Props for posting an ordering :O

This seems to be ranked on eng availability, but in terms of actual city tiers it's more like

T1: SF / NY / LA / Miami / Chicago / Atlanta T2: Seattle / Boston / Austin / SLC / Portland T3: Minneapolis / Ann Arbor

That’s a pretty strange ordering, mixing up a Seattle and Boston metros of 4 and 4.6m with an SLC, Portland, and Austin metros Of 1.2, 2.5, and 2.1m respectively. Why mix up the small and large cities in T2? Then your T3 has Minneapolis, at 3.6m. Why would Minneapolis be ranked lower than tiny SLC given it has 3x the population?

Thanks for the population numbers, I didn't know they were so different. I just ranked them from (my perceived) livability - SLC close to skiing/nature, while Minneapolis/Ann Arbor are not destination cities like the other ones.

I think Seattle / Boston can be T1, but then you'd have too many T1s. My logic was "do lots of people want to move to this city?" and I think the answer is "no" compared to the demand for the T1s.

I see your logic though, and maybe it's better to just have a T1 and T2.

Minneapolis is the biggest American metro between Chicago, Seattle, Dallas, and Phoenix. It basically anchors a huge amount of the country. SLC in contrast plays second fiddle to nearby (relatively speaking) Denver, Phoenix, and Las Vegas (at least it is bigger than Boise).

Ann Arbor is so small and close to Detroit, it is odd to hear it listed as a significant city in its own right (like Madison WI). Heck, they are about the same close-ish distance away from Toledo, and Toledo is much bigger than Ann Arbor.

Don't really agree with this at all unless you are only talking in the context of the software engineering job market - which I don't think is usually what people refer to by "tier N"

Chicago is Tier 3? That doesn't seem right.

I could argue that Atlanta is tier 3 as well, the distinction between tier 2/3 could just be a simple rule of numbers (over a 1M pop vs. under 1M pop) and not a tech center. Or in my case that when I've interviewed people from the given locations that they didn't meet the bar by a given level. UIUC produces some amazing engineers, but UChicago doesn't...

This tiering is surprising to me. Which metric are you using? By population, NY, LA, and Chicago are the top three cities in the country.

Ann Arbor is an amazing town, but I'm surprised to see it on the same level as much larger metros. Is tech that much deeper there than when I was in school a handful of years ago? Who are the big players these days?

Los Angeles, Tier 2 ? I would say it should be Tier 2, considering greater Los Angeles area has 14mn people

Miami tier 3? hawhat?