Moving to Portland Oregon - I hear the dream of the '90s is alive there.
 

I need a good Job. (Mechanical Engineer)
and a place to live.

Anyone from the Portland area have any good suggestions?


I graduate in May and i cant wait to get out of Kentucky. Just found out that Oregon does emissions testing though. So that's a thing. I'm planning on selling the white car and throwing the hardtop on the FE3T swapped red car. Bought a hitch and have plans to pick up a small 4x6 enclosed trailer to make the trip. Hopefully i can give high fives along the way to the west coast.

Stopping in the Denver area for sleep and some R&R.

I hear that's where young people go to retire.
Prost!

Are you weird enough to live there?

I put a Kia Sportage engine in a Miata. Yes.

Mississippi Ave looks like a pretty awesome place to live. A couple good German bars. My last name is Steinhaus so i'd fit in alright. :)

Alberta (Art district) and Kenton (PIR) neighborhoods look tempting as well.

Ew, Kenton, no. Stay out of ghetto north Portland. Talk to doppel, him and his woman have visited here a number of times, traveled all over the area, and know a thing or two about a lot of the places around here. I've only lived in one or two.

Remember that everything on paper says Beaverton is the best place to live in terms of cost of living, ameneties, etc. But the (hispanic) population and traffic make it absolute hell.

If you're a mechanical engineer, there's a good chance you'll work at one of the tech companies in hilsboro, Intel and the like.

In terms of "inside" Portland, lots of older houses with lots of character and no garage. I might suggest looking in West Linn, Lake Oswego, Tualatin, and Oregon City, more or less in that order.

Live in Northwest/Pearl.

Job prospects for tech types would probably be probably be better on the west side-hillsboro etc
Might be helpful in knowing what you want-apartment, room in house? Do you wanna be close to downtown/bars etc. Cheap or nice. How sketchy a neighborhood are you willing to park your car in?
The emissions testing is only for certain areas around metro portland, so if you have an address outside that area-no testing required(map available Oregon DEQ). If you make friends with someone outside the testing area use their address to register the car.

saw this: link

thought of this thread.

Thanks for the info. I'd prefer something < $650 a month. Single occupancy and im not picky on how fancy the place is as long as my shit isn't going to get broken into. garage is preferred but i plan on using the trailer as a place to store my tools and garage stuff otherwise. Being close to downtown would be nice but security will take priority.

Job wise i'm leaning more toward automotive / power industry / design jobs.

Good call on the emissions testing. I probably never would have thought of that.

Why Portland of all places? Yup it does seem nice but imo seems like you should try to find a job out on the west coast and let that decide where you move to depending on location. Limiting your job search to a city of 600,000 sounds daunting.

Honestly my dream job would be designing, fabricating, and building high performance vehicles. I have been looking some but i don't have any good leads thus far.
The culture in Portland is appealing to me so i figure if i cant find my dream job right away i might as well live in a cool place until a door opens somewhere else.

Know of any race teams that need a mechanical engineer / fabricator / mechanic? :D

I'm not very close with any shops around here, but can't hurt to send a few your résumé and interest in working for them. Definitely send resume to 034 motorsports(audis and vws) and sharkwerks(Porsche), also I saw that either Titan motorsports in Florida or map performance was looking to hire someone.

$650 is not downtown portland price, not anywhere I'd want you to live anyways.

You should move to Key West

That place is AWESOME

I hear AMS is looking for a Mechanical Engineer

Whats wrong with Kentucky? I lived in Oldham for 13 years, beats the living shit out of Ohio, place is filled with a bunch of goddamn yankees, and don't get me started on Kalifornia and all the commies who want to take my guns.

You going to UK or UofL? With the engineering degree I assume UofL.

I'm a little dehydrated and I've been drinking, fyi.

Portland OR, not Portland OH. Big difference. One exists...

Yeah.. Portland Oregon. There is also one in Maine i believe. I figured people would catch the Portlandia reference in the thread title. (show out of Portland OR.)

WKU but my diploma will actually come from UK because WKU doesn't have an accredited Mechanical Engineering program. State bureaucratic stuff.

I sent my resume off to a few more west coast shops and after talking on the phone with PRERacing i think they would be an awesome fit for me. Lots of potential for me to grow the company and still get my hands dirty with some fabrication and wrenching in the shop. I'll keep you posted.

If I was going to move to a different state it would probably be North Dakota.