Free from the tech giant effect, New York is already a major US tech hub
With 1,550 tech meetups listed in New York alone, developers working in the city are aware that they are in the right place at the right time.
The Office of the New York State Comptroller least year found that there was a 57 per cent increase in tech employment in New York between 2010 and 2016 and there are now at least 7,500 New York-based tech companies, up 23 per cent since 2010. The inherent strength in New York’s tech scene lies behind the diversity of roles and companies that are making the city their home, compared to other major US tech hubs like Seattle, which relies so heavily on giants like Amazon for their tech cred.
“The main driver of all this growth isn’t necessarily technical innovation nor new programming languages, but community engagement,” says Scott Dooley from tech community Skills Matter. “There are thousands of tech conferences held every year across the globe, all supporting a collaborative approach to the big areas in tech — AI, the Internet of Things, virtual reality, Big Data, and cybersecurity.”
Across the pond, Europe is making its own strides, with Samsung noting that European countries are “at the forefront of the move to Open Economy models, occupying eight of the top ten slots in WIPO’s Global Innovation Index.”
Outside of Silicon Valley, real-life collaboration within tech continues to drive growth. With 140,000+ members, Skills Matter runs some of Europe’s largest tech conferences, and they have their eyes set on New York.
Without there being any large New York conferences available for JavaScript developers, Skills Matter has announced its expansion to the US with its inaugural FullStackNYC conference.
With a pool of over 100,000 respondents, StackOverflow’s annual tech survey in 2018 found that JavaScript was the most commonly used programming language for the sixth year in a row, making it one of the most discussed and exciting areas within tech development today.
“FullStackNYC does focus on JavaScript, but welcomes all developers and those working in tech,” Scott continues. “We identified two things when looking at our overseas expansion: the New York tech scene is growing at an incredible rate, with a clear gap in the market for JavaScript developers to meet and share ideas, while we also saw an opportunity for the US and European tech communities to better connect.
“Developers come to our conferences to form friendships, see leaders in their field talk about the languages and tools they love, and come away with new ideas about how to approach their projects. Problem-solving happens so much more quickly in real life, where people can bounce ideas around with each other.”
There has been a strong tradition of the US and Europe collaborating in tech. As Europe’s largest tech community, Skills Matter acknowledges its responsibility to create opportunities for developers on both sides of the Atlantic to collaborate as much as possible. Scott sees this move as just the beginning.
“We are looking both towards the US and Asia as areas that European tech communities can benefit from having a stronger connection. We are excited to be just a small part of this international collaboration.”
