Born, raised, and lived here for four decades. I've lived and worked all over south Florida. Miami, Hollywood, Ft Lauderdale, Pompano, Boca Raton, Boynton Beach, West Palm Beach, Jupiter. It's very hot and it's getting hotter by the year. Mosquitos are a thing. Beaches and tropical life is stunning. Cost of living is comparably cheap here. No state tax, good access to most any resource you could need or what, pretty good selection of food (most of which is okay to good, and the seafood is great), and tons of latin and Caribbean culture. There's quite a variety of nightlife, music, and culture which lean definitely toward latin influences in all parts. (Though latin influence diminishes pretty quickly as you head further north.) Art is pretty big in South Florida... we get Art Basel in Miami, a sizable Maker Faire which showcase a good cross-section of indie art/tech here.

Real estate is blowing up here (home equity basically doubled in the last 7 years)... may not be a good time to buy, but rent is just as expensive. People are mostly good-natured. Not much crazy unless you go into the seedier areas. There are some which will put up a "don't mess with me" front, but even most of these are quite nice despite. Population leans more toward the superficial side of the value spectrum. Politically, more democratic leaning which quickly becomes republican as you go north from West Palm Beach. South Florida, being the retirement capital of the US, you'll find quite a lot of elderly as well as frequent snow birds who have the money to visit from up north during the winter months.

The tech scene in South Florida: Tech is very undervalued. I believe Miami is really trying... but salaries are typically offered at around 70% of the national average (casual observation during job seeking and I consider myself in the top 10% of the industry, ymmv). I have been working remote from here for over a decade as you quickly end up hitting a ceiling limited/influenced by the local culture. The prevalent big tech is Citrix and Microsoft...lots of Java, PHP and .NET content/events. This also means that newer technology doesn't gain momentum here nearly as fast. There's a growing cryptocurrency scene in Miami w the Mayor spearheading interesting projects. Startup scene is here but you'll have to spend some time looking for it (especially if you're outside of metro areas).

I'm personally underwhelmed by the tech scene and wished it were more curious, innovative, and cutting edge but the money here is not technology savvy and isn't willing to take these kinds of risks so it's difficult to affect this sort of change (despite personal efforts). I admit, I've lost touch on this a lot over the past 5 years, so this might have changed. When I stepped away from the community, there was lots of grassroots effort to help educate the money and get it moving through the tech community. Money does circulate if you know the right communities/people.

Education is very meh. Only private schools will get you any edge down here. Public schools in some small pockets do well, but most don't. Any high achievers are dissuaded from staying since there's not many strong higher education programs as far as technology is concerned. And if any _did_ decide to stay here to take advantage of state scholarships (Bright Futures is pretty good, FWIW) there is hardly much opportunities for interesting work unless you want to work in enterprise tech..... which is not for everyone (and very likely not the HN crowd).

It's not a terrible place to live, but as another commenter already mentioned, you're not going to be making huge career moves by working within the local community. I'm sure I'm glossing over much, but I've asked some folks from Miami proper to weigh in. Let me know if I can fill in any gaps I might have left.