Moving to Portland for my wife's career, what do I do about my career?

Personally, I always love to sublet for 1-6 months when I move. I feel that no amount of advice can replace the preferences you will form as you get a 'feel' for a new town. Every place I've gone I have ended up choosing to live places everyone told me I wouldn't want to live in, but that I end up finding lovely for reasons they consider poor (e.g. it's too quiet and suburban-y and far out of the city -- turns out I love that!). Ideally you sublet from a person/family, as you will get better deals than an apartment made for month-to-month rent. The latter is made to gain a premium on short-term stays, whereas the former often sells at a discount as it's hard for a family to find a person who wants to sublet from them for 3 months and 17 days in between their two arbitrary dates (but if that works you will get awesome deals). Or maybe you don't mind paying a bit more to sublet, and consider it an expense well worth the ability to avoid making really important decisions before living and getting a feel for a city. This will also allow you to spend more time focusing on settling into your new careers and finding a job, and just getting a place for a few months and 'postponing' locking yourself into a lease or mortgage on limited information. Just my 2 cents.

I can't give you advice on the job question, but as for the house question, it's almost always better to rent vs. buy when moving to a totally new city. You're going to want time to get a feel for the different neighborhoods and their housing stock before making a long-term commitment. As for the dog: I haven't lived in Portland, but in Seattle, individual landlords (as opposed to management companies) are often fairly amenable to pets, even if they didn't tick the "yes to dogs" box on the craigslist ad. And those are the types of landlords you'll be dealing with if you're looking for a house. And the northwest in general is very dog-friendly. So I'd say if you can set aside a long weekend to go out and meet with specific landlords and show them that you are responsible (helps that the wife is a doctor!) I bet you'll be able to find a landlord who will rent to you with the dog.

There are a fair number of companies in the area that make physical items -- although you may have to commute to Hillsboro, Beaverton, or Wilsonville. Check out Xerox (printers), ESI (manufacturing equipment), Tektronix (test & measurement), or Radisys (servers). Daimler has a truck plant here. A lot of folks have moved manufacturing off shore, but there may be opportunities locally. I have lived in Portland (West Hills) for over 10 years -- it is a very livable and friendly place, IMHO.

The older and more perceived-as-respectable you are, the better your dog options are. Play up that med school! And money solves a lot of problems, either in deposits or dog rent. You should always rent your first year anyway, but buying a house when you're not settled can end up really limiting your lifestyle/career options right when things are going to be most mercurial.

Housing: Rent or Buy? Neighborhoods to seek or avoid? Don't buy right away. Rent for a bit. Portland neighborhoods are really different, and the housing market varies widely among them. Portland is also gentrifying quickly, so lots of housing markets are in flux right now. Also houses in Portland are expensive, so you'll want to be here for a bit before you commit I think. Will they be driving or taking public transit? If driving, you can live pretty much anywhere in Portland and be within 30 minutes of OHSU. If taking the MAX/tram up the hill to OHSU, you'll want to stay in a SW neighborhood or close-in Eastside with easy MAX access. As far as neighborhoods go, I mean, it really depends. I definitely prefer the east side which is definitely the 'hipper' side of town, if you will. A little more community, more artsy and weird things, just more food/bars/music generally, easier to walk and bike to places, cheaper. The west-side definitely has a more, err, professional (for lack of a better word) sort of quality about it. But it's also hard to make too sweeping of generalizations about the neighborhoods. Also, Portland is really not that big, so it almost doesn't make a huge difference, honestly. I would maybe suggest, for mere convenience sake, to try and find something reasonably close to OHSU at least to start out. So maybe something in Marquam Hill or John's Landing or even Terwilliger. If you are definitely needing to rent a house, it may be easier to look a bit further down I-5. The dog shouldn't be too big of problem. Everyone here has a dog. Jobs: How's the mechanical engineering market? Other options to consider? Plenty of manufacturing and mechanical engineering jobs here. Tons. I don't think you'll have too much of a problem finding a job in that sector. Any other advice about moving from a medium size town to Portland? Portland is not that big. I think you'll find it a lot like a small town with big city amenities in many ways. It is an awesome, wonderful place to live. The OHSU campus is beautiful. You're going to love it here. Best of luck.

Thanks for all the advice, it's reassuring to hear that what I've been thinking isn't totally out of line with reality.

This may not be your style, but for a place to land while looking for something more permanent, check out http://www.rivaonthepark.com/ place on the riverfront. My niece works at OHSU and her husband works for the company that owns the building (and others). Dogs are OK, the tram to OHSU is a couple minutes walk, the views are nice. I stay in one of their guest apartments when visiting and have always liked the area.

I'll just say we've moved cities several times and pretty much every time we do, we make a lot of effort to research and plan where we're going to live then inevitably wind up living in a completely different place we liked when we drove past and started exploring or once we saw what the traffic patterns were like or visited this neighborhood nobody was even talking about, etc.

Intel's largest office is in Portland. Could your skills match something there?