In Austin, it used to be the case that IBM (and possibly Motorola or a few other places) had a serious lock on all of the seriously good people. The projects were cool, the environment was excellent (if you didn't mind managers selected by vocal volume). I'm talking about the guys who did the cell processor, the AIX kernel folks, a bunch of people who did good UI work, and so on.
When the internet boom rolled around in the late '90s and the startup scene hotted up, most of the people in it were straight out of school. When I interviewed around in the mid 2000s, experienced people were kind of rare.
On the other hand, about the same time IBM became a consulting service company. The cool, visible projects evaporated. All of the good people I knew at the time either got buried deep somewhere (and are presumably happy in their niche) or left.
It's been years since I moved away from Austin, though, so I've got no idea what it's like now.
When the internet boom rolled around in the late '90s and the startup scene hotted up, most of the people in it were straight out of school. When I interviewed around in the mid 2000s, experienced people were kind of rare.
On the other hand, about the same time IBM became a consulting service company. The cool, visible projects evaporated. All of the good people I knew at the time either got buried deep somewhere (and are presumably happy in their niche) or left.
It's been years since I moved away from Austin, though, so I've got no idea what it's like now.