Ranking cities based on UX/front end dev job potential

January 3, 2016 1:29 PM

My partner's job will soon relocate him to one of the cities in the list below the fold. I am a fairly early-career front end developer who also does a lot of UX design and visualization work, and I'm hoping to move somewhere with demand for such positions and (hopefully) an active community of developers. Can someone with experience working in web development in one of these cities offer any advice? I'd also appreciate more general help in how to do my own research on the career potential of the different places I've listed.

Places like New York, Boston and Seattle will obviously have more jobs to choose from and a larger number of interesting conferences, meet ups and so on, but I'm wondering if I might be overlooking career benefits of working in a smaller city. Plus, there is no guarantee that my partner will be placed in any of these larger cities even if he requests it, so I'm still interested in learning about the other places on the list.

Here's the list:

Seattle
Boston
NYC
Edison, New Jersey
West Orange, New Jersey
Philadelphia, PA
Pittsburgh, PA
Chapel Hill, NC
Charlotte, NC

Thanks!

posted by loquacious crouton to Work & Money (6 answers total)

Northern NJ is densely populated, and there is a lot of computer work of all kinds, big companies and small. I'm in CT, so I don't what the job market is right now, but the base business is there.
posted by SemiSalt at 1:36 PM on January 3, 2016

Best answer: Boston has a very active and vibrant UX scene, with the yearly UXPA Boston and Healthcare Refactored conferences each year, active chapters of various organizations (Boston Chi, Boston Inno, Boston Refresh, and so on.)

I'm not a web dev, but you could reach out to more dev specific meetups/ groups for info, and use Indeed to scan each areas job postings to see what the last of the land is.

Sent you a PM also.
posted by canine epigram at 1:37 PM on January 3, 2016

NYC
Boston
Seattle
Chapel Hill, NC
Charlotte, NC
Philadelphia, PA

unknown
Edison, New Jersey
West Orange, New Jersey
Pittsburgh, PA
posted by nickrussell at 1:46 PM on January 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

Edison, NJ area has some jobs in the field, though obv the concentration is less then in the bigger cities. But it's close to NYC (there is 2 train stops on the NE Corridor line that will bring you into the city) so you can always commute. If you have any specific questions about the area (vs the job market) MeFiMail me.

Are you looking for jobs in straight web development, or more of a front-end development for an SaaS type products?
posted by pyro979 at 2:04 PM on January 3, 2016

Seattle has a very dense UX community and the UXPA annual conference will be there this year!
posted by joan_holloway at 2:19 PM on January 3, 2016

I'm fairly familiar with West Orange, and personally would assume it's draw is its proximity to NYC. I'm curious why it's on your list, as if I had some more context I could offer better feedback.
posted by nandaro at 7:18 PM on January 3, 2016