Calling all Geeks: Chattanooga Pays Techies to Relocate
cnbc.com
cnbc.com
$1250 won't cover much moving expenses, shipping my car across country cost my employer $3000 during my last move, the moving fees were around $15,000 and I don't have as much stuff as most people.
The forgivable second mortage is rather limited as you have to choose from certain less desirable neighborhoods that the city wants to "revitalize". Outsiders looking for property will be shafted by local real estate developers. I strongly recommend anyone considering buying a property in Chattanooga review the property sales record history for the houses they look at. They are available on line and at the courthouse. You may be very surprised to find that the house the bible quoting agent says is a steal at $400,000 sold for $50,000 only two years ago. Renting is not an unreasonable choice instead, and at least you have your choice of neighborhoods rather than being corralled into certain ones with a surplus of properties owned by local insiders trying to get rid of them.
The city should not be paying for relocation and mortgages anyway. If companies want people to relocate it is a matter of course that they must pay full relocation, with no excuses. Expecting local government to subsidize necessary business expenses is not a reasonable expectation. Companies that can not afford normal business expenses like paying relocation costs of specialized and critical talent should stop complaining that they can not find the right people. Most likely they should not be in business to begin with as it is clear they are unable to generate enough revenue selling products to stay in business. Government taxing the populace to subsidize businesses that can not manage to cover normal business costs is a questionable economic strategy that likely does more harm than good in the long run.
This part of the cited article got my attention:
> The smart grid is also being used for security purposes, with police cars able to access surveillance video from public areas. If there’s suspicious activity in a park or downtown, officers across town can instantly flood the problem area with lights.
> That technology is in place in one third of the city this year and will increase over the next few years, Marston said.
The city is obviously bragging about this because they think it makes their newly created surveillance state seem like the latest in high tech wizardry and a signal that they are technologically advanced. It actually highlights something of the opposite. An announcement that the city had set up public wifi, set aside parkland that wasn't football related, established bike lanes, or had implemented a gifted program for students in the schools would be more indicative of a good place to live for adult engineers and other creative and knowledge workers.
Finally, a Geek is a Circus worker who bites the heads off of live chickens. For decades it was used as a severe insult, often preceding a beatdown by jocks. The term has been reclaimed by creative intellectuals among themselves, but is always a term of derision on some level when used by those outside this group, comparable to the n word with african americans and the d and f words in the gay and lesbian communities. Programs such as "Hunt the Geek" I find to be intrinsically insulting and disrespectful.
All this said and in closing, Chattanooga is not a bad city all told, and there are plenty worse places. Chattanooga has one of the nicest aquariums in the region, and has great rock climbing and hiking trails in the area. It's also within weekend trip distance of Atlanta, which can be a really fun city to visit with excellent restaurants and events. If considering this offer, go because you get a good employment offer and like the area and not because of the $1250 moving subsidy with a number of conditions. Also go with your eyes open and do not purchase any property until you understand how the local real estate market works, and realizing there is a substantial chance you will end up underwater and unable to sell and leave if you choose poorly.
While I find the use of the term "geek" in this sense to annoying and dismissive, I'd rather the geek community not adopt yet another victim culture looking for insults where they aren't. Especially given that on average we are actually better off financially than the typical American.
Anyone relocating to the south should realize that you are moving into the bible belt. This is not California, and this is not New York. Please don't make the mistake that just because people think that behavior that is socially accepted in other parts of the US/World is reprehensible that they are automatically stupid. Stupid knows no boundaries, it's all over the place.
As for being shafted, in my experience, many real estate agents are generally trying to make as quick a buck as they can and will, given half a chance, shaft everyone involved in the transaction.
Otherwise, I generally agree with you.
I have worked in many places, including quite a few other countries. If a discussion came up advising people to consider tech jobs in Saudi Arabia, I would have much similar advice and cautions as it is not a place that is advisable to walk to blindly. In many ways parts of Saudi Arabia and cities like Chattanooga are quite similar, if you can handle one comfortably as an outsider you can probably handle the other, but both are considerably different and alien to the various well known US tech friendly areas. Whereas someone thinking of going to Germany or Sweden I'd say go for it and feel there is no need to give complex explanations about possible cultural mismatch issues.
However, I do agree that working in Chattanooga (and the south in general) will be a bit of culture shock for those used to other, more cosmopolitan, areas of the country. I try not to fall into the trap of conflating different with wrong.
And having worked in Germany for several years (many years ago) I have warned people of possible cultural mismatch issues.
Having said that, Chattanooga isn't a bad town. It's got a decent arts community for a small city, for example. And it's very obviously trying to improve its standing in the world, which presents some opportunities all on its own.
It would be right for some people, not right for others. Getting along with people who aren't like you would probably be a useful skill, for example.
This by itself is a no-go for most hackers, who are disproportionately atheist (at least IME). You might think it's possible to ignore this sort of environment for material benefits, but as someone who had to grow up surrounded by religious numbskulls, it takes a considerable amount of patience that I don't think most hackers have.
Sure, there are a few exceptions that would thrive in a religious environment - patio11 comes to mind (but then again, he lives in Japan, so he could probably do fine in any environment).
For reference, here is a Zillow link that shows all the 3 bed/2 bath houses built since 1900 in the area shown on their map - I'm not sure that all of these are in the neighborhoods to be revitalized. The prices seem pretty reasonable to me (I live in Austin, TX which also has no state income tax) - homes in the $50,000 to $250,000 range.
The way the payout is structured, it's effectively $3,333/year for three years plus a one-time $1,250 payment. That's not enough for any developers I know to uproot and effectively move out of their professional/personal networks.
Anyone here live in Chattanooga?
EDIT: Also the crime rates are pretty high, and traffic is terrible. But downtown is really quaint. Lots of homeless roaming around downtown though. I probably wouldn't suggest the move, you give up a lot in the community and professional development space for a few bucks.
If I was planning to move to Chattanooga, the payout would nice small bonus, but that's about it.
I found that to be the case throughout a lot of the Blue Ridge area, when I lived there. To a greater extent, unless you're heading to larger metropolis areas like Atlanta, Charlotte, Raleigh, Columbia or Charleston, what you've said is 100% true throughout much of the Southeast. Outside of larger cities, firms don't like to pay much.
It's why I hightailed it to Austin two years ago and haven't looked back except holiday visits to family.
Decent pay here in Knoxville isn't all that difficult, but you do have to hustle and build up a bit of a name for yourself before you can reasonably expect to pull in anything, and it won't approach SV rates. Oh, and you pretty much have to be a .NET developer, although there is some demand for Java and a tiny bit of demand building for Ruby and Python.
Feel free to drop me a line (email is in my profile) and maybe we can help each other out.
I'd kind of like to stay here and find a good engineering position, but I'm concerned that since the COL is so low (=> low starting salary when I graduate) that it may be better to get a job in a big city first and then move back here later.
Unfortunately, half the jobs are at companies you will not want to work at for more than a year (ignore what anyone says about turn over rates, peoples expectations are too low).
My advice for anyone starting out would be to start attending the local user groups (http://www.etnug.org , http://knoxvillesc.org , http://www.agileknoxville.com ) and start working on public stuff that you can point to (put some stuff on git, answer some SO questions).
I have no clue what starting salary around here is currently though, but it should be easy to find out by asking one of the local recruiters. Shoot me an email if you need the names of some of the more trustworthy headhunters in the area.
Plus it's technology agnostic (although samples tend to be in .NET because Knoxville), it focuses less on technologies and more on technique.
This plan will get them two kinds of people, people already thinking of moving to Cahttanooga, and people who need the money.
It's aimed at people who are already headed towards that goal, for whatever personal reason they may have, and it's saying "Pick our small town out of the hundreds you might otherwise pick".
From that viewpoint, it's not a bad deal.
I'd be curious just how much these neighborhoods need to be revitalized. On the plus side, real estate in a "revitalizing" part of Chattanooga should be very cheap, so $10k might be a substantial percentage of the home price.
Chattanooga is a decent little town. Living overlooking the river or on the mountainsides would be nice. Or maybe in the smallish downtown area. Other parts of town would be a lot less appealing to me personally.
I note you have to be more than 50 miles away, which makes it perfect for siphoning off talent from Atlanta and its suburbs.