Hello,
I am new to development, living in Illinois, hoping to move to Minneapolis, MN in the near future. Any tips on networking in a new city? Or thoughts on the development community in Minnesota more generally?
I’m a career changer, and I have yet to land that first junior developer job, but I am also trying to move to Minnesota to be closer to friends and family at the same time. I’ll take any advice that I can get.
Thanks in advance!
I have a longtime online acquaintence who lives about an hour from Minneapolis. I flew there once a couple of years ago to meet him and work on a business plan we were hatching (which fell through). Saw just a little bit of Minneapolis/St Paul area, flew into MSP, and got to see a good bit of some surrounding areas. The area is really nice, for a metro - it’s seems like more of a sprawling metro than a compact one, to me, and I like that.
Anyway, I don’t think my friend is too active locally with other developers, but I’ll ask. I know that the job market in the MSP area for developers is good, or was the last time I looked into it. Start applying to places as soon as you can. Also, apply to places that don’t have Monster ads or whatnot - agencies or the like that employ people with your skillset. Just send them a resume and a polite letter and move on.
You’re moving to a great area and moving into a great career path, I’m sure you’ll do well. Keep us up to date!
Edit: Friend says that this place (The Nerdery) is still growing. You have to I think do a test and maybe pixel-perfect HTML/CSS design from a PSD to get a design job, for example. But it’s a cool place.
I was born and raised in St. Louis, MO, and moved to Chicago for an IT job (company did off-site network administration, custom-built systems, etc.) It was kind of scary, at first; but I met a friend (before the move) who introduced me to other friends, and for the first six months that I was in Chicago, they all took turns making sure that I was not sitting at home in front of the TV when not working. (And a few home-cooked meals, tae boot.) It made a huge difference, IMHO.
Three years later, that company closed its doors for good. That’s when I got into web. And I’ve never looked back. (Actually, a lot of it was not wanting to hear people whine about not being able to print that pushed me into web.)
The economy tanked, and I was forced to move back to my native STL; but I’ve met some awesome people while I lived in Chicago that have had an impact on me. And I wouldn’t trade that for all the money in the world.
Best of luck on your journey, and may you have experiences that are at least as fascinating as mine were.
V/r,
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