Our tech scene has been largely driven by fintech and a few unicorns. And our unicorns tend to be much more bust than boom — Groupon being the highest profile one. Not sure if it's correlation or causation, but VC investment tends to be more conservative, and the ones I do hear about are mostly fintech.
On top of which, Chicago wasn't all that tech friendly. Pay has been rather stagnant, and promotions above senior engineer didn't exist before Covid/remote stretched everything out. The exception to comp has been prop trading firms, which make oodles of money but... trader culture dominates over eng.
Our tech scene has been largely driven by fintech and a few unicorns. And our unicorns tend to be much more bust than boom — Groupon being the highest profile one. Not sure if it's correlation or causation, but VC investment tends to be more conservative, and the ones I do hear about are mostly fintech.
On top of which, Chicago wasn't all that tech friendly. Pay has been rather stagnant, and promotions above senior engineer didn't exist before Covid/remote stretched everything out. The exception to comp has been prop trading firms, which make oodles of money but... trader culture dominates over eng.