Where should we look to find my guy a creative/tech job in Austin, TX?

January 14, 2008 10:33 AM

Austin, Tx help! What jobs are available for and/or which companies would be interested in a person with a current job that's variously described as creative, educational, social, entertaining, games-, media- and/or tech-related?

My boyfriend is looking at jobs in Austin, Texas that are similar to the job he has now.

He's done creative direction with two large Internet-based projects. Both involved "experience marketing", custom technology, education, games and puzzles, social media and community, etc...but because it's a startup company, we're not even sure how to describe the field, much less find a similarly creative job in a different city. He's worked with this company for two or three years.

He's got lots of tech skills and is great with Flash, but wants to stick closer to the creative and management sides of things (ie, doesn't want to program or animate).

We've looked on Craigslist and will be checking out the creative/tech stuff listed on there, but I'm hoping some MeFites will have better first-hand knowledge and can make recommendations for fun, interesting, creative companies to look at. Bonus points if it's games and/or education-related.

I'll be keeping a close eye on this thread, so please let me know if I've left anything out or need to clarify.

Thanks in advance!

posted by lhall to work & money (8 comments total)

I interviewed for this company that makes educational games: Enspire. It seems like a great place to work. http://www.enspire.com/
posted by Packy_1962 at 11:14 AM on January 14, 2008

Craigslist Austin is probably your best bet, which is how I found my job. I work for an e-learning company called Enspire Learning, which sounds like it'd be a good match for your boyfriend. I don't think we're hiring multimedia designers right now, but if he's interested in the purely tech side of things, or writing content, or producing (ie project management), he might send in a resume.

Some other places he might snoop into are Fusion Learning, Compass Learning and Springbox (though they're mostly marketing). And there's a crapload of game companies around he might check out as well.
posted by picea at 11:19 AM on January 14, 2008

There's also a lot of educational publishing around.
Harcourt (or whatever it is now post-sale) and Pearson.
posted by Seamus at 11:55 AM on January 14, 2008

If you have time, you can also ask around at SXSWi. Lots of ARG/creative/new media folks there.
posted by Addlepated at 12:13 PM on January 14, 2008

Blizzard is in Austin....
posted by SpecialK at 12:46 PM on January 14, 2008

[edited the question somewhat at OPs request]
posted by jessamyn at 1:06 PM on January 14, 2008

"Blizzard is in Austin...."

Blizzard has a customer service facility in Austin, that's all.

It's not a great time to be looking for a job at a traditional game company around here (at least two layoffs at two companies in the last week alone, and I think a major one at a major company is coming up). In lean times, nobody's going to hire a fancy web guy. Sorry. :(

I don't know how well the casual games scene is doing in Austin right now, but it's got to be better than how the rest of us are faring.
posted by liet at 6:00 PM on January 14, 2008

I asked sort of this question earlier, with more of a focus on the tech-y side, but got a few answers for creative/game jobs as well.

Hope that helps some. I ended up finding a job via CList, so it can be done!
posted by theRussian at 8:02 PM on January 14, 2008