"Upstate New York" is a very large area. It would be tough to generalize...
I'm in the Syracuse area (smack in the middle of the state), and the local scene is reasonably unimpressive (I work remotely, as do most of the folks I know in the area). There is a bit of a tech job market 45 minutes east of here in Rome, but that's mostly DoD related work (Rome Labs, etc). An hour and a half south is Ithaca, which is a 'hippy' college-town (Cornell, Ithaca College, and TC3), and has a bit of a startup scene, but again, nothing huge... I'd certainly want to have something lined up before moving.
I'm in the Syracuse area (smack in the middle of the state), and the local scene is reasonably unimpressive (I work remotely, as do most of the folks I know in the area). There is a bit of a tech job market 45 minutes east of here in Rome, but that's mostly DoD related work (Rome Labs, etc). An hour and a half south is Ithaca, which is a 'hippy' college-town (Cornell, Ithaca College, and TC3), and has a bit of a startup scene, but again, nothing huge... I'd certainly want to have something lined up before moving.