Tech:NYC Digest: March 24

Tech:NYC Digest: March 24

March 24, 2022 • Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes

Thursday, March 24, 2022  

In today’s digest, Mayor Adams lifts vax mandate for performers and athletes, Uber to start listing NYC’s yellow cabs on its platform, and the state of hiring software engineers.

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By the numbers:  

  • New positive cases statewide: 3,450 

    • New positive cases, NYC: 1,576

  • NYC Positivity Rate: 1.4 percent (no change)

  • NYC Hospitalizations: 285 (+1)

  • Statewide Vaccine Progress: 

    • New Yorkers with at least one dose: 89.4 percent

    • New Yorkers who are fully vaccinated: 76.0 percent

In today’s latest:

  • Mayor Eric Adams announced today that performers and professional athletes will be exempt from the city's COVID-19 workplace vaccine mandate, citing inconsistencies caused by out-of-state talent already being exempted under a rule from former Mayor Bill De Blasio. (NBC New York)

    • And yes, this means Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving can resume playing home games at Barclays Center. (ESPN)

  • With pandemic restrictions being lifted across the country, the largest US airlines have asked Pres. Biden to allow the federal mask mandate at airports and on planes to expire as planned on April 18, and to stop requiring negative COVID-19 tests from international visitors. (New York Times) 

  • Uber announced it would begin making NYC yellow taxis available for ride hailing through its app. A limited number of New Yorkers will see the option in the app starting this spring before the feature rolls out fully over the summer. (Wall Street Journal)

  • A new Siena poll found that more than half of New Yorkers think the war in Ukraine will lead to longer-term economic problems here at home, noting concerns that the war and inflation will result in higher food and utility costs. (Siena)

  • And one hometown shoutout: Congratulations to CUNY’s own Dr. Dennis P. Sullivan, the winner of the 2022 Abel Prize, the equivalent of a Nobel Prize in mathematics. (New York Times)

In other reading:

  • How a dedicated bike lane brought a belated bike boom to Brooklyn Bridge (amNY)

  • Meet the Brothers Making Nostalgic Handmade Signs for NYC Restaurants and Bars (Eater NY)

The demand for tech talent has always been high, but in the last two years, it seems to have soared to another level. If you’ve looked at any jobs board lately, you’ve likely noticed listings for tech jobs dominate. 

According to new data from Hired, the search platform for tech jobs, the demand for software engineers in particular continues to accelerate.

  • Software engineers on Hired received more than twice the average amount of interview requests in 2021 than in 2020.

  • Among that category, demand for full stack engineers took the top spot, getting 33.4 percent of interview requests last year. That was followed closely by backend engineers, with 33.2 percent of requests.

The report found upskilling and specialization has become more attractive to tech workers throughout the pandemic — with higher salaries as the payoff.

  • Security engineers experienced the highest salary growth compared to 2020 and received the highest average salary of $165,505 per year out of all software engineering roles.

With record investment deals flowing to earlier-stage startups, they’re increasingly attracting the same candidates as larger enterprises, due to equally competitive salary and benefits offerings.

  • Software engineers who are open to remote work received 20 percent more interview requests overall versus candidates who are not.

In other reading:

  • 5 misconceptions about remote work, debunked (Washington Post)

  • Workplace ‘energy vampires’ can drain your life force. Stop them with these tips (CNN)

  • Culture is crucial: How job seekers can find the best match (Fast Company)

  • Ursa Space, a New York-based satellite intelligence infrastructure company, raised $16 million in Series C funding. Dorilton Ventures led the round and was joined by Razor’s Edge Ventures, RRE Ventures, Paladin Capital Group, and others. (Newswire)

  • March 30: In-person: Real Estate Innovation Done Right, with Upward Labs CEO Shana Schlossberg, ClearAir.ai co-founder Michael Petgrave, Saya founder Sanjay Poojraym and others. Hosted by the Williamsburg Hotel. Register here.

  • March 31: Virtual: The Future of NYC: Charting an Equitable Recovery for All, with Federal Reserve Bank of New York president and CEO John C. Williams, BlocPower founder and CEO Donnel Baird, Regional Plan Association president and CEO Tom Wright, and more. Hosted by the New York Fed. Register here.

  • April 5: Virtual: What’s Next Summit 2022, with Bolt CEO Ryan Breslow, Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield, Accenture CEO Julie Sweet, and others. Hosted by Axios. Register here.

  • April 6: Virtual: Data Science Day 2022, with White House Director of Science and Technology Policy Alondra Nelson and IBM Research AI vice president Sriram Raghavan. Hosted by the Data Science Institute at Columbia University. Register here.

  • April 7: In-person: New York Product Conference, with Squarespace VP of product Natalie Gibralter, 1stdibs chief product officer Xiaodi Zhang, Noom VP of product Raj Krishnan, and others. Hosted by Product Collective. Use code TechNYC to save 20 percent off any pass by registering here.

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