Cost of Living Calculator
The buying power of a dollar in Atlanta is stronger than pretty much any other large city with a top 10 engineering school in the US. That is something that we like to share with prospective employees.
CNN has a great cost of living calculator online here:
http://money.cnn.com/calculator/pf/cost-of-living/
In our technical computing market, firms in San Francisco/San Jose and other expensive areas lure technical talent. But I believe that our offers are typically a better deal given how great a life you can live here in Atlanta. I’ve written about reasons I’m grateful for Atlanta before.
Of course, there is nothing like the vision, culture, and team of our company as persuasive elements in the hiring process. Those factors are much more important than community factors. Combined, a great salary with an awesome cost of living can really tip the scales for potential teams members when they are also attracted to your startup and what it stands for!
When you are competing with San Francisco / San Jose for technical talent, what is persuasive to your new hires?
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From the conversation
Comments preserved from the original post.
Peter Hamilton
As someone in the bay area, here’s what I need to be convinced about in order to leave for some other part of the country. I need:
1. Opportunity to learn from seasoned veterans. At my current company, we have alumni from Netflix, Zynga, Twitter, Google, etc. When I have a question about memcached, for example, I go ask my coworker who helped write the dang thing years ago.
2. Flexibility to decide it’s not working out. In the bay area, I could change jobs within the next 2 weeks if I wanted to. I don’t settle. There’s too much opportunity right now to waste time on something boring.
I’m not convinced that can be found anywhere else.
melonakos
In reply to an earlier comment
I’m guessing there are pockets of incredibly talented people and great places to work in all of teh top 10 engineering cities of the US. Sure there are more pockets of them in the bay area. Doesn’t really affect an individual much though since you’re not going to benefit from all the pockets, other than seeing their logos on buildings as you drive around. As long as there are sufficient pockets and as long as you can get into them, you’re good to go is my bet. Said another way, I don’t feel that anyone can exhaust the opportunity of Atlanta or feel bottlenecked here.
Everyone is different though and different considerations are weighed differently for everyone, so I really appreciate your perspective. I’ve never lived there so wouldn’t know what I’m missing 🙂