DiscoverFeatured Lists5 Chicago Companies Hiring Top Tech Talent in 2022

5 Chicago Companies Hiring Top Tech Talent in 2022

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Russ Rizzo
Writer, editor, media consultant @ Dispatch Productions • View Russ Rizzo's profile on Wellfound

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Chicago’s known as the “windy city”, but these days, it’s getting a similar reputation for attracting tech talent.

Last year startups in Chicago raised $7B in venture capital, with a dozen new unicorns minted along the way—bringing the number to 20.

Chicago’s startup ecosystem is diverse, reflecting the diversity found within the city’s population. Funds like TechRise focus on LatinX- and Black-founded startups. In 2021, women founders raised $250+.

At the heart of Chicago’s startup ecosystem is the fintech industry, which employed 41k people last year.

Earlier this year, World Business Chicago, an economic development organization for the city, called fintech a high growth tech sector. More than 300 Chicago-based fintechs generated over $4B in growth capital in 2021.

The city is also home to The Trading Show, one of the premier trading conferences in America, which works to bring in top talent from the fintech industry. Companies hiring talent include Synapse, which is on a mission to “accelerate the democratization of best-in-class financial products for all.”

Chicago has comparable levels of diversity, culture, and economic power to tech hubs like New York and San Francisco, but with a much lower cost of living.

If you’re interested in working in one of the startup superpowers in the Midwest, here is our list of 5 of the top companies hiring now.

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Security in the Skies: 5 High Altitude Balloon and Satellite Startups Hiring Now

Nearly nine decades after the Hindenburg disaster, some speculate we’re entering the Second Age of the Balloon. “As all these objects fall, a new space race is rising,” Vox (https://www.vox.com/world/2023/2/7/23588464/suspect-spy-china-balloon-sputnik-moment-space-race) proclaimed. Tens of thousands of balloons float into near-space every year, and the numbers rise every year. The National Weather Service alone launches around 60k high-flying balloons each year. The Pentagon spent nearly $4B over the past two years on its own high altitude balloons, according to Politico (https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/05/u-s-militarys-newest-weapon-against-china-and-russia-hot-air-00043860). Why the interest in such old-school tech? “They’re cheap, easy to transport, can be fielded in large numbers and are payload agnostic,” industry expert George Howell wrote. Tucson, Arizona-based World View (https://spacenews.com/world-view-emphasizes-remote-sensing-as-it-prepares-to-go-public/), a stratospheric ballooning company, last month announced plans to go public via SPAC merger. The company develops a “stratollite” that provides high-res imagery for extended periods. (The company also offer space tourism.) Colorado-based Urban Sky (/company/urban-sky) is creating what it claims as the first ever reusable stratospheric balloon. Called “micro-balloons,” they’re the size of a VW bus and can hover in near space to collect data over urban areas. Company founder Jared Leidich (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/04_fm2017-alan-eustaces-jump-1-180961678/) has some chops in this arena, having designed the space suit used in the world record space dive in 2014 via a balloon at nearly 136k feet. Near Space Labs (/company/nearspacelabs) invites people to “step inside a new way of thinking about all things geospatial imaging (https://nearspacelabs.com/blog/).” The company's high-altitude balloons that carry a small, autonomous robot called Swifty to capture the world around them at 60k to 85k feet in the air. The company says it’s done zero carbon emissions and recently launched (https://www.zdnet.com/article/near-space-labs-provide-free-high-resolution-imagery-to-universities-nonprofits/) a program to make its high-resolution Earth imagery available to universities and nonprofits for free. Sounds fascinating, right? Luckily, with a new wave of space technology, comes a brand new, cutting-edge wave of jobs. Check out 5 top startups aiming skywards and hiring now.

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