Jacksonville | Daytona Beach | Tampa | Orlando - Relocate

Wife and I are on our annual trip to Destin. This time we officially have made the commitment to start looking. Since she is a specialized nurse she has 0 problems finding a job, especially in Florida. I on the other hand have to be a little more picky, being in a good pay bracket and working in Business Intelligence.

Any suggestions on where to look and where to stay away from? I would really appreciate it.

I've been to all of these locations, some more than others with the exception of Daytona Beach. (Only reason I brought that one up, there is a great job there for my wife if she decided to pursue and land that position).

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Blucodex

Florida was pretty awful for tech when I looked 2 years ago. I've heard Tampa is the best area but even then wages were really low.

cyberguypr

Ueah, I remember many here complaining about the state of IT affairs in the sunshine state. Also curious to hear if things have improved.

DatabaseHead

Appreciate the follow up.

In theory the wife would make 30 - 40% more so that could offset some of the loss in wages, along with signing bonus and relocation expenses picked up by the company. There are dozens of offers for her offering that.

I have a few specializations I am hoping to leverage into a position.

It looks like she is going to have to take the job, move and I'll have to work for a few months where I am now while applying for positions in that particular area. The thought is I would have a local address which most certainly make me a more attractive candidate.

Onita

DatabaseHead wrote: »

Appreciate the follow up.

In theory the wife would make 30 - 40% more so that could offset some of the loss in wages, along with signing bonus and relocation expenses picked up by the company. There are dozens of offers for her offering that.

I have a few specializations I am hoping to leverage into a position.

It looks like she is going to have to take the job, move and I'll have to work for a few months where I am now while applying for positions in that particular area. The thought is I would have a local address which most certainly make me a more attractive candidate.

That's one of the bigger issues I've run into.

JoJoCal19

DatabaseHead wrote: »

Wife and I are on our annual trip to Destin. This time we officially have made the commitment to start looking. Since she is a specialized nurse she has 0 problems finding a job, especially in Florida. I on the other hand have to be a little more picky, being in a good pay bracket and working in Business Intelligence.

Any suggestions on where to look and where to stay away from? I would really appreciate it.

I've been to all of these locations, some more than others with the exception of Daytona Beach. (Only reason I brought that one up, there is a great job there for my wife if she decided to pursue and land that position).

Hey! I live in Jax (22 years now), and lived for 2 years in Tampa (2013-2015). I'm also pretty familiar with the rest of the state from an IT (and other topics) standpoint. Feel free to PM me.

If your wife lands that job in Daytona and you live there, you can choose to either work in Jax (1 and a halfish), or Orlando (45 min-1 hourish depending on where and traffic). You could also live in Palm Coast and commute 45 or so mins to Jax.

As far as IT jobs, Tampa is the best area. Next would be Orlando, then Jacksonville. Miami/SoFla has a ton of jobs, but you probably won't care to live down there (CoL, culture, traffic, etc). You either love it or hate it down there.

Anyways, slide into my PMs if you want to chat more.

DatabaseHead

Thanks for the outreach it's why I love this forum and some of the members.

If you know of any good companies hiring data, sql analyst let me know. I'll follow up on PM here shortly. I have the whole week off, Thank God.

Alif_Sadida_Ekin

I live in the Orlando area (going on 15 years) and am in the same field as you, BI and Data Analytics. I always see openings for BI Developers, ETL developers, DB Admins/Developers, Report Analysts etc. I interview with recruiters every once in awhile just to see what's out there and from what I've seen, jobs like these frequently pay around the 100k mark with maybe around 70-80k being bottom of the barrel.

I think most of the people complaining about IT jobs in the area are in systems/network administration since there seems to be more people fighting for those types of jobs (I still see plenty of openings all the times for those as well though). However, in our field, there tends to be less competition. There are plenty of tech companies out here (Siemens, Hitachi, Oracle, Symantec, Verizon, etc.), defense contractors, hospitals, banks, and of course the theme parks and resorts. I've even noticed startup tech companies advertising jobs around the area.

I'm always getting hit up on LinkedIn too which further tells me there's plenty of opportunity here.

packetphilter

Are you set on Florida? Just above is Atlanta, one of the largest tech hubs.

Paulieb81

JoJoCal19 wrote: »

Hey! I live in Jax (22 years now), and lived for 2 years in Tampa (2013-2015). I'm also pretty familiar with the rest of the state from an IT (and other topics) standpoint. Feel free to PM me.

If your wife lands that job in Daytona and you live there, you can choose to either work in Jax (1 and a halfish), or Orlando (45 min-1 hourish depending on where and traffic). You could also live in Palm Coast and commute 45 or so mins to Jax.

As far as IT jobs, Tampa is the best area. Next would be Orlando, then Jacksonville. Miami/SoFla has a ton of jobs, but you probably won't care to live down there (CoL, culture, traffic, etc). You either love it or hate it down there.

Anyways, slide into my PMs if you want to chat more.

Well put Sir, but let me further explain south Florida. I live in West Palm Beach, I have previously lived in Ocala and Gainesville. I have a buddy who lives up in Jax who I visit pretty often.

Ocala = forget about tech

Gainesville = UF has plenty of tech jobs for the school but not sure about how well they pay

West Palm Beach area = Not many tech jobs, however just south of here about 45 minutes is Boca Raton which is a big hub for the south Florida area for tech, but with that said I would NOT live in Broward county if you gave me a free house. F that place. Broward and Dade county are very different than the entire rest of Florida, the culture is very different. If you are of Latino decent, then you will fit in great because that is the majority of the population, if you are not you may feel out of place. I LOVE living in Palm Beach County, however the taxes here are higher and the tech jobs somewhat slim but not the worst I've seen.

Jax area, has a fair amount of jobs and also is not a bad area to live. I like visiting my buddy up there and if my family was to move anywhere else in Florida my wife and I agree that it would be to the Jacksonville area. There are lots of new communities being built in the Ponta Vidra area south of Jax.

Jojocal19, I am going to hit you up on PM to find out more how it is up there.

DatabaseHead

Not excited about hearing what Paulie said. I have an interview next week in Boca. Marketing company as a data integration specialist.

Paulieb81

DatabaseHead wrote: »

Not excited about hearing what Paulie said. I have an interview next week in Boca. Marketing company as a data integration specialist.

Boca itself is not bad. Its a pretty decent tech hub for south florida, however I get irritated with traffic and Broward county has a lot of traffic. That said, there are a TON of people who live in Palm Beach county and travel down there for work. If you live on the south side of palm beach county say in, Boynton Beach or Pompano Beach, those are nice towns to live in or near and only about a 20 minute or so drive to Boca.

I'll tell you this from a guy in his mid 30's. I've lived down in south florida the last 10 years, I've lived in many cities up and down the east coast and if I were single, there is no better place to be than south florida. Everywhere has beautiful women, however the density of them here is higher than most places on earth. So if that is a plus to you, welcome to south florida, you won't regret the stay. If you are married and settled down, then that is probably not a plus and Boca is still a good choice, just don't buy a house right away upon relocating, rent for a few months to get a hang of the area and figure out where you want to settle down.