I lived in the Gold Coast for 18 months. I did weekly flights to Sydney and drove to Brisbane twice a week.
I didn't have good results looking for work in Brisbane. I could get a job, but not a job I wanted to do, and not for much money. I would've had to move to make the commute feasible, especially with the state of Brisbane parking prices.
I found it more convenient cheaper to travel to Sydney. Gold Coast airport is remarkably efficient and cheap. I met a lot of people doing the same thing; 5:15pm at Sydney Domestic is packed with workers commuting by air.
I live near Munich now and it's amazing to see so many big companies and so much opportunity in such a small place. There are literally hundreds of tech jobs available within 1km of my rural apartment. There are jobs ads on the buses and trains.
Your LinkedIn says you work on embedded systems. Perhaps that is just too niche for an industry the size of Brisbane’s? The frontend market isn’t great, but it does exist.
Just curious: what is some cool stuff happening in Brisbane these days? I grew up there but I moved away to find more interesting work a long time ago. It would be nice to hear about interesting things happen there nowadays.
We have dev offices for quite a few majors (Oracle, SAP, IBM, ToughtWorks, Boeing, Boeing Defense etc.), but lots of little interesting companies too.
I’m in Systems programming/electronics design - it’s probably a different story for a front end dev - I don’t think there’s much of that at all!
One little company I used to work for was in traffic systems, basically IoT/sensor networks before it was cool (all on private networks though!) and we developed a system that GPS tracked ambulances and fire engines, and predicted their likely path (destination was known) and ran interventions on traffic signals to both minimise travel time for the emergency vehicle and minimise disruption to other traffic. It’s a lot more effective than the dumb IR blaster systems used elsewhere. We also had a ramp system that staggered cars coming in down on-ramps near chokepoints that significantly increased highway flow and reduced nose-to-tail accidents (from the stop-start traffic) by something like 30%. I think they’re rolling out that tech now with some US cities departments of transport.
Now I work at a little company that makes class-leading satellite/microwave equipment, including maritime and road-vehicle satellite-tracking terminals, frequently up- and down-converters, etc.
There’s actually a surprising amount of microwave engineering, and lots of aviation/defence work (some in the city with Boeing Defense and some out in Ipswich at Amberley), as well as Virgin Australia being headquartered here.
I moved from the Bay Area to Brisbane. The market is pretty sparse. Seems like Flight Centre, Suncorp, Virgin, TAB, and Auto and General are the big companies.
Console seem interesting, they were recently acquired by Macquarie. Console Connect and Rex are hiring.
I’ve met people trying to take advantage of lack of competition to set up dev offices. I talked with a well funded US startup who seems interesting.
I didn't have good results looking for work in Brisbane. I could get a job, but not a job I wanted to do, and not for much money. I would've had to move to make the commute feasible, especially with the state of Brisbane parking prices.
I found it more convenient cheaper to travel to Sydney. Gold Coast airport is remarkably efficient and cheap. I met a lot of people doing the same thing; 5:15pm at Sydney Domestic is packed with workers commuting by air.
I live near Munich now and it's amazing to see so many big companies and so much opportunity in such a small place. There are literally hundreds of tech jobs available within 1km of my rural apartment. There are jobs ads on the buses and trains.