6 ms·
comparable quality of life at 110 in chicago is ~180 in sv and probably much higher elsewhere. also, traffic in a place like chicago is an experience very few p
by dennyabraham 10y ago
comparable quality of life at 110 in chicago is ~180 in sv and probably much higher elsewhere. also, traffic in a place like chicago is an experience very few people in tech ever deal with, given the mass transport.
- sb8244 10y agoCan confirm. I work in Atlanta and most people I know don't deal with traffic. Maybe a little but not crazy. There are lots of places to live on public transit and lots of companies hiring on those lines.
- zellyn 10y agoReally? When we returned to Atlanta, we bought a pretty expensive house in Morningside, so that we can be close in and not deal with traffic. Most people I know in Atlanta have to deal with terrible amounts of traffic.
- lostcolony 10y agoI think it depends on where you're working, and what age your coworkers are. If you're working in the city with a wide range of ages, you have people who are more 'settled' living out in the suburbs and commuting in. But if you're working in, say, Alpharetta, with mostly young people, a lot may have moved to be close to work (or if they're fresh out of college, taken an apartment near by anyway). Because, yeah, everywhere I've worked in Atlanta, a majority of people have had some pretty lousy commutes.
- frankydp 10y agoSecond this. The sheer volume of employers means that finding something that meets your salary, interest, and commute is almost always possible. Not to mention the 60% savings in cost of living over SV. http://www.bestplaces.net/cost-of-living/san-francisco-ca/atlanta-ga/110000 http://www.bestplaces.net/cost-of-living/san-francisco-ca/at... And, at the end of the day housing is so cost effective it is almost not crazy to move for a job, even within the metro.
- devonkim 10y agoThe distribution of jobs around there seems to be non-obvious and may require a lot more effort to find certain market sector jobs. For example, I literally just looked 30 min ago in Atlanta for jobs at Google and there's not a single software engineer / operations engineer job listed. Meanwhile, there's a hundreds, maybe thousands in jobs for well-known software companies in SV while in Atlanta I can see pretty generic jobs at Coca Cola, GE, or a smattering of entertainment. Otherwise, I've only seen cost-cutting outsourcing jobs (typical for technology dinosaurs) that are likely for customers that are terrible at software by executive decision. Despite the dollar utility value difference I'll still assert that the most optimal career path for ambitious, diligent tech workers regardless of whether you're looking for money or for long term life balance is to go for as high as you can comfortably go in the Bay Area or maybe NY when young and with few expenses and go somewhere lower cost of living to settle down. Finance people aren't being stupid by going to NYC early in their career I'd imagine. This career pattern is supported by a study linked on HN a while ago (sorry, can't find link at the moment) with a report on expected earnings when going from the Bay Area elsewhere - starting with as high of salary as possible helps negotiate your pay when going to a lower cost of living area. Your marketable skills should have grown better working at a tech company doing cutting edge projects than for the usual enterprise shovelware projects that are the bread and butter of tech companies outside tech hubs as well.
- borkborkbork 10y agoThe Chicago devs that work downtown ride public transit or commuter rail. The ones that don't work downtown don't have much traffic to deal with.