This is what I mean by 'underdeveloped':
- Most software dev job postings (as of May 2018) have SPECIFIC tech stack requirements. This to me is a red flag. Most recruiters in 'developed' tech cities assume that software development skills are transferable and that technology stacks/frameworks/languages can be learned.
- The salaries offered were still very low compared to comparable COL locations like Austin
- No major FAANG presence to put upward pressure on local developer wages
When I think of NYC, SF, Austin, Seattle, I think of cities with robust arts/culture/dining/entertainment, accessibility (public transit) and enough professional basis to allow job mobility. These things entice younger people to congregate.
There are other metros that have great education and in particular tech education (Raleigh/Durham, Pittsburgh, Chicago) but don't tend to build up tech industries.
The city recently made a big push to attract talent in the entertainment and film industries, which appears to have worked pretty well. It would be nice to see them do something similar for tech. It's kind of sad that the state subsidized my education (and many others) but does not have the incentives in place to keep people once they graduate.
Also, the local salaries are a big part of the reason people leave. The low cost of living does not make a difference when you can save more per year in the Bay Area than an entirely yearly salary in Atlanta.
I have never lived somewhere with less public transportation, art & culture, dining, and entertainment options than Austin, Texas.
And I’ve spent my entire life in the American south. Houston for example of all places, does twice as much on all of those qualities!
There’s a feature on the site where you can click a given level for a given company, and filter the individual offer data to a given metro/city. It’s super useful, even if a bit more labor intensive than being able to use the top-of-the-fold summary stats.
Edit: the link to click is “filter locations”, it’s on the top right after clicking/opening a given level’s info card.
The company I work for participates in UIUC's City Scholars program[0]. If you work for a company in Chicago, push for them to participate. It introduces the students to Chicago's tech scene.
Buh? I was there less than 2 years but this is a baffling statement to me.
edit: except public transportation point.
I'd expect this to continue under normal conditions. Companies diving into a new city and trying to foster these conditions in the cheaper costs of a new city. But the pandemic really kicked WFH into overdrive and there are just so many companies abandoning the scope of physical presences.
That's definitely lower than other markets, but Atlanta is a much cheaper place to live than most other big cities. Housing is definitely catching up though. The only thing I will say about Atlanta, it gets HUMID for large swathes of the year. The climate is really unpleasant if you're prone to sweating and enjoy being outdoors.
And as someone living in ATL and working at one of the few companies to offer competitive salaries for their tech positions, this is only upside in my eyes.
I lived and worked there for a while there.
* Most of the tech jobs are out in burbs like alpharetta ect.
* City is just not great. There isn't much to do.
* Feels a bit old school and traditional.
* No access to snow for skiing , to the ocean for surfing, mountain biking trails are decent but not great.
* Music scene is not good. I don't like to listen to country , rock ect.
* I always feel a little scared to drive outside ATL into GA, Alabama. Confederate flags, churches in the gas stations. I've heard some stories from my friends. I admit that this might be an irrational fear.
Clearly you don't listen to rap and hip hop either
Currently I’m in Florida and I’ve been similarly confused by how underdeveloped tech feels here. I mean this is one of the biggest states with several metropolitan areas and a large economic base, but frankly most of what I’ve seen as far as tech jobs seems mostly underwhelming.
If you want to ski, fly to Colorado and ski...if you want to be a ski bum, yes...Atlanta is not for you.
And yes, it has its downsides...it is sprawling, public transportation is not good, it can get very hot in the summer, crime can be high, and generally many of the problems that large metro areas deal with.
It's possible most non-competes will be banned nationally (US), see https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/biden-can-free-mil... and https://joebiden.com/empowerworkers/#:~:text=Eliminate%20non...
I'm not saying there are any reasons they should not have been an early adopter... but Atlanta definitely has its charms, and allowing people to get a masters from a top-ten program while scarcely ever setting foot on campus seems like it could be a disservice to the state.
ATL is also home to the world's busiest airport. If you like to travel, it's a great city. You can fly direct to almost anywhere in the world.
Not enough outdoor activities here. The amount of hiking trails is great for Texas. But not at the national scale or when compared to the West Coast & northern Rockies.
Texas is mostly private land, so there just aren't any greenbelts (that I know of, within 2 hours of Austin) where you can hike for 10-40 miles one way.
I'm strongly leaning towards Washington for that reason-- Huge "parks" (more like "wilderness zones") for hiking, as well as ocean kayaking, ocean sailing, and ocean fishing.
It's a cheap flight to Alaska from there. And WA is the only contiguous west coast state without state income tax.
https://www.nerdwallet.com/cost-of-living-calculator/compare...
$150k in Austin equates to $236k in Seattle (knock off 35%)
$150k in Austin equates to $296k in SF Bay (knock off 50%)
It's doubtful Software Engineers are covered by non-competes in Georgia. You could use one for sales people and possibly an ex-founder or executive.
Couple of thoughts:
- the tech startup scene is hurting for risk capital. Seed & Series A investors (primarily) come from capital generated at prior exits (e.g. Google millionaires seed the next round of startups, etc.). Atlanta has had some big exits, but not the kind that mint 100s of young millionaires. By contrast, Seattle has had two mega tech exits. Austin had Dell and a few .com hits as accelerants (and their money has had decades to spawn more companies). There are some exciting Atlanta startups that may exit to create the seeds for the next generation of companies.
(Honestly, the aspiring early-stage VCs could do a lot worse than backing companies in the Atlanta area now. Less competition to get in on deals, equity likely cheaper, and the pandemic means that later-stage investors are considering doing deals outside of northern California.)
> Most software dev job postings (as of May 2018) have SPECIFIC tech stack requirements.
Likely an artifact of the diversified economy here. The non-tech Fortune 500s HQ'd in the area hire a lot of tech people. That's going to skew how recruiters operate. For the most part, this is not a factor in the tech metros. Also, I would push back on the premise in general. I have not seen very many job postings of the form "backend dev needed, any stack and database experience are okay." That would seem to be the outlier.
> The salaries offered were still very low compared to comparable COL locations like Austin
Austin is notably more expensive than Atlanta.
> No major FAANG presence to put upward pressure on local developer wages
Obviously TFA is about adding new tech presence to the area. But Microsoft building its East Coast HQ in Atlanta is also a big deal. Anecdotally, I have also seen compensation inflation among F500 companies in the area.
Things are changing.
No insight on Atlanta or Seattle, but Austin has had tech longer than people like to think (IBM/Freescale, UT Austin+TI Partnerships, etc), and also got on the 'hype train' early by rebranding SXSW from pure music/entertainment into 'SXSW Interactive' quite a while back (early 2000s if I'm not mistaken), so you have lots of west coast tech/media/vc 'influencers' heading there on a yearly basis getting schmoozed heavy
It was really unfortunate to see such a blatant money grab.
There's tons of world music in Atlanta too, since Atlanta is one of the primary locations new refugees get sent. That's why you can get just about any cuisine on Buford Highway.
I've even seen firsthand how racism against asians and Indians is rampant and often conducted by those that supposedly are advocates for minorities.
WA seems very nice, the no state tax thing basically means a free mortgage payment if you are making good money in tech(not paying CA taxes)
With remote work, and an off-grid equipped van, I imagine someone who works from a computer can explore a large swath of the state, and nearby states, to find the right mix of weather and activities.
That said, they'd still likely be based in the Seattle area, and would largely remain subject to its weather conditions.
What you're alluding to is simply not true. I worked at several companies and have several friends in Atlanta area that have no such problems. I think you're extending African American population density in Atlanta to fit a narrative that simply has no backing. In fact, companies in Atlanta area are more diverse than Austin or whatever techhub you want to name, except SF Bay Area I would say.
I had a mentor at a college internship request I be transferred to another mentor a couple days after they learned I was atheist. The ~50 person software dev org I was in was 90% male, 90% white in a >60% Black city.
For context, I'm a tall, straight-passing white dude with a slight Southern accent. I'm a guy who has had people tell me racist jokes unprompted because they assume they're in good company, and I could still see this kinda shit around me. Shit's unreal as a woman or person of color.
This was at a Fortune 50 company with a couple thousand IT/engineering employees (and this was <36 months ago).
I get that the Bay Area is not always the progressive paradise it pretends to be, but "California == liberal" in many non-West-Coast eyes for a reason.
Stock market shares are the same, but things like gas prices, groceries, utilities, and rent are vastly different.
Yea definetly. I have friends who love living there and are raising families there.
Does this mean that you're actually better off taking unweighted non-honors/AP classes and getting a better grade, rather than taking honors/AP classes and getting a less good grade?
$160k base
$380k equity
$540k total comp
I've been highly compensated in Atlanta for nearly my entire career, except the year when I worked out of ATDC.
edit: I misread that you were looking for Austin figures, not Atlanta. I still think this is valuable for the ATLiens here. We've had tech companies here for over a decade - you just have to know.
You must not have tried very hard. Atlanta is a music hub. It's one of the best features of our city.
For one, we're the hip hop / rap epicenter. But we also cater to indie, alternative, electronic, and punk.
Pre-pandemic you could find shows every night at over three dozen different venues. Tabernacle, Buckhead Theatre, Center Stage, Masquerade, Terminal West, Variety Playhouse, The Loft, The Earl, Aisle 5, Chastain Park, Wonderroot, Smith's Old Bar, The Roxy...
I can't count how many times I was torn between seeing two or three different acts I wanted to see because they all happened on the same night. It's like a curse. That's how much music happens in Atlanta.
Music Midtown, Shaky Knees, Shaky Beats...
I think you forget that Atlanta is home to a burgeoning creative industry. And that's more than just music. In 2017, Georgia films collectively grossed more than films shot and produced anywhere else in the world. And we're still killing it.
Atlanta creatives and our art and culture scene are thriving.
"What do you do when it's 90+ and you need to be outside?"
"You sweat and accept that other people sweat."
If you shower once a day, a little sweat isn't a bit deal. I think of it as making sure my pores are clear.
It was a huge game changer for me personally - it took a while to pick up, but now I actually look forward to the months of December to March (sometimes April) in Seattle, because it means I'm 45 minutes away from good skiing, and a couple hours away from great skiing.
Of course, it's not a spot for everyone, but even if you just do cross-country skiing or snowshoeing, it's totally possible to get "great" weather in the winter here.
How on earth did that ever pass??
cost of living does not scale w/ salary increases. it's a silly calculation. not essential at all.
Making $236k in seattle is going to be much more fruitful than making $115k in whatever flyover place. this argument is always used by people that need to justify living in their boring towns
every cost of living calculator assumes you spend 100% of your paycheck on cost of living.
I've spent time in SF, Portland, various cities in Texas, and a year in Florida. (Never the northeast or Colorado, which are omissions - but I hate snow and cold.)
Spent a year in Japan, and a few months in China. Expat life might have been fun if I was still in my 20's...
Despite all of that, Atlanta has always felt right. It's incredibly diverse - way more than many cities - and full of culture. The music scene is on point, and I used to go to shows at least once a week before the pandemic.
I'm frequently on the Beltline (and used to use it to commute to work pre-Covid). The Hooch, ample outdoors, hiking, lakes.
I also own an amazing condo here. 25'' ceilings, penthouse skyline view with 20'' windows, historic all-brick walls. It's amazing. It'd easily cost millions in another city, yet my mortgage payment is less than $2k/mo here.
I'll probably be able to retire at 40. Or start a company with minimal risk.
Georgia has a ton to do, and the cost of living is still incredibly cheap. I can't imagine leaving, just buying a second home.
I've driven in many US cities, and had to suffer the DC traffic horror show for work trips.
My wife's current company HQ is across the mighty traffic river of the 285 from the Brave's fancy new ballpark.
I used to tag along on the twice yearly trips because in theory, downtown and midtown Atlanta are pretty good looking and have a lot of cool urban things; then there are the Buford HW culinary expeditions.
I stopped because even though I had complete freedom to travel in the middle of the day, using Google Maps for advice, I could not get even a single day when one direction did not fail into stupid dumb no way to route around time destruction gridlock.
I watched the Guadalara MX evening commute for 5 days from something like 25th floor of the hotel, and it made me think. A couple of trips to the 'De Efe' MX and stupidly riding a tourist bus at 5pm (no time to spare!) made me think some more. Yesterday I was looking and thinking about Tempe, and its absolutely magnificent building boom. It's a spectacular transformation, for an American City. La Defense, without decent art. I wouldn't want to spend much time in either... Tempe because of the soon to be 130F summer days. LD, because if you're in Paris, why??.
Both Tempe and Atlanta have built a beautiful urban infrastructure with tall business and residential buildings that are generally structured as 3-7 stories of vehicle storage, possibly underground, and a bunch of greatness stacked above.
Tempe is headed toward the worst commutes south of the border, and Atlanta is already there.
Yeah, I haven't mentioned something here. Deh Efe has it and it doesn't matter. Tempe at least has that freight track it will eventually commandeer. Because of city fragmentation, and some uh residual social issues, Atlanta is a lost cause. The future is very, very stupid.
I'm not a transit expert, but I do love to ride the trains.
job search, places to live, lowest crime areas, good food, etc
https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/Atlanta-Ar...
https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/Greater-Au...
https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/San-Franci...
That shows Austin median at 62% of SF, FWIW.
we all win with the services and products these companies offer, and that's why they can do that.
Miami isn't even a blip on the "where people are going" radar statistically, but the hype and anecdotes could always make it a reality long-term. I have my doubts, personally.
[1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/People-are-leavi...
I have to disagree, after living in West Midtown Atlanta for the past 3 years. There's one large park (Piedmont) downtown, but beyond that I have to drive 30mins-1hour for any park of comparable size.
I don't see why the argument is about spending 100% of one's salary. We all spend a percentage of our salaries on things like rent, etc, and that percentage is going to be larger in Seattle than Columbia.
"Making $236k in seattle is going to be much more fruitful than making $115k in whatever flyover place. this argument is always used by people that need to justify living in their boring towns"
Imagine unironically calling towns that aren't Seattle, "boring". Alright, chief. Columbia certainly isn't Chicago (my birthplace), but that doesn't make it boring either. People have their reasons for electing to live in different areas, no need to be condescending about it. Yes, $236k is mathematically higher than $115k, this is no surprise to anyone. However that $115k usually goes a lot further in smaller towns than $236k might in Seattle. ...due to differences in cost of living (and the housing market).
"every cost of living calculator assumes you spend 100% of your paycheck on cost of living. "
Basic googling disproves this. Of the cost of living calculators that I looked at, they just listed basic things like school, transportation, gas, etc, and make comparisons between areas. Nothing saying that you need to spend 100% of your salary.
If you drive 30-60 minutes you get to dozens of bike and hiking trails in big parks.
Not to mention all the trees everywhere and pocket parks.
The parks aren’t necessarily the best in the world or anything, but there’s lots of space and more than most major cities. One thing is that the parks aren’t built up around very much like other cities.
Racial diversity and the mixes of culture are one of the big upsides, I think and are pretty rare (compare racial diversity in Bay Area and Seattle and Atlanta).
Also Atlanta has been a hub for lgbtq culture for decades. Not the same as Bay Area or NY but probably #3.
Maybe you had some bad experiences or it’s your company.
(it's also worth mentioning that for my first 1.5 years in Atlanta, I couldn't even afford a car, so my options were limited to Piedmont Park and the Georgia Tech campus)
In rush hour traffic from the Atlantic Station area, according to Google Maps:
Grant Park: 26min drive Centennial Olympic Park: 15min drive (I did go there all the time but it's not really a park? plus tons of car noise nearby) Freedom Park: 34min drive Candler Park: 28min drive Chastain Park: 28min drive
I'd occasionally go to the park along Collier Road or to Memorial Park (both 15-20min drive in traffic), but both are surrounded by deadlocked rush hour traffic for most of the afternoon.
I think the lesson is maybe that I should've chosen to live in the Little 5 Points area or somewhere east of Piedmont, but that would mean sacrificing my ~5min bicycle commute to the Georgia Tech campus where I was going to school at the time.
In the end Atlanta's car culture really grated on me, so I left.
That said, I think Atlanta is on a positive trajectory. I'm excited to see how the Microsoft campus impacts the western part of the city. I imagine in 15-20 years it could be a really appealing city.
I think a huge element has to be the success of SxSW. That has given a lot of people the personal positive exposure to Austin that makes them think moving there is plausible.
Genuine question - how does this compare to other industries in the city? If AAs are underrepresented in tech in Atlanta, I imagine that part of this is caused by the same problems faced by AAs in other white-collar jobs. How much of it is a problem with tech specifically?
Traffic is really horrible in Atlanta but I was able to plan around it so that it didn’t bother me much. But I would never think of distance against rush hour unless I had a specific reason. So while it may suck to drive during rush hour to get to a park, just don’t do that. Traffic is dead at 6am and is fine until 330 or after 7. Even a block from Piedmont park, I don’t think I ever went there except mornings, evenings, and weekends. This is different from other cities where there’s just no getting around traffic.
Living in midtown (or anywhere) without a car is hard, but there’s lots of cities that also require cars but don’t have so many parks and outdoor stuff.
There’s definitely a car culture and that’s a downside, but there are lots of parks.
Houston is also far more diverse, which directly impacts art, culture, and dining specifically.
Much of the same about art, culture, and dining also applies to Dallas.
Tech firms underperform massively on this metric compared to other local industries (law, accounting, general Fortune 500s like Home Depot/Delta/UPS).
That said, tech firms in Atlanta in general have more African Americans than do similar firms in e.g. Austin or SV.
If I'm African American, Atlanta is a better place for me to get hired and promoted in tech than other tech hubs. My suspicion is that the fact that managers live in Atlanta normalizes for them the notion that African Americans can excel at white-collar work, so biases that exist everywhere are somewhat reduced here.
"$150k in Austin equates to $236k in Seattle (knock off 35%) $150k in Austin equates to $296k in SF Bay (knock off 50%)"
That literally only makes sense if you're using 100% of your salary for cost of living. This is what you're responding to.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2021/01/26/forget-abo...
[2] https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/tech-flight-w...
[3] https://news.crunchbase.com/news/why-miami-is-the-next-hot-t...
[4] https://www.wired.com/story/miami-mayor-woos-techies-what-do...
[5] https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/miami-mayor-pushes-si...
Further, look at real estate prices for the area. The markers are there, just need to look for it.
The links you provided are 5 opinion pieces that don't even try to quantify anything (seriously, I don't see any actual data points in any of them), with a few of them seeming to just be blatant PR placements by Suarez. That's not a bad move, to be clear, it's really savvy! Just objectively not proof of anything except exactly what you were replying to: hype and anecdotes.
Again, the Miami migration could totally happen and/or be happening! But I haven't seen any data that currently supports that, and until I do I remain skeptical that it's much more than loud Twitter voices and a shrewd Mayor.