Salt Lake City area

Just out of curiosity, how's the Salt Lake City area for IT opportunities?

Also, how is the cost of living in the area, crime rate, public schools?

My gf and I have been talking about moving away from WV and we are both curious about this area.

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srabiee

No one on these forums from SLC? How about Utah in general?

fredlwal

We had an intern that use to work for our school district just moved out in the SLC area and we just recently chatted on Facebook and he was telling me they call that area the new silicon valley. Just letting you know that he is in programming side of IT and he also said that he is making six figures without certs just a BS in CS.

jabokim

Salt Lake City and Provo/Orem in Utah has lots if IT jobs. A lot are in programming, but still a good variety. I live 2 hours north of there in Logan, and the market for IT terrible there. So if you come to Utah, stick with Salt Lake City and Provo/Orem (especially the latter)

elderkai

Ha, I'm from/working out of Charleston as well.

I've heard well of Utah and personally wouldn't mind relocating there in the future.

LinuxNerd

An Isolated area with few jobs, probably like Boise. I'm sure nice to live if you like cold weather. To move there other than somewhere like Portland, Seattle or SanFran/SanJose? From a job perspective choice very limited.

Gotta move to where the IT jobs are.

Seattle
San Fran/San Jose
LA

Where to move if you want very, very few IT jobs:

Utah
Nevada
etc.

Ruminus

LinuxNerd wrote: »

An Isolated area with few jobs, probably like Boise. I'm sure nice to live if you like cold weather. To move there other than somewhere like Portland, Seattle or SanFran/SanJose? From a job perspective choice very limited.

Gotta move to where the IT jobs are.

Seattle
San Fran/San Jose
LA

Where to move if you want very, very few IT jobs:

Utah
Nevada
etc.

Think again, they don't call this area the Silicon Benches (benches = foothills) for nothing. I work at a small ISP/Hosting/Colo provider, but there are a lot of tech jobs out this way. EMC, Adobe, eBay, and Omniture come to mind right off the top of my head for larger firms. It's a very nice area with a lot of hot summer weather and sometimes mild but sometimes cold winters.

To answer the OPs questions...
Cost of living - We have a 900 sq ft 2 bed apartment for $730/mo. You can get cheaper, but they also go as high as you want. Houses, you can get 1,200 sq ft or so in the $124,000 range. Gallon of milk = $2.50, gallon of gas = $3.30.

Schools - I came here from Detroit, so I really can't compare as anything is better than there, but I hear some good and some bad. There's a very large homeschool community here too.

Crime - Not too horribly much, though the city does have its underbelly and gangs can be a problem. If you want to carry, we're an open carry state without a permit so long as you're 2 mechanical actions from firing (aka Utah unloaded) and getting a permit to carry chambered and/or concealed is really easy assuming you have a clean background.

srabiee

Thanks for the feedback guys. I was starting to get worried after reading LinuxNerd's response. I will look into the Orem area as well.

CCNTrainee

So basically this would be option if you were into programming huh??

jabokim

Programming is big, but there is a touch of everything. Lots of NOC jobs lately. Plus, Utah has lots of government jobs too
.

JoJoCal19

Ruminus wrote: »

Think again, they don't call this area the Silicon Benches (benches = foothills) for nothing. I work at a small ISP/Hosting/Colo provider, but there are a lot of tech jobs out this way. EMC, Adobe, eBay, and Omniture come to mind right off the top of my head for larger firms. It's a very nice area with a lot of hot summer weather and sometimes mild but sometimes cold winters.

To answer the OPs questions...
Cost of living - We have a 900 sq ft 2 bed apartment for $730/mo. You can get cheaper, but they also go as high as you want. Houses, you can get 1,200 sq ft or so in the $124,000 range. Gallon of milk = $2.50, gallon of gas = $3.30.

Schools - I came here from Detroit, so I really can't compare as anything is better than there, but I hear some good and some bad. There's a very large homeschool community here too.

Crime - Not too horribly much, though the city does have its underbelly and gangs can be a problem. If you want to carry, we're an open carry state without a permit so long as you're 2 mechanical actions from firing (aka Utah unloaded) and getting a permit to carry chambered and/or concealed is really easy assuming you have a clean background.

Thanks for that! I'm curious, how are race relations there (is it like the South)?

srabiee

Here are the demographics for SLC: Salt Lake City - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And the demographics for the entire state of Utah: Demographics of Utah - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

JoJoCal19

I mean on a personal experience level that cannot be told by demographic stats.

Iristheangel

@JoJoCal - I'm probably going to piss off all the Utah folks here by saying this but here goes... I lived in Utah when I was 18-20 and some of my family members who visited me were minorities (Asian) and would get come very narrow-minded comments. Also something a little more recent: My spouse (Asian) went to SLC for a conference a couple of months ago. She has a very very slight accent but was repeatedly asked if she wanted a translator, people avoided talking to her at the panel she was sitting at during the conference (lined up for her white co-workers), the Starbucks barista threw an attitude and treating my spouse like it was the first time she had been in a coffee shop, another person spit in her coffee at the conference, etc. She was in SLC for all of 10 hours before declaring she will never visit the state again.

I don't think they burn crosses on anyone's front lawns by any means but I still don't think the culture there has fully evolved yet.

JoJoCal19

Thank you Iris. That is exactly the kind of info and first hand experience I was wanting to know about. I've been contemplating a move back West at some point (I'm from San Diego) and I was thinking of a vacation to Utah next year (Moab and SLC) as my in laws went there in July and I was going to see if I should add it to my short list of places to consider. Something tells me I may have an even tougher time than your spouse (I'm Puerto Rican).