Remote Jobs in Utah

Remote Work in Utah

Utah's economic story is shaped by its geography — the Great Basin, the Colorado Plateau, the Wasatch Range — and by the distinctive culture the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints brought to the region when Brigham Young led the first wagon trains of settlers into the Salt Lake Valley in 1847. That combination of challenging terrain and intensely community-oriented culture produced an economy that punches well above its weight, particularly in technology entrepreneurship.

The early Utah economy was built around agriculture (irrigated by the elaborate canal systems the early settlers built), mining (silver, copper, and gold in the Wasatch Range), and railroad commerce (the transcontinental railroad was completed at Promontory Summit, Utah, in 1869). The Bingham Canyon copper mine, now operated by Kennecott Utah Copper (a subsidiary of Rio Tinto), is one of the largest open-pit mines in the world and has been producing copper, gold, and molybdenum since 1906. The mine has produced more copper than any other mine in history.

The technology sector has transformed Utah's economy in recent decades. The Salt Lake City–Provo–Ogden corridor, sometimes called the "Silicon Slopes," has one of the most dynamic technology startup ecosystems in the country. Several factors drive this: a young, highly educated workforce (Utah has the youngest median age of any state); a strong entrepreneurial culture rooted in LDS values of self-reliance and community; world-class outdoor recreation that attracts talent; and infrastructure built by anchor companies over decades. WordPerfect (the word processor that dominated before Microsoft Word), Novell, and SCO Group were early Utah technology pioneers. Adobe, eBay, PayPal, Twitter, and dozens of other major tech companies have established significant Utah engineering offices.

Homegrown tech companies including Qualtrics (acquired by SAP, then spun back off), Domo, Instructure, OC Tanner, and Ancestry.com have grown into major employers and produced the kind of successful exits that fund the next generation of startups. The Utah Valley corridor around Provo and Orem, home to Brigham Young University and Utah Valley University, is particularly dense with startup activity.

The outdoor recreation economy — skiing at Park City, Alta, Snowbird, and a half dozen other world-class resorts; mountain biking in Moab; rock climbing in Zion — makes Utah enormously attractive to professionals who want to live an active lifestyle. Remote work has made the trade-off between career opportunity and lifestyle essentially nonexistent for many Utah workers, who can earn national-market salaries while living minutes from extraordinary outdoor recreation.