Ask HN: Moving to DC in 2023?

Biotech is big in the DC area due to the presence of the NIH and FDA. But most of the biotech firms are in the suburbs rather than the city.

My experience has been the tech scene is connected to government funding (defense and otherwise), non-profits, advocacy groups, etc. Many of these would be smaller companies, but can be either grant driven or dependent on a govt contract. Also many govt contracts are through a prime (think Lockheed Martin) given the complexity of govt contracting.

On the plus side, some of the work can truly be for the public good. Especially if it’s connected to a cause you’re passionate about. On the downside, you can be at the whim of budgets, grant awards, donors, etc.

It doesn’t pay as well as the private sector, but consider the United States Digital Service: https://www.usds.gov/

This video convinced me of their impact: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRQEC7DiPtI

Tech/startup work probably is going to have to do with government or electoral stuff. I can't tell you much about that end of things. You might want to look at meetup.com for technologies that interest you and have Washington meetings. The techiest stuff is probably out toward and beyond Dulles Airport, say Reston to Ashburn. Trust me when I say that you do not want to commute from Washington to Reston, let alone Ashburn.

I know techies who work for civil agencies (Federal Reserve), associations (AARP, American Chemical Society), labor unions, etc. The work is not HN-front-page stuff, but generally pays decently.

There is non-defense and non-gov work in DC. It was growing when I left several years ago but it is probably still there. A half decent site that covers tech related news in the area is https://technical.ly/dc/ so you can get a feel for what they talk about. In general, if you are already doing remote work and just moving for the area it is a great city with a lot to explore/learn/do.

Amazon is still building HQ2 across the river, aren't they?

If you're not in defense or government why would you want to live in DC?

Not technically in DC, but Amazon's HQ2 is in NOVA. They do have some offices in DC, but I'm not sure what teams are in those.

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center is in Greenbelt, Maryland, just outside the Beltway. I was a contractor there, mostly as a Unix and Linux system administrator, for nearly 30 years. It's a great place to work, but the salaries won't be as high as you'd get in private industry. Commuting from Dupont Circle might be a pain, but it's a reverse commute, so that helps. (Most commuter come into the city in the morning, not out of it.)

I love that neighborhood but oof the trees do smell in the summer!

It's a nice place to live if you are looking to live in an urban area. That said it's very expensive. If money isn't an issue and you really want to live in DC I think your making a great choice, personally I'm not a big fan of DC I think it's expensive, a little boring, traffic is god aweful and the food scene at best is meh but that's just me I'm sure you have your reasons for wanting to move there.

I can't give you a lot of advice in the startup world, I work mostly in the public sector and to make good money you need a clearance. Every major player is in the DC area so it may be easier to get in with a large tech company if that's an interest.

Been a few years since I’ve worked in DC but it was a fun time in my life, both socially and professionally.

Lots of tech out there, even amongst all of the defense. Arlington, Reston and that general area of VA has a lot of tech. AWS and many others have their east coast data centers there. I remember having a client meeting with a startup at the Microsoft office in Maryland. The metro is a killer way to get around if you want to be car free. Where are you moving from?

Not in DC anymore but I worked and lived there for a hot second in the 2010s. If you don't want to work a government or defense adjacent tech job, Capital One or cybersecurity vendors would be your best bet. If Amazon is still hiring, they have a massive presence in NoVA. IBM has a decent presence in the area and if you do FOSS might be a good bet/employer because of RedHat

I live in suburban DC, on the Maryland side. I love living here. It's close to a major city, yet I can afford a house. The schools are great. If I want to do something with my family, we go into the city and catch a free movie at one of the Smithsonians. You get four seasons, but none are too acute. The area near the Potomac is very pretty.

I don't know much about what I'm missing in california, but I think it's nice here.

I lived there 4 years in Dupont Circle. It's a weird city. I personally didn't vibe with it so take what I say with a huge grain of salt. It's clean, people are intelligent, and there's a lot of stuff that's free and the architecture is gorgeous. That said, it doesn't have much of a culture since it's very transient. They way I describe it is the culture is very 'safe'. It's not gonna push the boundaries of anything. It also hasn't bounced back from Covid as well as some places. It's getting there, but it's not there. It's also very expensive. You're in an area that is approaching NYC prices in a lot of ways, but in reality is a mid size city. I moved to NYC and find it a much more interesting place overall. I think DC can appeal to a type of person, and it's a lot of fun in the summer but it wasn't for me. The tech scene was also uninteresting.

One mistake almost everybody in tech makes when they move to DC from somewhere else in the country is that they move to DC proper. DC, despite being a fairly walkable city with a decent subway by US standards and a lot of diverse food choices, is not where action outside of government or government related is.

Nearly all of the tech scene is outside of the city in two areas. Either in the stretch of MD north of DC and fading away the further North it gets until you're around Ft. Meade. It's a mix of biotech (NIH) and defense (NSA) but Bethesda Softworks is famously in southern MD. Or, in the stretch between DC and Dulles airport which is heavily defense and intelligence (part of that stretch is between the Pentagon and CIA HQ).

There are pockets of non-gov, non-defense tech around. I don't know much about southern MD tbh, but I know there's some regular 'ol startups in Crystal City, Tysons, and Reston areas, or tech companies with solid East Coast offices at least (but usually geared towards selling to the government). Amazon HQ2 is not in the city for example.

You'll find a fair number of fintech, electric car support companies, commtech, cybersec sort of firms. There's a large class of nonprofit tech companies in the area too, they don't offer stock, but the pay is decent and the jobs are highly stable.

Despite having the country's second largest subway, getting into and out of DC is an expensive chore.

The DC-Baltimore metro area is one of the largest in the country, covers a huge area, and has almost as many people as NYC. Most people with the means end up moving with their jobs rather than commuting. Hour+ commutes are not unusual.

(source:

- grew up on the East Coast and spent time in the DC area

- advised two West Coast startups that opened offices in the DC area neither made it, but the one that opened in DC proper, despite having deeper pockets, failed faster and their office never saw a customer willing to come into the city)

Can't speak to startup space here much, but a few things about public sector work, of which there is a ton of tech stuff: 1. There's some element of "security clearance" for basically anything. It's still pretty minimal but worse than it used to be (e.g., last gig had them ask for my foreign-born father in law's birth cert). Lowest level stuff is often a "Public Trust" clearance that'd be required for almost anything involving access to a federal network. Feds still treat weed like it's 1950, which is a big hurdle for a lot of people, but does keep the competition down for roles. 2. There's a lot of cool public sector jobs and gigs, but the administrivia around even small gigs can be painful (e.g., a contract is contract), although on the other hand there's a lot of technical jobs (most?) that don't take more than an hour or so to interview for and don't involve any coding. If you build a reputation with the right people, you can get 6-figure, single person contracts which are easier to manage or setup a shop with friends. 3. Comp is very based on last level. If you want to live in Dupont / Logan Circle (do highly recommend) despite all the important stuff to be done in public sector agencies, you might struggle to afford to live unless you had a very high incoming income to report. Otherwise, recommend the financial regulators - SEC, CFTC, OCC, CFPB, to a lesser extent the Fed (Reserve). These guys always need tech help either directly or through contract. Every (non-"security") Fed salary you can lookup online, and I'd calculated the median at SEC was about $200k 5 years ago, which is proportional to their spending power generally.

The traffic is a non-starter for me. The federal workers clog the streets like a clockwork. It is job security and good schools what drives the growth and it shows in all ugly ways. I find Virginia more approachable than the Maryland side. More fun? There is a big tech presence in Columbia MD and Reston VA. I like Reston better. Downtown? No way $$$! Avoid the east side, PG County. Come to think of it. When you enter a metro station in DC and approach one the machines that tries to sell you a metro pass, you have to stop and ponder: What kind of people find this machines usable or convenient? It really drives the point of the way-of-life of the inhabitants of the DC area..

why are you considering moving there?

I lived on capitol hill at the start of my career and did a DoD gig. This was actually a great way to break into the startup world afterwards because startup people have no idea what to do with someone with those credentials and it makes you stand out from the pack.

I was born in Reston, VA. I started my career doing fed tech. If you can afford to live there and like the metro/walking/biking, do it. If you drive, don't. Northern Virginia, where I'm from, is plenty accessible to DC via the metro. It also has more open space. However, you say you already are working, so if you can afford it, do it! The history, the museums, the shops, it's great.

I live in NW DC now and spent several years on the MD side about 500m from the DC border. I love it here. I am absolutely uninterested in politics and have no desire to work in defense and there is still so much to do around here, both recreation and career wise.

Another comment was suggesting not moving into DC proper an I highly disagree. being close proximity to the metro line is what enables alot of the fun parts of living in the city. also taxes are less than maryland, but higher than virginia.

job wise, there are a handful of startups as well as tons of local companies (cap 1, appian), as well as branches of larger companies (google, microsoft, amazon, every consulting company you can think of) with offices in and around DC. with the advent of remote work I think the case for moving to dc is even stronger because even if companies are located in northern virginia, you dont have to slog through some of the worst traffic in the country and can just go in occasionally - which is what i do and honestly love it.

I wish i knew more start ups but when i was job searching recently i was looking at remote roles and most of the startups i looked at were non local. also, because of the high concentration of tech jobs, there are a few local recruiting companies that know the area really well and have placed me in 2 of my last 3 jobs.

let me know if you have more questions!

I wouldn’t do it. I grew up in northern Virginia and work in DC and lived there for a time. DC was nice 10-15 years ago when it offered some of the amenities of a big city at a much lower price point. Today there’s not much to recommend. It’s almost New York prices now but the restaurant and entertainment scene is a shadow of those places. Your apartment building will probably be full of political staffers and lawyers and think tank wonks. And the tech scene, insofar as it exists, is mainly out in Northern Virginia.

Also, the pandemic hit DC really hard. DC is heavily reliant on commuters. It has one of the largest daytime-nighttime population changes in the country. But those government and knowledge workers are never coming back into the office at the same scale as before. Metro ridership has cratered, putting it in a budget crisis even when substantially reduced service levels. And lots of bars and restaurants that had built up over the last decade have closed down.

I will say, DC has some very charming and walkable neighborhoods. The area between DuPont Circle and Logan Circle is very cute, in a 1970s sort of way.

Startup Scene is quite vibrant. I've spent most of my career here in startups or private companies.

I highly recommend Northern Virginia (Ballston/Rosslyn) near the metro or Bethesda just across the border in Maryland.

‘Schrooms are 100% legal. You can stock up 3 blocks from the Whitehouse. Micro dosing seems to be big. Lots of Red, and Blue ties grabbing their prepackaged monthly supply on my last visit to DC.

Seems both political parties can agree on something.

:-)

DuPont Circle is a nice place if you don't mind getting stabbed by homeless people from time to time.