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Poll: Would you even consider moving to the south for a job?

4 points by ghotli ↗ HN
Finding experienced engineers that have dealt with harder problems like scaling or distributed systems has been a challenge in this part of the country. That's probably no surprise because a lot of internet companies are clustered around larger cities with more robust economies.

Other engineers I've spoken to in smaller, less economically robust cities have expressed the same concern. I'm curious as to whether or not a more general cultural barrier exists. So, given an opportunity would you even consider moving to somewhere like the south that is not particularly well known for having a strong tech culture?

32 comments

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mindcrime
moving to somewhere like the south that is not particularly well known for having a strong tech culture

That depends on what part of the south you're talking about. North Carolina, in particular, has a very strong tech culture, especially around the Research Triangle Park[1] area. There are other pockets of activity in the south as well... there's a lot of smart, well-educated engineering types (if not software specifically) around Huntsville, Alabama[2], for example. These areas are reasonably well known.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_Triangle_Park

[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huntsville,_Alabama

Of course it's all a moot point to me, since I already live here (NC).

kls
Orlando as well, we constants make the top 10 list. While our big web shops are limited we own online travel as well as simulation. We have a few big game dev sweat shops and plenty to do for the hardware hacker with NASA (may be drying up) and the simulation and flight companies. While we have stagnated in recent years we still seem to hold from 4-6 place in the top 10 slots of tech cities. We are pretty wired with 50mbps connections to even the remote outskirts of Central Florida, as well Tampa has it's own tech sector and is 1hr away. Senior dev jobs here are a dime a dozen and you can command 100-130k if you are a good developer. We are similar in pay scale to the valley but cost of living is marginally cheaper as well we are one of the few states that does not have a state income tax. We affectionately call ourselves the Silicon Swamp. The VC scene here is a lot more reserved than in the valley and you really do have to know people well before they take you serious, but there is venture capital here, it is just not as high profile as the valley.
mindcrime
For the people who vote "no" how about a comment explaining why? I'm guessing that at least some people are walking around with a lot of mistaken assumptions about what things are like here in "the south." It's not all rednecks in 4x4 pickups, driving around yelling "yeee-haaw y'all" and going to mud-bogs and shooting guns, <insert stupid stereotype about the south here>, etc., etc.
sosuke
Moving to any small town puts experienced engineers at a disadvantage. There isn't any competition and moving positions often means moving cities again, you really have to find the right kind of person for that.
mindcrime
The south isn't all small towns though. The "Research Triangle" area alone has a total population of around 1.7 million[1] people, which would rank it the 5th largest city in the US if it were one city[2], instead of several loosely connected independent cities and towns. Charlotte, NC, is the 17th largest city in the US with a population of just over 731,000 [3].

Really, there's a lot more to the southern states than people realize. Andy Griffith was NOT an accurate depiction of what the modern south is like. :-)

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_Triangle

[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by...

[3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte,_North_Carolina

sosuke
NC is North to me (Central Texas) and many of the guy's I've worked with in Georgia. So when he was saying southern town without just naming the darn city I'm expecting something without a greater metropolitan area.

The last guy that I worked with from Charlotte was an awesome developer so "howdy" from Austin.

mindcrime
NC is North to me

Hey, hey... careful, them's fightin' words! Oh, wait, there I go fulfilling a stereotype about people from here... dangit. :-)

Seriously though, when people talk about "The South" I assume they mean something roughly like "South of the Mason/Dixon line" or "State that fought as part of the Confederacy during the Civil War." When people say "Deep South" I take that to mean something a little more restrictive.. Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, etc.

The last guy that I worked with from Charlotte was an awesome developer so "howdy" from Austin.

Gnarly! "Howdy" back, from RTP!

kls
When people say "Deep South" I take that to mean something a little more restrictive.. Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, etc.

Why do we Floridians get forgotten every time someone mentions the deep south culturally we are (where) similar to South Georgia and have a lot of Spanish and Southern history. We are like the Rodney Dangerfield of the south.

mindcrime
Heh, sorry, bro. I almost put FL, but in my mind, Florida has a distinctive culture that separates it a bit from Georgia, Mississippi, etc. Maybe that's just because I tend to think "South Florida" when I think of Florida... since I'm a Miami Dolphins die-hard. :-)
kls
Yeah most people do think of South Florida when they think of FL. It funny how similar we are to CA with south and north FL being so totally different like it is in CA. Up until the 50's all of Florida was culturally similar to a mix of Georgia and Louisiana. After the 50's it all changed, I grew up in a town called Vero and it was on the dividing line between south and north. It was a cool place to be, like living on the border of two totally different cultures. That being said the gulf coast is still rich in old Florida culture. The coolest part about Florida is we have a deep pirate history, being a pirate buff as a child it was an awesome place to grow up.
earl
The original poster specifically said, "not particularly well known for having a strong tech culture". I read that to exclude at least the research triangle and Austin.
mindcrime
Ah, I read that as him saying that "the south" as a whole, was "not particularly well known for having a strong tech culture."
ghotli
I pretty much meant the areas where it is not well known, which is most of it. I went back and forth about whether or not to generalize it to smaller, less robust economies or not. The comments thus far in this thread seem to support the thought that I should have constrained the question more.
earl
I don't like driving and I prefer to live in a city with good public transport.

I want to have lots of employment alternatives.

I'm an atheist and quite happy with it.

I'm allergic to anyone who says, "The war of northern aggression." The civil war was fought over slavery. And yes, I heard that phrase from the owner of the bed and breakfast we stayed at within the last three years.

I like good, well supported education institutions.

I like snowboarding.

Thus I am poorly suited for the south.

mindcrime
Well, let's see: If you lived in, say, Chapel Hill, NC, you'd find:

1. There are free citywide buses

2. There are lots of engineering related jobs in the RTP area, and a growing startup scene.

3. Nobody would give a shit that you're an atheist. In fact, there's a rather large and active atheist meetup here, if you're interested specifically in hanging out with other atheists.

4. You would hear that phrase once every 2-3 years, unless you intentionally go around provoking people over the issue. And even then you'd have to look to find somebody who's A. a native Southerner, AND, B. gives a shit about that topic. People like that are actually pretty rare here in my experience. I, for example, fit criteria (A) but not (B).

5. The public schools in Orange and Wake counties in particular are pretty good. And the colleges & universities here are excellent. UNC-CH, Duke, and NCSU are all pretty highly regarded.

6. Ok, you got me... to snowboard from here you'd have to drive a few hours, most likely to the NC mountains, or to West Virginia. But it's not so far that you can't make a weekend snowboarding trip from here with ease. A day trip might be stretching it though.

pavel_lishin
Regarding #1: I lived in Dallas for six years, and while it does have a "public transportation system", if you spend a week in New York you realize that it's basically useless unless you have hours a day that you'd like to waste - per trip - simply waiting.

Will those citywide buses get you out to the suburbs, where you might live? How often do they run? What are the odds of sitting in a bag of someone's excrement?

mindcrime
Will those citywide buses get you out to the suburbs, where you might live? How often do they run? What are the odds of sitting in a bag of someone's excrement?

Honestly, I don't know. I live in town, not in the suburbs, so I don't know the routes all that well. And I like driving, so I rarely take a bus... but from what I've seen, the answer to that last question is "pretty low."

Still, point taken that there is a large variation in terms of the quality of service in public transport...

kls
I'm allergic to anyone who says, "The war of northern aggression." The civil war was fought over slavery. And yes, I heard that phrase from the owner of the bed and breakfast we stayed at within the last three years.

Almost every time I have heard that term used it was used in half hearted jest. Not saying that it is the case in your experience but more than once I have seen a southerner use it to, as we say down here "get your goat". I have meet few who seriously use that term and I own a 68 bronco, a gun, go hunting and fishing and generally associate with the stereotype that would use such a term. If someone used that sentence seriously they would most assuredly be laughed out of the camp. Contrary to popular belief most guys like that are libertarians and pretty well informed about how they are getting screwed by both sides (Contrary to popular belief the religious right down here are not the "rednecks"), they like to joke and are the type of people who would say "war of Norther Aggression" to a northerner just to get a rise out of them. They joke with each other in the same manner about other subjects.

earl
This wasn't used in jest -- the owner of the bed and breakfast in Vicksburg, MS was giving us a tour of her house the next morning and casually mentioned the war of northern aggression in the context of the civil war era siege of the city.
j79
I voted no. I lived in the South for over 15 years and still have family down there. I'd visit, but wouldn't live there.

What I remember:

- Hot. And not just any hot, but sticky humid hot.

- It's a very small part for me, but racism. I'm mixed (Asian/Caucasian). I've seen and experienced racism first hand (as recently as a couple years ago.) When I was younger, I remember being asked "why you watching that nigger show?" while Family Matters played. That deeply disturbed me. I mean, who doesn't love Steve Urkel!?

- "Red state." My friend, a dear childhood friend of mine, went on a rant about "Barack HUSSEIN Obama" and how he was a Kenyan who wasn't born in this country, so "how could he be fit to be president?" I've heard similar things from other friends and family members who live down south. I'm definitely not saying all southerners think this way, but I believe there are higher concentrations of them down south...

On that note, I've lived 13 years in the "north" and what I miss about the South are the people. They're some of the kindest, friendliest people I've ever met. That, and the cooking. My god, southern cooking is amazing. Most northern people don't like them, but boiled peanuts are amazing.

BUT, to answer your question: I wouldn't move down south; It's just way too damn hot!

mindcrime
I hear ya on the heat thing. It does get hot... and I don't even live in the hottest part of the south. For me, though, it's worth it... I despise being cold, so I'll take being a little hot & humid in the summers, over freezing my balls off in the winter. But I can understand why some people wouldn't want to deal with the hot/humid summers here.
j79
Hah! I loved the cold (and snow) when I was younger. As I got older (and commuting became a larger part of my daily life), I too grew to despise the cold/winters in the north.

I actually understand why you'd prefer to deal with the hot/humid summers rather than freezing your balls off in the winter. For me, it's not only freezing my balls, but dealing with the driest/itchiest skin imaginable...

Last year, I made the move from Massachusetts to California. The weather has been amazing. But with all the news about earthquakes, it's making me question whether I made the move at the right time......

rick888
I was with you until this:

"My friend, a dear childhood friend of mine, went on a rant about "Barack HUSSEIN Obama" and how he was a Kenyan who wasn't born in this country, so "how could he be fit to be president?"

Not to take this discussion somewhere else, but: what's so wrong with Obama's middle name? How is referencing his middle name even remotely racist? I feel like when people get angry about this, it's because there is something to hide.

sosuke
If you can't find the engineer you need in your area you have a few options. Let the engineer work remotely, make the bounty high enough to attract talent that wouldn't have considered it at market rates or train one of your own engineers to be able to handle the problems you're looking to solve.
pavel_lishin
"The South" is a big fucking place. Atlanta? I'd consider it. Dallas, Texas? It's not bad, I'd live there again. Orange, Louisiana? Absolutely not.
HeyLaughingBoy
Sure. "The South" covers an awfully huge amount of land. Gotta be something in there I'd like :-)

Seriously, tho, as a dev. in (rural) MN, we have a similar problem. Minnesota has an honestly earned reputation for having brutal winters: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota#Climate and it scares a lot of people away. OTOH, the Minneapolis/St Paul is a culturally diverse, politically progressive region and most people not from around here have no idea what it's really like and what a fantastic place it is to live.

gojomo
You need to be more specific. There's a big difference between Austin, TX and Mobile, AL.

If you want to isolate 'southerness' as a variable, pick a series of pairs of otherwise comparable (size/economy) cities, and see if there's still a bias from people who are otherwise near neither. For example, roughly by population of metro area:

• Dallas vs. Philadelphia

• Charlotte vs. Indianapolis

• San Antonia vs. Cleveland

• Atlanta vs. Detroit

• Memphis vs. Milwaukee

[dead] martianpenguin
I currently live in Atlanta, GA. I enjoy it here, but I live in the city. I wouldn't even consider moving outside the perimeter. So, you need a better qualification. Personally, I'd be fine living in any large city regardless of location and I wouldn't consider a small city/town regardless of location. I also went to Georgia Tech and find that there is a strong tech culture in the area if you know where to go. (I assume the research triangle in NC and other cities in the south with universities or large tech companies like Huntsville would be similar)

I grew up in the north east, so I'm not a native southerner.

EDIT: apparently he's from Memphis, TN... I don't know much about that area.

http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=2398318

gaoshan
I used to work in Brunswick, Georgia and then, for a longer period, Jacksonville, FL, and moved away at the first opportunity (wife got her PhD and we decided to go job hunting so we drew a line roughly following the Mason-Dixon line and then down east of Texas and said anything outside this area). I turned down an out-of-the-blue job offer in Columbia, South Carolina, because of this and we ended up moving to Ohio (near Cleveland). Now, 8 years later, I'm still glad we did it (though I'd rather live on one of the coasts... where I am in Ohio, a fairly prosperous, educated and liberal portion of the state, is much better than people outside the state might imagine).
roboneal
I moved to Houston from Milwaukee last year.

Primary reason was economic (more robust job market and the nearly 6% savings on state income taxes).

Secondarily, I was tired of shoveling my weather. Never underestimate the hidden costs of snow...from the countless hours lost removing snow, wear & tear on your vehicles, and random catastrophic "drive times".

Don't get me wrong...for 3 months a year it's "jungle hot". But in trade, I have 9 months of awesome weather. That ratio was basically reversed "up north".

neworbit
It would have to be a significant step up from what I'm doing/making in the Bay Area (which is unlikely) to compensate for the opportunity cost (networking, chance at better jobs, etc). Can't categorically rule it out, but it doesn't seem likely.

Same's true for moving overseas, to the Midwest, etc.

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