Me and my friend have been looking for a laptop at around the same price range for a couple of weeks, and in the end the best choices were: Lenovo Legion Y520 ($1180 for 128GB SSD and GT1050, $1400 for 256GB SSD and GT1050Ti), or the MSI APACHE GE62 ($1250).
The Y720 is great but would cost you $1800.
The Y520 does not have an optical disk drive, but is lightweight. It has a small battery but consumes less than the much bulkier MSI.
All of those laptops are available at most of the big shops (Pcandparts, Mojitech, Microcity..).
There is also HP Pavilion Power 15-cb002ne Acid Green at PCandParts. It might be perfect for your needs and has a great price ($1160), but my friend didn't like how the bottom of the screen at the back lifts the laptop (
Image).
Another solution would be getting a $600 HP
ProBook from literally anywhere and upgrading it with a $150 480GB SSD. You can easily get 8-9 hours of code on those machines, they are comfortable to use and lightweight. The only problem is their slow 5200RPM HDD. And with another $20 that old HDD will be your new external.