There’s still optimism among Utah tech workers, but others see a lack of flexibility and problems with the culture.
Swallow took a job as an app developer for a small company in another state last summer. He said he does not expect much growth potential at his new company, but in exchange he has gotten more flexibility and work-life balance. He can take his kids to school, he said, or take care of an ailing parent — both of which he said he has had to do in the last year. But such flexibility has always been the promise of tech work.
One survey participant, who did not wish to be interviewed, said they are in their fifth job in four years. Two of those jobs have been based in Utah. “It’s tough right now,” they wrote. “Due to how turbulent it’s been, it’s very difficult not to wonder if the work I’m putting in will be worth anything.”
“I feel like so many places in the tech world failed their people, especially here in Utah,” said Wendy, a program manager in healthcare software who asked to be identified by her first name to avoid jeopardizing her highly coveted new job. Christensen survived two rounds of layoffs at a Salt Lake City-based tech startup before meeting the chopping block at the end of 2022. He had more success in the job hunt, interviewing with several companies and even getting a verbal offer. But the Utah companies he interviewed with all wanted him in an office — a gripe Wendy also noticed.
“The Utah tech industry is a concentration of Utah County companies dominated by a ‘BYU Bro’ culture,” one wrote, adding that they “say that as an active, practicing Latter-Day Saint.” “I would rather some good old-fashioned corporate greed ... than having to deal with anyone in Utah,” he said. In a follow-up interview with The Tribune, Sunderland said he can understand his fellow tech workers’ frustrations. His own company cut staff last year. Fear of more layoffs looms large over tech workers’ heads.