

Move to Chattanooga, Hack & Get Paid - btrautsc
http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2012/02/move-to-chattanooga-win-big-mo.php

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droithomme
I find the particulars of this program offensive and insulting.

"Tag a geek", "geek hunt", "geek move". Geeks are circus performers that bite
the heads off chickens. Obviously it doesn't mean talented engineers.

No relocation paid is a sad joke that no one competent would accept. But $1250
relocation expenses is just plain insulting. That won't even pay for gas and a
U-Haul in most cases, never mind proper moving. Forgiving $10k of a mortgage
but only if you stay 5 years and move to a neighborhood they specify? Absurd.

I'm sure they will attract plenty of naive college graduates that weren't able
to get proper job offers in desirable locations.

I know about Chattanooga. It's very fundamentalist and people there are not
very bright. It's not a desirable place for an engineer to live.

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rdl
TN could probably be a reasonable startup hub with some work (like this). I
don't know as much about Chattanooga vs. eastern TN in general.

No state income tax is kind of a draw -- not a huge factor for the startup
employees themselves, but it would be a reasonable place for retired people
with some income who could be investors, or for consultants or other people
with high current incomes (who might work on startups on the side). I really
don't understand why people who travel 80+% of the time don't base themselves
in a low-tax state.

I happen to really like the environment, outdoor activities, gun laws, etc. in
the state. It's not going to appeal to everyone, and especially not to a lot
of startup people, but all they need to do is be really attractive to a
specific niche. If 1% of startup people love it, it might be better than
10-20% of startup people just finding it ok. (Conversely, I'd never live in
Chicago, but a lot of other people seem to like it).

FedEx having a hub in-state is great, although crime in Memphis is bad enough
that I'd caution against living there. Maybe it depends a lot on the
neighborhood. Chattanooga is pretty far away, though.

It's close enough to the East Coast to be a reasonable outsourcing/back office
location. Proximity to Huntsville, AL is a huge plus -- great educated
workforce, etc.

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easterisle
This is worse than the Austin group that thought they could hire SF devs with
taco parties.

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languagehacker
Chump change, and not nearly enough to cover moving expenses for an
established and talented developer living in a major metropolitan area.

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mrmekon
My coworker from Chattanooga assures me that nobody would want to live in
those neighborhoods, and that he is sending the list to friends and family to
laugh about.

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impendia
I got curious and looked at a Google Map of the place. It seemed that the
neighborhoods mentioned covered a majority of the older urban neighborhoods
close to downtown.

Perhaps they are indeed all hellholes. If so, I'm very glad I don't live
anywhere in Chattanooga. I have never been there, and perhaps it would be
idiotic for anyone to take them up on their offer.

But I admire them for trying. I'd like to see more American cities succeed in
reviving their urban cores. In so many places in America you have to be a
half-hour commute from downtown to live in a safe neighborhood with good
schools... and that's just sad.

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mndmatt
As a Chattanooga resident and developer (I work for Rackspace), this has
irritated me since I've heard of it.

I couldn't imagine someone doing a yuppie hunt or a gay hunt... Very
embarrassing for our beautiful city for a few unqualified companies and people
to represent us this way.

Apologies to all my fellow developers... Don't move here for a job or the
internet, neither offerings are as great as advertised.

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mtraven
Hm, if you believe Bruce Sterling the place is due to become a hotbed of
hacker and alternative culture:
[http://books.google.com/books?id=M2OpTnzs2PMC&q=chattano...](http://books.google.com/books?id=M2OpTnzs2PMC&q=chattanooga#v=onepage&q=chattanooga&f=false)

Someday.

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djbender
For 10 people? Quite a gimmick.

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hko
The last 2 sound good.

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ninjac0der
Nice effort, I guess? But really this is just seems like a bad gimmick to me.
As someone who lives nearby, Eastern TN as a whole strikes me as a horrible
place for hackers or startups. The majority of local talent seems generally
disinterested in moving to any languages or tools beyond those of the average
enterprise (java, .net), or anything built/polished in the last 5 years.
Generally your choices are making a decent salary working in healthcare with
.NET/Java, or making <30k salaries with open source, which generally doesn't
go much further than CMS modifications, or working for a CTO that thinks php
frameworks are fadish and don't really work in most situations (so he rolled
his own).

I don't think I need to add a disclaimer that this is non-objective and
entirely related to my personal experiences in Chattanooga. It's bad enough
that after job hunting in the area, I decided to go entirely freelance. And
even there, I won't even talk to local companies. I've already wasted enough
time hunting local clients only to realize nary a one of them expects to pay >
$20/hr.

"moving to where you can get faster Internet service"... "GigCity"...

This is clearly bait. Pretending this gigabit internet service is available or
practical for a startup, much less personal use, is either dishonest or
ignorant of the actual situation in Chattanooga.

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balgarath
"This is clearly bait. Pretending this gigabit internet service is available
or practical for a startup, much less personal use, is either dishonest or
ignorant of the actual situation in Chattanooga."

What are you talking about? I do believe you are the one ignorant of the
actual situation in Chattanooga. Gigabit internet service IS available to
startups. Hell, its available to residential customers.

<https://epbfi.com/enroll/packages/#/fi-speed-internet-1000>

I've got the 30Mbps package at home, and it is a true 30meg up and down. They
laid fiber all over the city, and it is 100x better than any other internet
services I've ever had(I don't think my internet has been down one time since
I moved to Chattanooga).

"Generally your choices are making a decent salary working in healthcare with
.NET/Java, or making <30k salaries with open source, which generally doesn't
go much further than CMS modifications, or working for a CTO that thinks php
frameworks are fadish and don't really work in most situations (so he rolled
his own)."

I'm making ~50k working for a startup, using ruby, nodejs, mongo, redis...all
kinds of open source. And we're hiring.

"And even there, I won't even talk to local companies. I've already wasted
enough time hunting local clients only to realize nary a one of them expects
to pay > $20/hr."

Not gonna argue with this one :)

I think you are a bit behind the times as to whats going on in Chattanooga.

~~~
ninjac0der
349.99/mo for residential gigabit service. As for businesses, I couldn't get
listings for that, but per my original information, that is also cost
prohibitive.

Their "30" plan (I'm guessing that means 30mbps) is just as expensive as my
much faster cable offerings from comcast.

I stand by my original statement.

I won't argue with you that your salary in any way disputes the average open
source salaries in that area and their general absurdity.

~~~
jonknee
Comcast's plans aren't synchronous though. Their 30Mbps package ("Blast!")
runs $72.95/mo, but that's using "PowerBoost" which means it's not 30Mbps and
only has an upload rate of ~4Mbps.

<http://www.dslreports.com/faq/14520> <http://www.dslreports.com/faq/15643>

The 30Mpbs up and down package in Nashville costs $57.99. It's a deal. All
their packages are, 100Mbps up and down for $139.99 is great. FiOS's fastest
package is 150/35 and runs $199.99/month.

Update: You also save with packages. It's actually cheaper to get the phone
service (1Gbps drops from $349.99 to $317.99) and the TV isn't much more.

