It's true that there's a big services sector, especially around government work. But there's also a lively startup/R&D scene. I worked 4 years for Mindscape (a dev tools startup, later to become Raygun), and then moved to GreenButton (HPC in the cloud, later acquired by Microsoft; the R&D team is still based in Wellington). Xero is a thriving, lively product company, although now large and mature; same with TradeMe. Weta Digital has a lot of in-house tech. And there are companies like 8i, just kicking off doing amazing things in motion capture and rendering.
So what you're saying is fair for "IT services" tech - if you want to do that, then yeah, Datacom is it. But there's so much more to the Wellington tech scene than IT services.
New Zealand is really nice though. Laid back, safe(accept CBD on drinking nights), clean, etc.
Wow, if you think Auckland winters are bad, you must not have experienced a real winter in the northern hemisphere!
There's far colder (and darker, and wetter) winters in much of North America and Europe.
As for New Zealand (and I'm saying this as a Kiwi), it's an amazing place for the lifestyle. Not necessarily an amazing place for career opportunities, though.
Constant weather is a bummer, but the cold and snow doesn't really bother me. As long as I can control the environment of my home without going broke from space heaters and dehumidifiers.
I have a very nuanced opinion of the life style :)I do miss the road trips and coffee. You're right about the opportunities; I may end up back in NZ some day when that's less of a concern.
I might be misunderstanding what you're saying, but it doesn't snow in Auckland.
I grew up there (and Christchurch) and remember being excited when their was a frost - it was the closest to snow we ever got.
It's an amazing place for sure but everytime I look at moving back to NZ I just get depressed about housing costs.
How does it compare to bay area housing costs?
Shh. The locals like it that way.
Of course winter is a shorter duration in Christchurch!
It's what Aussies (like myself) and Kiwis call "downtown", or the city-centre.
Seriously. I agree that it's a beautiful city in so many ways, but just spending a week there made me wonder if I would want to live in such a windy place.
That being said, most of the tech is centralized in just a few shops. Everything is contracted out to Datacom, Catalyst, Frondie, Solnet, etc. etc.
I mean companies do have their own IT staff, but just due to the shortage of talent, a lot gets contracted out, including tons of government stuff.
If you're under 30 and a US citizen, you can get a Holiday Work Visa and live/work there for a year. (This is how I started out, before switching to another visa). If you're a citizen of a commonwealth state, I think you can get a two year visa to most other commonwealth countries (including AU/NZ).
Oh and Wellington is the windiest city in the world. This is not an exaggeration. Oh and expect at least one earthquake a year too.