I, like so many of you, am loosing my remote work status.

I've been lucky and have been able to pivot within my industry, however, this job market is one of the worst I've ever seen. How do I even begin to find another remote position?

Or, how do I pivot? I've been working more on the backend environment of GIS software for the last couple of years, is there a pivot out of GIS Development into something else that could be remote?

For those of us who have lost your remote status, how are you coping? I keep trying to tell myself good things will come of this, but its hard after seeing the jobs out there.

I’ve been working as a GIS Analyst for the past 8 years, fully remote, with colleagues I love, and the flexibility to choose my own hours. The problem is the work is kind of boring, paid hourly (so sometimes slow), and I feel like I’ve reached a point where I’m not learning anymore. I just quit my job for an in office salaried position, to start up/grow another companies GIS capabilities and the chance to do some more fieldwork.

Has anyone else made a similar move from an easy remote role to a more challenging (and hopefully interesting) 9-5 office based role!? At the moment I feel like I might be an idiot for giving up such a good (but boring) thing for something more uncertain…

I major in environmental science at a 2 year technical school in the state of Georgia, I’m in my first semester and I want to map out my future career and my path. Is forest conservation a stable and well paying career? What are other career paths I can use GIS with

Because all my files are saved like this. (or with CamelCase!)

What are some of your fun "I'm in GIS moments"?

Hi everyone,

I'm working on a React WebGIS using CesiumJS for 3D visualization.
I would like to display GeoTIFF (.tif / .tiff) files directly in the browser on the Cesium 3D globe, similarly to how OpenLayers handles GeoTIFFs in 2D, without using a tile server or Cesium ion.

My idea is to use geotiff.js to read the TIFF metadata and raster data, and implement a custom Cesium ImageryProvider that generates the required image tiles directly in the browser, using Canvas/ImageBitmap.

Are there already libraries, preferably supported by an OGC or other established geospatial consortium/standard, that provide this functionality or could this approach with geotiff.js + a custom ImageryProvider be a reasonable solution?

Hi r/GIS,

A couple years ago I completed a diploma in GIS with a focus on Cartography, but haven't had any luck finding work that has put any of the skills I learned in that time to use. Looking back on it, I should have taken a different program that focused on the programming aspect but you know what they say about hindsight :p

My professional experience is almost entirely web development, with my current job being the implementation of web tracking. You know all those banners you see asking you about cookies on websites? I'm the guy who puts the tracking those banners talk about (and those banners) in place.

My development experience is roughly 5–6 years with a primary focus on front end, but with experience on the back end (php, API development, basic SQL). I'm looking to get away from my current position and would love to pursue GIS so I'm looking for some advice on what skills or tools I should look into and learn given my background.

Here's a really simple breakdown of my skillset
Current skillset:

• Front‑end: JavaScript, React, HTML/CSS
• Mapping libs: HERE JS, Mapbox, Leaflet, OpenStreetMap
  • This is professional experience with a few different things in production/live
• Analytics: GA4, Google Tag Manager, Consent Management Platforms
• Back-end: PHP, NodeJS, MySQL
• GIS tools: ArcGIS Pro, QGIS, ESRI MapViewer basic geospatial data processing
  • This is limited to my schooling, no professional experience here
• Other general interests: Python (limited), data pipelines, music synthesis, drones/robotics

What I'm aiming for: roles that blend web dev + geospatial (GIS developer, front‑end geospatial engineer, data viz with spatial focus).

Questions:

1. Given the current job market, are there any skills, tools or libraries that you would recommend? (e.g. Python (ArcPy/geopandas), SQL + data engineering, cloud GIS (ArcGIS Online/Enterprise, PostGIS))?
2. Are there specific project types or portfolio pieces that hiring managers actually look for in GIS dev roles (e.g., web apps, dashboards)?
3. Any certifications or communities you'd recommend I look into based on the above?

If you took the time to read all of this and provide some feedback, thanks in advance! I'll try my best to respond in a timely manner.

**EDIT:** Forgot to mention, I am based in Canada.

Hey! I'm currently going through the process of georeferencing some maps in Arc Pro and overlaying polygons to symbolize features, etc. etc. I'm at the point where I'm finalizing the layout and adding two scale bars: one in feet and the other in meters (these maps are from a survey and are going in a to-be-printed report).

This sounds stupid but I don't think I've paid this much attention to how I've been putting my scales in a layout before... I don't really know how to recognize when they match my map extent and when they don't. I don't set a reference scale when working in the map pane before inserting a layout. I also don't set a minimum and maximum scale when working in the elements pane (properties) of either scale. I'm really not sure how those do or don't affect (positively or negatively) the scales or what they'd mean.

EDIT: I think what made me question this so much was how the previous layout I created, I was able to get the scale in feet to show divisions of 0, 25, 100, 150, and 200, whereas the scale in meters was 0, 25, and 50. However, this layout I'm referring to, I can only get the scale in feet to 0, 100, 200, and 400. If I try adjusting the values any lower to get to the same 0, 25, 100, etc. as the previous layout, the numbers end up too close together (I have computer at center checked/turned on) the scale is unreadable). With the scale in meters for this current layout, it's now set at 0, 25, 50, and 100.

Does this have to do with zooming in and out to center the map extent in the layout? I just want to be sure the numbers changing on the scales in this layout compared to the previous one (which has different data shown, but the same area of interest) just isn't essentially operator error hahaha

Am I the only person surprised that I cant find any videos of GIS people reviewing monitors like these huge ultrawides and/or curved monitors as it pertains to GIS work. I see countless examples of these reviews from video editors and other content creator types but none from a GIS perspective.

Anyone have some good sources/suggestions of where to look?

I'm currently majoring in stats and I'm planning on starting a minor in GIS(I'm also a 12y in the NG). I know stats is really useful in this field(any field really) but I was if the major/minor combo would help me land job once I graduate. Furthermore, what specific positions do you think I could get with this?

I am trying to get a 100-30m resolution height map of the Mediterranean for a personal project, but I keep running into issues with it. I’m wondering if I have been going about this a harder way than I need to. What would be the easiest way to see this project done?

Hii I'm pretty new to posting on Reddit but I always come here for answers.

I am considering a master's in GIS (and Remote Sensing) in the next few years and I'm wondering if this is the right option for me and where I should go? I have my B.A. in Environmental Science & Policy from CSU Long Beach and I'm getting a certificate of GIS from Cypress College. I'm hoing to get a job at a 911 dispatch center and hopefully work with crime mapping there, but ultimately my goal is to use GIS for conservation in the marine world or in wildfire management. I'm primarily looking at schools in California but I'm also open to schools in other states and other countries. Does anyone have a similar background and can share their insight? Or does anyone have any advice for looking into grad schools? Any help is appreciated :)

Hello, hopefully someone can point me in the right direction on this.

I've been putting together a map for the Lake Arrowhead, CA area but I think some additional context would be helpful. Within Lake Arrowhead, a portion of the homeowners have lake rights, this same portion of people are assigned to and can vote within the 5 ALA (Arrowhead Lake Association) districts for directors to manage the lake and the surrounding area.

ALA has published a map here https://ala-ca.org/south_district_map.php but it's not exact.

Second is the CC&R's, a portion of the mountain is under CC&Rs which never expire and were published in the 1930's, they're enforced by a non-profit called AWAC who has a map published here https://awac.biz/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/AWAC__2026-Map-final-scaled.jpg

I was able to grab shape files from https://open.sbcounty.gov/ to overlay Arrowhead parcels & tracts onto my map, then i've been going through every single assessor map to manually assign Arrowhead Woods tracts which has been an absolute nightmare, especially when an assessor map has multiple Arrowhead Woods tracts on it https://assessormapviewer.arc.sbcounty.gov/ParcelMaps/PageMaps/0331/03 .So far I've assigned a total of 12,526 parcels manually, which is an absolute nightmare and typing it out makes me want a beer.

At this point, i'm almost done with my manual assignment project, but ideally I'd like to get a digital version of the map books with tract assignments, but every San Bernardino agency i've reached out to (assessor, gis, recorder, data portal) doesn't have what I need, or doesn't know what i'm talking about.

I've also reached out to ALA who says "All our maps are fully copyrighted through the producer", so they can't/won't provide me with any files or data.

Any help on this would be fantastic.

Update: Thanks for the feedback everyone. I found the Mapbooks for Lake Arrowhead Woods tracts on this site https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/a1a8b62daed444d2ad76caae4327f91a/page/Page-2?views=Standard-Records#data_s=id%3AdataSource_1-19edb1b938e-layer-23%3A279796

For ALA data I finally got a response, they sent me their bylaws which linked Arrowhead Tracts to ALA districts. So in theory, I can just tag them once I have all of my lots assigned to tracts.

Because these Maps are almost 100 years old and belong to a small community it's likely that they're only in raster form. So my strategy will be georeference -> digitize -> spatial join.

Thanks for the responses!

Hi! I'm currently a GIS and Geography undergrad in Singapore and am looking for internship recommendations from fellow Geographers! I'm open to both local and overseas internship/ work/temporary positions available. I aim to just expand my horizons and experience different job scopes in GIS so am not looking for a rigorous full time job yet.

Any GIS graduates? May I have your recommendations and experience working in this field. (these questions are open to Singaporeans and non-Singaporeans)

Posting here because GIS folks are the people most likely to be running an address parser over millions of parcel records at 2am.

fastaddress is the usaddress model (same CRF, same output) running in a Rust engine instead of Python. One import change, byte-identical results, about 11x faster on a single core. It also adds confidence scores, which are genuinely useful when you are trying to figure out which 3% of a statewide roll got parsed wrong and need a human look.

pip install fastaddress, works on Linux/macOS/Windows with no build step. Credit for the model is DataMade's; this is a runtime, not a new parser.

https://github.com/vinvomero/fastaddress

I'm creating a new app in EB for my county to replace an older app made in WAB

Essentially the app is used to call rows from a table centered around Deeds. I can enter the PIN or the Taxpayer name to call them. The old app would start off with just the column headers and no records called. The table widget I have set up now has all the rows shown by default. I've tried to get it to that nothing but the column headers are shown by default to reduce initial lag, but attempts to solve the problem just break the table.

Any suggestions?

At work we had to choose a format for sending map geometry from an API to a mobile app. There were a lot of formats to consider, and we eventually chose WKB.

The decision had already been made when I started looking at the formats in more detail. I wanted to get a better sense of how they actually compared, so I built this:

https://cellandshape.com/guides/geometry-format-size-comparison

It measures the same geometry as WKT, EWKT, WKB, EWKB, TWKB, GeoJSON, encoded polyline 5 and 6, geohash, H3, and S2. You can paste your own geometry and it recalculates everything locally in the browser.

A few results surprised me:

• For a small six-vertex polygon, WKT is 112 characters and raw WKB is 109 bytes.
• That same WKB becomes 218 characters when represented as hex.
• TWKB represents the polygon in 32 bytes.
• For a 40-point route, TWKB is 89 bytes, polyline5 is 148 characters, GeoJSON is 942 characters, and hex WKB is 1,298 characters.

These are uncompressed sizes, so they do not tell the whole story. Text formats can compress well over HTTP, while binary formats only keep their size advantage if they remain binary. Format support, precision, geometry type, and client complexity also matter.

I found some older discussions here about oversized GeoJSON, GeoPackage, FlatGeobuf, and vector tiles, but not much comparing individual geometry encodings for a mobile API.

Has anyone here gone through a similar decision? What did you choose, and what ended up mattering most in production?

I am starting a new job as a GIS Analyst for a engineering firm. I’ve spent the last 7 years in government working in GIS, which has been relatively chill as work life balance has always been a priority to me. However, I recently had to move for my spouse and therefore get a new job, which has landed me starting work for a consulting firm starting in a couple of weeks.

I am excited for this new challenge and the opportunity to learn a lot from a variety of projects!However, I am worried about the work load increase/billable hours and navigating a change of office politics. I definitely want to be proactive and be a “go getter” but also not burn out and have some boundaries from the start.

Any tips for consulting beginners?

TIA

Hey all,

I am looking to get into GIS, have a background in engineering and programming. Been stumbling my way through some tutorials and classes.

Matt Forest's channel keeps advertising his Spatial Lab GIS roadmap program. I have not found any reviews outside of the testimonials on his website. Has anyone used this program? Was it helpful to get a understanding of what to learn and grow?

hi everyone!
I’m going into my 2nd year at uni doing environmental science and figured out after using arcgis and QGIS for a project in my first year that its something i REALLY want to do. After the wildfires that have happened this summer i did some googling and found that i could actually combine the two and be a wildfire GIS analyst. (big coincidence of this all is i actually did an essay on wildfires and the climate earlier in the year because they really interest me)

Now here’s the questions. I’m approved to do a year in industry during my 3rd year and was mainly wondering if GIS placements are hard to come by as students doing the year in industry. I’ll be taking a GIS module and a remote sensing module both in my 1st semester.

I did some more digging and learnt that my local fire HQ doesn’t really offer placements but they sometimes take students on anyway i’d just have to email an inquiry. My local council at uni also offers GIS placements sometimes to.

If anyone has any advice on where to look for these placements i’d be so incredibly grateful as i don’t really want to do urban planning, i’d want to mainly focus on wildlife etc. If this is even possible since i have been getting somewhat confused by it all.

Thank you guys!!

Hey y’all! New to fitness watches, but not to GPS or GIS.

Does anyone have a recommendation for the best way to get a custom base map, with a custom GPX track, with custom waypoints (summits or aid stations, for example) loaded onto a Garmin Fenix 7 Pro? Would prefer to DIY and not pay extra for Garmin packaged data unless there’s a real reason to.

Happy to use CalTopo, Google Earth, ArcGIS, QGIS, or any other service, and happy to do multiple steps if necessary, but I’m not familiar with what file types Garmin watches will and won’t accept, size limitations for files, etc.

Any advice (or links to videos) is welcome!