Do you live in Manhattan and write code for a living ?

April 10, 2006 12:08 PM

Looking for personal accounts from people living in Manhattan and working in the embedded systems field

My SO has been offered a great job in Manhattan. The position comes with a subsidized apartment on the Upper East Side. I write code for embedded systems and I'm wondering what my job prospects look like if we move to New York.

I've done some quick searches on SimplyHired, Monster etc. and it doesn't look like there are many openings in my line of work in Manhattan (that doesn't come as a surprise). I did see some listings for positions in New Jersey and Long Island. Obviously I can pull up these places on Google Maps and determine how far they are from Manhattan but I know nothing about transport options for getting myself to/from work and how brutal such a commute might be.

My question, for those that live in Manhattan and work on embedded systems for a living: How far are you commuting from your apartment to your job ? How tough is your commute ?

posted by cobrien to Work & Money (1 answer total)

Basically, for NJ/LI you need to get to Penn Station/the nearby PATH, (or the Port Authority, but you probably don't want to do that.) With the way the subway works, that's a bit of a pain in the ass from the UES, since the subways lines go north and south rather than east and west. Depending how much you make and how much you want to throw away, I guess you could maybe take a taxi down every day.

Then you just have to go from Penn Station to where you're working. The best bet would be something on the PATH, like Hoboken or Jersey City, which is a really quick ride. Get farther out in LI or NJ and the ride from Penn Station gets long and it is less likely that the place you work will even be near the train station.

Did you check Queens? That's where the industrial stuff in NYC seems to be located these days, and you could probably just take the subway.

Or, you could get a car, but that's cheating.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 1:08 PM on April 10, 2006