Airbnb will build a new tech hub in Atlanta

I grew up in metro Atlanta and studied at Georgia Tech. The state government subsidizes college education for grads with a certain GPA (HOPE Scholarship). However, I (and most CS grads I knew) left Atlanta for better paying jobs in NYC/Bay Area/Seattle/Austin. I always wondered why the ATL tech scene was 'underdeveloped' compared to comparable sized cities like Seattle and Austin, despite having major research institutions (Georgia Tech and Emory) to anchor it.

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

Just out of curiosity, as an Atlanta based dev, what kinds of salaries are common in Austin at various levels?

You could say this of most metros. The most glaring is Boston, which is an international hub for tech education but isn't really competitive with the cities you list, at least relative to its educational reputation.

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.

I hope I don't open a major can of worms by my parent comment. This is based on a sample of my own personal experience of 1 Austin interview and LOTs of Atlanta interviews. As a SDE with 4 YOE, I was offered $110k ish in Austin vs barely scraping 90-100k in Atlanta. I ended up taking an offer in NYC (which was my top choice to begin with).

levels.fyi is a good resource. Those are typically Bay Area salaries so a good rule of thumb is to take the numbers reported there and knock off 10-20% for Austin.

Thats a really good point. Boston, Chicago, and Pittsburg meet the research university criteria. Perhaps a tech center needs temperate weather (hard to convince a new grad to move to Pittsburg vs moving to Austin of Bay Area)? In that case, Atlanta has the weather going for it.

I also grew up in metro Atlanta and studied at Georgia Tech and was about to post essentially the same comment. All of my friends interested in tech at GT went to the Bay Area as soon as they could once they graduated. The school itself attracts a lot of talent from all around the world, but very few people seem to stay in Atlanta once they graduate.

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.

The humidity knocks it down a few notches though, in my opinion.

Austin doesn’t fill a single one of those criteria for what it’s worth.

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!

I recently got a new job in a Midwestern city and made extensive use of levels.fyi (and Blind) during the process. It helps a ton with setting expectations and understanding what wages and equity to aim for (or a bit above even).

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.

Boston is a major tech hub.

As a developer in Chicago, I think it's because the finance sector sucks up a lot of the talent, and it's less known for marquee non-finance companies. The city has struggled to promote our tech scene.

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.

0: https://cityscholars.engineering.illinois.edu/

Austin and Seattle are not NYC or SF, and I'm having a hard time seeing how either of them would beat Atlanta for any of those things you mention (I guess they ALL suck at public transit, but I don't see how Seattle sucks less... Austin sucks more!), except they have more first-class tech companies as an accident of history.

Bostons a life sciences hub and basically the only game in town for serious bioengineering. Different ballgame compared to the kind of tech that gets talked about on HN usually which is basically B2B or B2C SaaS.

I mentioned this in a different comment. Its a major tech hub, but not in a way that would be apparent to your average HN software dev. Boston/Cambridge is THE bioengineering hub of the US.

California has a huge advantage in the form of no non-competes: https://www.vox.com/new-money/2017/2/13/14580874/google-self..., NYC has a huge advantage in the form of the subway and sheer size, and so on. It's surprising to me that more states don't outright ban noncompetes and build out subway networks, but they don't.

> art & culture, dining, and entertainment options than Austin, Texas.

Buh? I was there less than 2 years but this is a baffling statement to me.

edit: except public transportation point.

I think we're seeing a trickle down from SF -> NYC -> Seattle and now Austin.

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.

I live in Atlanta. I get a lot of recruiters pitching me senior SWE jobs from mediocre companies with salary ranges between 115k-130k. I think 130-150 is average for senior roles.

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.

I get that Atlanta does not have the tech pull of Bay Area/Seattle/Austin, but it feels like a very well-rounded city overall, without being too expensive. Midtown is already saturated with tech companies and startups because of Georgia Tech but there's a lot of stuff happening in other parts of the city which give it a very unique character.

Between this and Microsoft's recent announcement of opening an Atlanta office, I think tech is the next sector the city wants to attract.

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 hate weather in the southeast generally. I'll take a northern city hands down.

Yeah. SV gets defined mostly as the hub for the sort of tech that it's the hub for. Which is more than a bit self-referential.

> I always wondered why the ATL tech scene was 'underdeveloped'

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.

It’s always surprising to folks, but true, that Houston has a wealth of arts/culture/dining, and even a modicum of public transit (the metro rail, heh). Entertainment could be better, but the rest blow Austin out of the water!

From and still live in Atlanta. There's a good music scene if you like electronic actually. Everything else p much true.

To add to your point, I was made aware of a tech role at a financial firm in downtown Chicago (dev, infra, and infosec experience required); $300k-$400k total comp. Can't compete against that if you're in Chicago and only sourcing Chicago talent.

To be fair, SV is also a biotech hub.

> Music scene is not good. I don't like to listen to country , rock ect.

Clearly you don't listen to rap and hip hop either

Agree with everything except for the music scene. If you are into hip hop and rap, its arguably one of the best music scenes in the country.

I grew up in the very outer burbs of the Atlanta metro and have kinda been stuck bouncing around the south ever since.

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.

Right? That is such a weird point. Atlanta has a lot of young people, it's affordable, it's next door to Athens GA which punches way above it's weight for music output and culture... It's very respectable city from a music standpoint. Especially for rap and hip-hop artists, as you mentioned.

This seems to be a post about how Atlanta isn't right for you. The city has plenty to do...multiple sports teams, the beltline is ever expanding, lots of parks, an active population, the weather is proper for at least 80% of the year, the music scene is diverse...the city itself is diverse.

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.

DC's non-compete ban should go into effect later this year https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/d-c-mayor-signs-bill-to-ba... and they have a subway network. Will be really interesting to see what affect this has (though of course it'll be difficult to tease out).

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've sometimes wondered about why GA Tech was an early adopter of online education (at least for comp sci, I don't know if it extended/extends to other programs).

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.

Hard disagree on where tech jobs are. If you want to work in tech for a Fortune 500 company in a non-tech industry, there's plenty in Alpharetta. All of the startups and companies that would attract the HN crowd are in Midtown / Buckhead though.

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.

As a transplant to Houston, I will never understand why Austin became a tech center and Houston has not. There is a lot of raw tech talent here, incubators, etc. No matter what policies are in place or what investments are made, it never seems to take hold.

I'm leaving Austin for the West Coast.

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.

I'd say knock off more considerably than 10-20%, at least compared to this cost of living calculator:

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%)

Yea correct. I am not an american. I like to listen to electronic, classical, international 'world' music.

One problem is the dc metro tech industry is, on the balance, in Virginia, some in DC proper and a small amount of non-Federal in Maryland (less probably due to the taxation in MD).

Pittsburgh has an -h at the end.

As someone who's spent time in both Austin and Houston, I'd agree with the sentiment that Houston is pretty objectively a much better place to live. These phenomena are probably more driven by superficial appearances, though, and that's where Austin has always had an edge. It's hilly, it's perceived as a college town, and on the surface it has a lot of access to nature. It looks better on the surface than Houston to an observer who hasn't lived in both places. Really, it's just like the Bay Area -- it looks good, but it actually is a very rough and empty place to live for most folks.

Citadel is basically a vacuum cleaner for top-end talent.

I am not a lawyer but reside in Georgia.

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.

One thing to add to this list, which gets talked less about is : Work Culture and Work Diversity. I work in a major tech firm that has offices in Atlanta. To mildly put it, it isn't friendly. Bay Area, Seattle, and to a certain extent NY and Austin have a certain set of values set in the workplace that simply don't exist everywhere. Your race, gender, nationality, and plenty of other things can invite an unwelcoming vibe towards you. Work life balance are less respected. And the fact that at the end of the day we are just human beings working with other human beings seems to be lost to many.

Atlanta native & (again) resident. Spent years working in Austin in the years around the .com boom.

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.

Cost of living calculations are silly. Nobody earning 236k in seattle is spending their entire paycheck on cost of living. Tell me, does a share of Tesla cost more in Seattle than Austin?

> I always wondered why the ATL tech scene was 'underdeveloped' compared to comparable sized cities like Seattle and Austin

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

They neutered HOPE unfortunately. Used to be you needed a 3.0 high school GPA to qualify, now you need a 3.7 (not counting the GPA boosts you get from Honors and AP), and they don't cover books or fees anymore, and they upped the in college GPA requirements.

It was really unfortunate to see such a blatant money grab.

I recently moved to the bay area, and I've gotten the vibe that work life balance is less respected in the bay area compared to where I came from.

Washington has a ton of cool outdoors stuff. Just be ready to have maybe max a couple months of great weather per year to enjoy it (unless you don't mind overcast and drizzle, or forest fire smoke in summer). Also competing with the other 4+ million people in Seattle metro to get it in out there. Amazing diversity of things to do though.

GA modified their constitution in 2011 in order to make non competes broadly applicable and enforceable. Software engineers probably fall under their "company professionals" category that allows for non-competes. They also removed time limits on the non-compete; non-competes can be valid for as long as the trade secrets you were exposed to are still trade secrets (so can be forever).

The DnB scene in Atlanta is probably the best in the nation and far less gross than the UK's. There's some great Techno clubs too, but some of the better ones are illegal so you have to know someone (this was true pre-covid).

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 think we might be the same background. What notable experiences have you had working in Atlanta? I'm curious because I have never worked there professionally, but have heard some stories.

I have to agree with the other comment. I found the Bay Area to be more hostile and discriminatory than any other work environment I've been in. Specifically if you even slightly disagree with certain social viewpoints. We may have achieved better racial diversity (somewhat) in the Bay but at the expense of minimal ideological diversity.

I've even seen firsthand how racism against asians and Indians is rampant and often conducted by those that supposedly are advocates for minorities.

I flew to Austin back in 2013, spent a week looking at places and checking out hiking areas and running. I loved the food/friendly people but that was about all. For me it was a dealbreaker on lack of trails/wilderness, and also the very high humidity there. In addition housing was expensive as I looked at a few condos and they were roughly the same cost as the one I used to own in San Jose.

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)

that article is outdated. non-compete clauses are unenforceable in california now

Great point. I suppose it depends on the location-- west of the mountains, in the mountains, or east of the mountains.

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.

Altanta has issues but the reason why it hasn't become a tech-hub is external to these factors. It is basically a snowball effect - one major company settles and the rest will come. There is a bit of inertia.

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'm not trying to be that guy, but have you ever worked for an extended period of time in the American South?

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.

$236k in Columbia, South Carolina is vastly different than $236k in Seattle. Cost of living calculations are not only not silly, they're essential.

Stock market shares are the same, but things like gas prices, groceries, utilities, and rent are vastly different.

> This seems to be a post about how Atlanta isn't right for you.

Yea definetly. I have friends who love living there and are raising families there.

My experience is that the Bay Area is a big place with a variety of employers and work cultures. May I ask what kind of social viewpoints you’ve seen causing a hostile workplace for people who disagreed with them?

> now you need a 3.7 (not counting the GPA boosts you get from Honors and AP)

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?

Err, that's not what I meant. Quite the contrary tbh. I don't know about the rest of the population, but majority of employees in tech offices in Atlanta tend not to be African American, so I am not sure if you got my point at all.

I live in Atlanta and grew up in the area. This is my 2021 total comp from workday:

$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.

Yes, racism exists in Bay Area. I doubt any city in America can escape that curse, but to what degree matters.

I don;t live in Atlanta. I've just worked in two separate companies that have an office in Atlanta. I've worked with the people in those offices and my experience so far has been, well, not a fun one. Not to say that everyone is bad, just like not to say everyone in the bay area is great, but the number of difficult situations you get put into, rise dramatically when you deal with offices outside the Bay Area.

Just the fact that R.E.M came from there is enough for me.

Out of all of the new-grad GT students I know, the minimum they were offered was 83k in Atlanta.

Yeah, that's one unfortunate side effect.

> * Music scene is not good. I don't like to listen to country , rock ect.

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.

Someone from a more temperate climate asked me about sweating in the South once.

"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.

This is somewhat true, but after picking up skiing, I look forward to the winter weather in Seattle more than I ever did before.

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.

There is plenty of biotech HQ'd in the Bay Area to seriously compete with Boston as the #1 spot: 10x Genomics, Guardant Health, Twist, Natera, CareDx, Verily, Invitae, Nevro, Berkeley Lights, Genentech, PacBio, etc.

So you thought the OP asked "What software engineer salaries are common in Atlanta at various levels?" and you replied, "Here is my $540k salary. (This datapoint should be included in your perception of what is common in Atlanta.)"

> GA modified their constitution in 2011 in order to make non competes broadly applicable and enforceable

How on earth did that ever pass??

You make $540k and still want to live in Atlanta? Out of curiosity, do you really like the area more than other places? Or is it because family is nearby?

I haven't been to Austin but I've only ever heard good things about it's art & culture, dining, and entertainment.

GA in general bends over backwards for corporate rights at the expense of the commons. It's probably one of their biggest issues holding them back economically these days IMO as someone who grew up in GA.

I see. You need to also consider the pool of black college graduates with qualifications for the job and what percentage of total pool they represent.

And who spends their $236k salary entirely on gas, groceries, utilities, and rent?

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 left Atlanta in 2011 and discovered the closer I was to the West Coast, the more money I made (including adjustments for cost of living). Atlanta has a lot of things going against it, such as a mass transit system that doesn't serve the majority of the suburbs, bad traffic, poor health statistics, low education ranking, and being in the bible belt.

Miami is going to blow up soon. A lot of talent is leaving Silicon Valley for Miami. The weather is great year around, cheap taxes, less restrictive government and cheaper real estate.

I recall AP classes being weighted 1 point higher, so I often had a GPA above 4, e.g. 4.2. So wouldn't it not make a difference? Get a B in an AP class and it counts as an A anyways

My last job in Atlanta (2011) as a senior linux engineer was paying me around 80k, without equity. When I moved to Denver, my next role, doing the same thing, got me in at 110k with additional performance based bonus of 10%.

Not under HOPE calculation of GPA which is different than your school's. The point is that they don't weight AP and honors any higher like you're saying. They removed that in order to cut the HOPE budget.

Yeah.

Isn’t Miami going to be underwater in a few decades?

The simple answer is that my family is here, but it's honestly more than that.

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 was very surprised Amazon didn’t end up in Atlanta for their 2nd HQ.

Both my wife and I graduated GT ChE 35 years ago and really liked living in downtown Atlanta. Not many traffic problems downtown, midtown, out east except Ponce at 5PM. Afterwards PHX, Mountain View, Santa Clara, and a delicious stint in '90s SOMA. Now 25 years in the mountains of AZ, lots of experience with PHX traffic. I just got back from 2 days crisscrossing PHX at 80mph, 9AM-3PM.

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.

any suggestions for new grads looking to move to ATL?

job search, places to live, lowest crime areas, good food, etc

is this a ML kinda post?

What about equity though? It seems like tech companies headquartered SF/Seattle are more likely to give large equity packages. Sure, startups are risky, but equity is liquid if the company is public.

Half a mil is not common anywhere, let alone Austin or Atlanta. I get that you wanted to flex though.

You can narrow it down by city, e.g.

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.

google is the same.

we all win with the services and products these companies offer, and that's why they can do that.

This is a common meme, but "a lot of talent is leaving Silicon Valley for Miami" is anecdotal and not backed up by any data I've seen, such as USPS address changes[1]. Other places in California are getting most of the people leaving, with Austin and Portland being the only external metro areas I've seen in the top 20.

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...

Plenty of good house music coming from Atlanta.

You beat me to this comment!!

> lots of parks

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.

Yeah same here. I think their DC location was smarter lobbiest wise and just shows Amazon is digging in for the long haul and saying politics are more important than tech workers.

"And who spends their $236k salary entirely on gas, groceries, utilities, and rent?"

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.

Bless your heart. He ain't flexin.

Oh no. Only ms to live.

You’re wrong, within 15 minutes you have Grant Park, Centennial, Freedom, Candler, Chastain.

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.

I don’t understand how you think Atlanta workplaces aren’t as diverse as Bay Area or Seattle. I mean Atlanta literally has the highest percentage of middle class African Americans not to mention lots of international people.

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.

The HOPE GPA does add 0.5 for all AP/IB classes. It doesn't apply to all honors classes, which is unfortunate, but they do recognize that some classes are harder.

On the weekend when there's no traffic, it's easy enough to drive to a park, sure. During the week, when I would want to relax outdoors after work, all the parks you mention are a 30+ minute drive in stressful rush hour traffic.

(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.

It's been split up into two tiers. The HOPE scholarship has a 3.0 requirement, and pays approximately 80% for public colleges. The 3.7 requirement is for the Zell-Miller scholarship, which pays 100% for public colleges. It's obviously not as much as before, but I'd hardly call paying 80% of tuition neutering.

A lot of this stuff is just sensitive dependence on initial conditions.

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.

> majority of employees in tech offices in Atlanta tend not to be African American

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?

If you have a requirement to get to a park in rush hour then you’re hosed. Those parks are all 5-15 minutes from the midtown during regular times or on the weekend. Trying to get across the connector is particularly horrible and Atlantic Station/Home Park is bad, but there are parks and greenspace to the west. Memorial Park (3 miles) and Westside Resevoir (3 miles) are close and against traffic (sort of) during rush hour.

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.

The state politicians basically torpedoed that by making a big fuss about being anti-gay around that time. Hard to justify moving knowledge workers to Atlanta given a political climate openly hostile to X% of employees.

Houston is ~5x the size of Austin. Bigger cities have more options.

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.

> how does this compare to other industries in the city?

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.

Wouldn't surprise me, only because the Houston metro is >3x bigger than Austin

In case you missed it, we are in a comment chain where a poster is using a cost of living calculator to do exactly this

"$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.

USPS address changes are not a fool proof way of tracking migration.

[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.

Sure, USPS may not be infallible, but it's some objective measure of the reality, and arguably the best (or at least one of the better) tools we have for looking at something like this.

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.