Leaving high-paying tech job in Seattle to move to ATL with no job lined up - stupid idea?? (Atlanta: 2015, townhouse)

[SeaToAtl]

Originally Posted by flamadiddle

BTW, MS has a pretty good presence in Atlanta if there's a chance you can transfer?

Thanks for the info but I think those are just sales+support jobs. No MS development jobs in ATL as far as I know (but that's ok - as I said, i wouldn't mind a change).

And btw, thanks to all who've shared their opinions and insight so far. Really appreciate it.

[fieldm]

Originally Posted by SeaToAtl

Ha! I basically agree with all of this

You definitely need to be here by March. I would say by Feb so can visit New Orleans for Mardi Gras but March will be a great way to welcome you to Atlanta. Atlantic Station Beer Festival, St. Patricks Day outdoor bash in Buckhead,Suwanee Beer Festival, Beltline Pub Crawl,etc and it will be filled with fine women beginning in March. Dont miss out bro!

[primaltech]

Originally Posted by SeaToAtl

Haha, sure! Seattle is a great city, no doubt. Especially in the summer (July-Sep). I'd say it's one of the most beautiful cities in the country. And definitely a great vacation spot. Scenery is spectacular (lakes, ocean, snow-capped mountains), great for outdoor activities (hiking, kayaking, skiing etc.). Very safe, clean, growing, extremely strong economy etc. And yes, very progressive if you like that (sounds like you do; I do, too). You can buy weed in the store, there are rainbow-colored crosswalks etc.


However, here are some downsides:
- Really bad weather (Doesn't matter if other cities get more rain technically; it is dark/wet/cold for 8-9 months (Oct-May basically). It's quite depressing and most people just stay inside all the time because of this. Sun sets around 4pm in the winter. I just can't deal with it any longer. You have to experience it yourself to really understand how bad it is.
- Horrible social scene; google "Seattle Freeze" sometime (or search for it on the Seattle forum). Extremely hard to meet people, especially women. Terrible gender ratio (opposite of ATL). This is a real problem for me.
- High cost of living (and getting worse); most middle-class folks are getting priced out of the city limits
- Absolutely insane traffic. I know ATL also has bad traffic but I can't imagine it being as bad as Seattle. Roads in Seattle are terrible and public transportation sucks, too (although it's getting better as they're building light rail). For me it's particularly bad because I like living in the city and MS is in the suburbs, so I have no choice but to drive to work.
- Also, Seattle (and the PNW in general) is kind of isolated. There are no other major cities nearby - on the east coast cities are closer together.

Thank you for that honest assessment! Good to hear the balanced truth of it. I know I would not like the weather, because I am used to our weather. But, I know I would like the temperature range, as I like cooler temps but not too cold. So I'm pretty torn about the whole weather factor.

Atlanta has all around great weather, except that I'd maybe prefer a little bit cooler summers (and winters, personally). But there are definitely plenty of unbelievably perfect days every year, especially in the spring and fall, which are definitely the best seasons. My favorite are the days where it's blue sky and sunny, but also in the 70's, especially if there's a nice breeze involved. We get some nice dreamy days.

We do indeed have very long daylight here. That's because we're near the western edge of EST- for example we are very far west of Boston, in the same time zone. Especially in the summer here (during DST), it can actually still be light out til after 9 PM. I know this because that's when I was doing tech support for years that's when I used to get out of work every day, and it was always nice to see the sun, at least for those few weeks.

Traffic is a way of life here, you just kinda have to plan your life around it best you can. A reverse commute up 400 is usually no problem in the mornings, but for some reason in the evenings it's just terrible in every direction, for hours. But at least I'm able to get to work in time, even if it's unpredictable at best in trying to get home. And at least for right now I'm only dealing with a 16.5 mile commute. If I wanted to live in the actual city it would be longer. Most of the tech industry jobs are in North Fulton, with some exceptions, Google being one. Microsoft main office here is located in Alpharetta I believe.

MARTA was actually supposed to be y'all's heavy rail system (which we got), but unfortunately we pretty much forgot to expand it for decades, so it's woefully inadequate, and almost useless save for a few key destinations like the airport, and Decatur (which BTW is a great little city in its own right- check it out). I guess the main thing that the red state of Georgia affects the blue city of Atlanta, is at the regional level. The city can try its best to try to urbanize, but the region itself is so anti-urban and anti-Atlanta (and with a tradition of suburban racism that takes generations to change), so it's been hard to realize progress in terms of infrastructure (among plenty of other ways we're slow to progress) But you can check out some of the other threads we have going for the full scope of all that. It's not too bad, I'm just a complainer.

I saw tons of attractive women, and it's definitely a very diverse city (SEA, ironically, is not diverse at all).

Both of those statements are accurate about Atlanta. Although, I guess just like most of the country, groups of people self-segregate. It's always nice when there's a mix of all kinds of people in the same neighborhood or doing the same things at the same places, but I have to say that a lot of the diversity is segregated over swaths of the city, where everyone looks the same depending on where you go.

ATL itself seems to be pretty liberal/moderate, as you mention.

We also had a big recent discussion on this, a few threads down. Atlanta is one of the most liberal places you can find, within a huge radius of the country. But this is a very conservative part of the country. So, Atlanta is not nearly as progressive as the major cities of the west coast or the northeast. But yes, the general consensus is that it is a relatively liberal city.

Oh, and on your point about isolation- Seattle seems less isolated than Atlanta. Atlanta is very isolated. With Seattle you can get to Portland, Vancouver, Canada, California... within a day's drive at least. Here in Atlanta it's like a full day's drive to get to anything interesting or another major class city. There are some cool little cities in the region I like to visit, like Asheville NC and Athens GA. And Nashville and Charlotte are pretty near, and Florida beaches are just a few hours drive. But there's a whole lot of nothing much surrounding Atlanta for a long way for a bunch of states, until you get up to DC, which is a really long trip.

[Newsboy]

I can't offer any advice on tech jobs or Seattle VS Atlanta. But as someone who's about to turn 50, I can say that I wish I had the courage to make a potentially life-changing move like this in my 30s. So in other words: GO FOR IT!! You've got far too many years left to sit around pondering the "what ifs?"

[atltechdude]

Originally Posted by Newsboy

I can't offer any advice on tech jobs or Seattle VS Atlanta. But as someone who's about to turn 50, I can say that I wish I had the courage to make a potentially life-changing move like this in my 30s. So in other words: GO FOR IT!! You've got far too many years left to sit around pondering the "what ifs?"

Agreed, far too many people take the easy way out and get too complacent and are afraid to make the big changes that they know can make their life better.

[SeaToAtl]

Originally Posted by Newsboy

I can't offer any advice on tech jobs or Seattle VS Atlanta. But as someone who's about to turn 50, I can say that I wish I had the courage to make a potentially life-changing move like this in my 30s. So in other words: GO FOR IT!! You've got far too many years left to sit around pondering the "what ifs?"

That's it, i'm doing it

[jghorton]

Is there some reason you would not 'shop' yourself in the Atlanta market (perhaps headhunter) - before simply quitting a high-paying Seattle job and moving? My son works in the IT market in Atlanta and makes a pretty good buck, but, the traffic is horrific.

Nothing wrong with 'going for it' at your age and circumstance (I did the same with Florida years ago), but, a little career planning goes a long way. Why leave yourself 'exposed' if you can avoid it?

[sedimenjerry]

Originally Posted by SeaToAtl

That's it, i'm doing it

[Atlguy39]

Originally Posted by jghorton

Is there some reason you would not 'shop' yourself in the Atlanta market (perhaps headhunter) - before simply quitting a high-paying Seattle job and moving? My son works in the IT market in Atlanta and makes a pretty good buck, but, the traffic is horrific.

Nothing wrong with 'going for it' at your age and circumstance (I did the same with Florida years ago), but, a little career planning goes a long way. Why leave yourself 'exposed' if you can avoid it?

^THIS. You could regret this decision without planning. I did the same thing in my late 20's from South Florida, which I couldn't stand anymore. But the economy was different then, meaning better. I found a job in less than 3 months. I got lucky. Its not as easy as you think it is!

[SeaToAtl]

Originally Posted by Atlguy39

^THIS. You could regret this decision without planning. I did the same thing in my late 20's from South Florida, which I couldn't stand anymore. But the economy was different then, meaning better. I found a job in less than 3 months. I got lucky. Its not as easy as you think it is!

Thanks to both of you for your replies, definitely good advice...
Listed a couple of reasons in my first post for why I don't want to interview while still in Seattle. Just find it difficult to look for Atlanta jobs from Seattle, and would much rather talk to a couple of companies in person when I'm there (rather than try to find something over e-mail or phone). It'd be different if I was already on the east coast somewhere and I could fly to Atlanta for a day any time.
I also need a few months to sell my house etc. Plus my current job is pretty high-stress; I doubt I'd find the time to interview (much less prepare for interviews), and I would have to as I haven't done coding interviews in years. I'd much rather take some time off, sell my house, move and then be 100% prepared for interviews. Or do you really think having a 3-4 months gap on my resume would make it much more difficult to find a job? If that's an issue I could always tell potential employers to call my previous manager(s) - I'm sure they'd be happy to confirm it was my decision to leave...
From the other replies so far it sounds like the tech job market is strong enough right now to be able to find something pretty quickly. And as for your previous post, Atlguy39, yes you are right in that my savings and the equity in my house could be retirement money etc. but right now i'm thinking what good is all the money if I'm not happy where I am... (plus I do also have a decent - though not huge - 401k). Just like the 2 other guys above said, it's easy to get complacement if you're making good money - this can become sort of a trap, and I just really don't want that to happen. I've been thinking about leaving Seattle for a while but keep telling myself "just give it some more time", however now after visiting ATL I really just want to move I know there's some risk involved but given that I'm still (relatively) young and independent, I think i'm willing to take that risk at this point... But thanks for your input, this is exactly why I started this thread.