current salary which I was upfront with the internal recruiter on our first call. After telling her that the whole experience was extremely unprofessional and a waste of everyone’s time, she decided to call my current employer for a “salary verification” after I declined the offer.
• Stated every step of the way through the interview process that the only reason I was looking for a new job was I had a family health situation that was making it difficult for me to keep up my current high travel requirements. Multiple times, I asked about the travel requirements. Accepted the job, took a 40% pay cut and then was asked to travel just as much as my previous job.

OF COURSE, YOUR MILEAGE MAY VARY

Should no one move to Austin? No, of course not. But anyone doing so should do it with their eyes wide open. The cost of living here is really no better than larger cities such as Seattle that have more job opportunities and higher salaries. As I write this, I am sitting across the street from the Capital Factory, Austin’s largest tech incubator. Every single “CEO” in there truly believes they are going to have a unicorn ($1 billion) valuation. All believe they will follow the four steps from Eric Cartman’s meme to a tee. Most assuredly, it will not happen for the vast majority. While cronyism and nepotism is rampant just about everywhere, it is especially bad here in Austin.

If you are a young buck looking to make it in the tech scene and willing to job hop for a few years and gain experience, it might be well worth your time. If you are in mid career, coming here for an unknown could very well be career suicide. Take hede.