When it comes to assessing the health of an ecosystem, startup or otherwise, rather than focusing on the financial aspects — like venture capital or exits — I like to take a look at the metrics of the job market. A bunch of open jobs filling quickly? Healthy. Few jobs or jobs remaining open for long periods of time? Maybe not so healthy.
So from that lens, the Portland startup and technology community seems pretty healthy. Major players like Amazon Web Services, who has 145 jobs open in Portland, or New Relic, who has 37 jobs open in Portland, are among homegrown companies like Vacasa, who has 43 jobs open in Portland, and Airship, who has 10 jobs open in Portland.
Heck. Even the Silicon Florist job board features multiple companies with multiple job openings, including Autodesk with four jobs, Groq with three jobs, and Azlo with two jobs.
That seems pretty healthy to me in terms of the number of available positions. Which means that the next deciding factor is how quickly those jobs are filled. So I’ll be keeping an eye on that as best I can.
And if you’re looking for talent or looking for a job, please feel free to keep an eye on the Silicon Florist job board.
