msdet11

Things like this fall on the shoulders of the team as a whole. Certainly a tough pill to swallow for a junior engineer, but a good more senior developer or PM should've also realized you were working on prod and tried to remedy that situation. Humans are notoriously prone to fat fingering stuff. Minimize risk where ever you can!

Interesting. If that dynamic improved I believe that'd be a huge asset to the region. What are your thoughts on health tech in the area? One of my projects is pretty focused on improving the lives of researchers, and I've found this area has quite a few institutions looking to become more cutting edge.

Personally I'd say it would depend on the type of software a particular company is making. I think advancements in health tech have a ton of potential here with some of the research going on at the academic centers in the area (Wayne State, Karmanos, Henry Ford Health System, DMC, and outlying areas like UofM and MSU). Enterprise software while not as sexy would also probably be a good fit here as well. If an entrepreneur can make solid connections with the autos and outlying manufacturers and suppliers it can really give you some nice profit and list of clientele that is impressive. Other sorts of software startups may have a tougher time here due to the lack of coverage we get compared to other cities and Valley/SF. While we have DVP, Bizdom, and Compuware ventures it is also tougher to find funding then some areas. There are downsides to the city, but I've grown up in the area since I was born so my connection to it is fairly deep and I really want to see the city flourish as it once did.

I've also thought quite a bit about this the past year. I moved to downtown Detroit after graduating from school, and I absolutely love it down here. Granted it isn't as bustling as the valley or SF, but we are slowly building a community of super talented individuals. Hopefully Techonomy can get a few more people out of the woodwork and interested in the community. I'm personally very interested in who is bootstrapping their business from the ground up. I have been doing so for about a year and it has been working out great.

I'm around the Detroit area. I've hit up a couple startup meetups, and things of that nature. The few places I've talked to really don't have the wiggle room to hire at the moment which seems like a bummer.

Yeah. I can definitely agree with all the points being made. It just seems at least in the Midwest college age developers aren't pushed to do anything innovative. Just get a corporate job, and 401k and be a company man the rest of your life. I think I may start looking for a new gig then. Life seems too short to play it safe everyday.