Or rather, right field.

You’re looking at the view from the Automated Insights offices — we’ll be moving in at the end of April. Not only is this a shameless plug to get you to work for us (Ruby developers and data scientists, seriously, hit me up at jproco.com), but it makes two important points about the improving quality of Big Top.

1) Working at a Triangle startup is no longer a garage-shop proposition

The Triangle startup community has come a long way since that first Big Top. We’ve got incredible career offerings with solid, financially stable companies with bright prospects for big futures. Sure, we still talk about long hours and hard work, but now we’re able to throw in fully-paid health plans, free lunches, and awesome views.

And it isn’t just Automated Insights (seriously though, jproco.com, let’s talk), Bronto, for one example, has a careers page that’s busting at the seams as they grow past 150 people.

2) We’re getting pretty competitive about landing the best talent

While still not at Silicon Valley levels of temptation, startups in the Triangle are starting to become very competitive, not only in what they offer their employees, but with each other.

Sure, my shameless hints at getting you to come work at Ai are sprinkled throughout this article for selfish reasons (and for a bit of humor), but also because this is an opportunity for a competitive advantage to get to you before Bronto (or Validic or Royalty Exchange or Sageworks) does.

We’re very serious about hiring top programmers, top marketing people, top business minds. So much so that we’re willing get up on stage, in front of hundreds of people, and try to (graciously) one-up each other to get you to come work for us instead of them.

It’s a good time to be in startup here.

So what looked like a lark some years ago when Heivly pitched a job circus, now seems right in line with the culture, the attitude, and the very vibe of working at a startup in the Triangle.

The event has gotten better, the value proposition has gotten better, and best of all, the product has gotten better.

Even if you have a job that maybe you’re not totally thrilled with, you should come out and see this. You won’t be sorry.