Considering moving to the Atlanta area (looking for job currrently) I'm considering moving to the Atlanta area. My in-laws live there and every time we visit we like it. The DC area is where my folks live and I went to HS. My wife has never really lived anywhere but the DC area. We want to move down for several reasons. First, when we (eventually) have children we'd like it if only I had to work to pay a mortgage. Currently we own a townhome in the DC area (in the outskirts...1+ hr commute) and for 2/3 what we paid for it we can get a nice 2 car garage single family home in the Atlanta area. We aren't exactly in love with the DC area. In general we are attracted to the slower pace of life, lower cost of living, friendliness of the people, and (for my wife) the weather. How accurate are our impressions? What do you love about the area? What ticks people off enough to want to leave the area? The linchpin in moving there is finding a job (its difficult for me to find one...my wife works in finance so its easier for her). I'm currently in IT research. I've got a BS Cognitive Science/Psychology. My current work is SOA stuff (service orchestration). I have experience with a wide rage of IT and research areas including linux server admining, some programming, software testing, software documentation, linux desktop, xml, eye tracking, user interface experimentation/validation, writing research papers (published), etc. That said, are there any places off the top of you head that you think I should look at for potential jobs?
Try the usual places like: Monster.com ajcjobs.com computerjobs.com You'll like the area and we've got a great Subaru community! You won't like the pollen though...
Commute is not likely to get much better here, but the two areas are very favorably comparable as well.
I love it down here. Much nicer than some of the places I have been to. However, I have never been to DC so I can't make a good comparison.
wait wait wait....your wife likes the weather here? Wore shorts 4 days ago and now have a full winter jacket on hehe Although your commute isn't going to disappear it's is certainly better than 2+ hours each way. That's valuable time you could be spending with your wife and kid/s
I've only lived in and around Atlanta but I love the city and suburbs around here. The suburbs are great for raising a family. I grew up in Marietta until I was 11 and then we moved to Peachtree City. I'd recommend the southside of town if you can find anything in your price range, there's a lot of nice neighborhoods being built in Coweta County.
1st on the agenda is finding a job, then a house. I know the house is possible. The job is what worries me.
We are always hiring (so it seems). I'll shoot you a PM with some details on my company in case something like this interests you. It's more a Windows/ .Net development shop, and I notice that you mention linux admin, and programming, so not sure if it's a good fit or not..but you never know
i know google uses linux mainly. one of my friends got a job right out of college there. might be worth looking into.
I moved here from Orlando last summer. I love it! But, I live in Midtown and walk to work. So, I can't exactly speak for the suburban/commuting lifestyle...
The company I work for is always lookin for folks. Its a BPM company and likes folks with J2ee / java background. http://www.atlanta.computerjobs.com/
The west side of town is great. If traffic is really bad youre looking at an hour to get into town. If its light youre talking about 30 minutes max. If you want to PM me what price range you are trying to stay in Ill be happy to make suggestions. I'm a home builder so I try to keep myself informed about whats available in the market. Matt
Ditto on the suburbs, north and west are all nice. Have you looked into Augusta? Obviously I'm biased because I'm from there, but it's only a couple hours away from downtown Atlanta and it really is a nice area (well the Columbia County portion at least). Hell, Evans (one of Augusta's suburbs and where I went to high school) was voted 32nd best town in the country. Doesn't sound that impressive, but there are a lot of towns in the US For your kids, Columbia County also has one of the top public education systems in Georgia. But yeah back to Atlanta, I like a lot of the suburbs (Marietta, Alpharetta, Peachtree City, etc), but as someone said earlier, don't expect good traffic. I think Atlanta is an area that just grew up a little faster than the roads and transportation department could handle.
You'll learn to not mind traffic. Get a small daily driver you can zip around in. The smaller the better... Like a CRX. Make your trip to work fun. Atlanta is probably the best place to live out there. And I've done a lot of thinking/traveling/moving too. Feel free to give me a call if you have any more questions or need something. Even a place to crash if you're in town for an interview... I'm in the Kennesaw (30144) area. PM me for a # if you need it. Mike
I use to live in DC my father still lives there,and the reason my mom moved to Atl. the traffic is slightly better than downtown dc but depending on location the drive can almost be the same but waaay cheaper living.
Other than the pollen, I think you will like the Atlanta weather and everything else. For living, I would say look on the north or west side of town. Also recommend a daily driver that's auto and takes 87octane. Saves gas and headache in the everyday traffic...welcome.
Yeah, you get a bit more bang for you buck on yhe south side. My wife and I just bought a house in sharpsburg Coweta County. Nice 4 bed room 2 car garage.
What this guy said:naughty: Only thing you have to deal with in Coweta is all the rednecks making meth labs.
I live on the southside too, but only 25 min's from downtown in Stockbridge. Henry Co is nice...Stockbridge/McDonough area. Area is growing VERY fast, and houses are affordable. 160's will get you a very nice house. I-75 from Henry Co. isn't as bad as the other interstates in ATL area...I-20, 285, 85, etc. Oh yeah, not too mention 20 min's to Turner Field. G'luck w/ the move, if you do it.
You may be able to find some sort of research position at one of our great colleges (gt). I am not entirely sure the cost of living here is lower than dc. The city is substantially larger and requires driving to truly get around. Our public transportation is pure crap (marta). Where exactly were you considering moving?
Cost of living in/out side of I-285 (Perimeter Intersate) is very different. Expect to pay about $1500 rent inside the perimeter if you want like 3 bedroom apt. Outside the perimeter its significantly less like $800. Perimeter is about 15-20 min drive to midtown. During the rush hour, expect about an hr.
I'll put dc in perspective... I work in DC. I used to commute from right outside of dc and it took 15 minutes to get to work. I paid over $1500 a month in rent for a one bedroom apartment. We then moved out to 1 hour away from work (100 miles round trip a day). We bought a townhouse for 360ish...yes, a F-ing townhouse for that much. 20 minutes from Atlanta I can get an F-ing mansion for 300. If my townhouse was located 15 minutes from work it would be worth about a mil, possibly more. Crazy, yes. Also, in fairfax county we have had locals pulled over and told that their stock hood scoop is too big and that their stock sti muffler is not stock. Both of these people got tickets and had to waste money going to court to fight them. More perspective...when we moved into our new house we didn't meet any neighbors for a month. We are a bedroom community. When my in-laws moved to their new house they go like 5 pies, made friends, etc. Which type of community would you choose to raise your kids in? /rant
How is working for the city government? Does anyone have input on this? Quality of life, upward mobility, benefits?
I don't know about the city government, but my dad used to work under the federal government and he absolutely hated it. Basically, he was always bothered by all of the bs regulations that he had to follow made by politicians who had no experience with his field and thus made things a lot harder than they had to be. But this is just hearsay, because I've personally never worked for the government.
Check out lockheedjobs.com they have all sorts of openings. Best part is we get every other Friday off. Good luck
I should know by Wednesday if this is going to happen. If it does you may be seeing me at a meet soon as I'll be down there staying with my in-laws.
This waiting is killing me. I got a call asking for another copy of my resume yesterday...so I guess that's a good sign. I'm pretty sure I'll get an offer (not full of myself...its kind of what they said on the phone) its just a question of what it'll be/when they want me to start.
K, an update. (thnx Alex for fixin the forums) I have another phone interview tomorrow morning, with the same outfit.
It's a great idea! I will tell you why. I am a hairstylist in the Suwanee area and I have already been hearing the answers for your question. So many people who have moved here from other states say it's much better for raising a family. I've had several people ask me where I am from and when I say "Gainesville, Georgia" they are amazed. They seem to hear of more people NOT being from Georgia than who are. I think a majority of that reason is b/c of the area I work in was not a subdivisional area until the Kroger and other businesses were established in the area. Suwanee is not very far from Atlanta itself, and I think that's what people moved to the are for. It's far enough away from Atlanta to not be IN the city, but it's close enough that it's not too far to drive for work. And, I seriously doubt you will have problems finding jobs. You could post resumes like crazy before making the move of course. And, as a tip for some help, I know that Lanier Technical College has an office where you can post resumes for people posting job openings to new graduates.. and yes, I was informed that it is also for those who are not students. So, maybe you can check around to many of the colleges surrounding Atlanta and see if they have anything for you. It will all work out. Georgia is a great place to live.. I don't think I could ever leave!
Phone interview went well. They interviewer wasn't all that interested in what I had to say but more wanted to make sure I was a sane normal person matching the description on my resume. After that he said we'd have to meet in person. I scheduled an in person interview with "the team" for later this month.
Yup, I'll probably be there for only 2 days though, so might want to hold off till I actually move down (I'll also be visiting with family during that time). I really, really want to cockily ask if I can drive azenis all year down there and ditch my all seasons, but that'll have to hold off until I get a job offer.
I am currently looking for a new position in the Northern Virginia area (or in the Atlanta area). Instead of using the standard resume format I will use something less formal and more fitting for this setting. What do I do now? My current title is technically "Engineering Research Psychologist". This says almost nothing about my day to day responsibilities. I work in an academic type environment (if you think, grad school without the classes you are pretty close). We generally get funded to do research projects or technical implementations on a 2-5 year basis. As part of a very small team I am responsible for many aspects of these projects. This essentially means that I am a jack of all trades. For instance in the past year I have: written proposals, presented proposals before research panels, written and edited research papers, managed development servers (linux), written documentation for software (both at a developer level and an end user level), written programs to fill operational gaps, written test cases for software systems, written service orchestrations, taken part in multi-organization piloting events, etc. Originally the group I work with got its name doing research on auditory perception and how knowledge of human auditory perception could be used in interface design. Shortly after I joined their focus shifted to a web based weather system and now it is currently working in the SOA realm. What is my skill set? Standard office computer skills including Microsoft Office. Limited development experience in Java, JavaScript, Bash shell script, C/C++, and awk. Linux server deployment and administration (RedHat AS 3 and 4 running SELinux). Administration of JBoss, Apache, tomcat, and Active-Bpel. Linux workstation setup. SOA conceptual and hands on experience in a test environment. Honors, etc. Co-authored a paper in a respected IEEE publication (concerning audio stimuli as a user interface tool), co-authored a poster for the ICAD conference, authored an internal paper outlining a specialized search relevance algorithm I co-created, co-recipient of a Technology Transfer Award from my employer. How many years of employment do I have? 2+ (in addition I have 2 summers of internship experience with my current employer and 2 semesters of Experimental Lab experience) Educational background? BA in Cognitive Science and Psychology (A dual major) from UVA. Cognitive Science is an interdisciplinary major that includes linguistics, computer science, cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, and some philosophy. Within this major one chooses a concentration by taking several higher level courses in that area. I qualified for both cognitive psychology and computer science. (more information for the curious: http://www.virginia.edu/cognitivescience/) Why do I want to move on from my current position? Funding the near to distant future is coming through programs which study topics I am not very interested in (I would much rather work on interface design and evaluation than the low level computer science questions posed in the SOA realm). In addition my commute is an hour each way (I was reluctant to mention this, as I am willing to travel if the position is a good fit). What would be my dream job? A dream job for me would be working in an interface design and evaluation shop. I would most likely design experiments, test interfaces with potential end users, and report back to the engineering team. If you take a look at the Sept. 2007 issue of Wired magazine they have an article about the lab Bungie/Microsoft has to test out the play characteristics of Halo 3 (http://www.wired.com/gaming/virtualw...15-09/ff_halo). Working a in a similar environment would be idea. Other interests, hobbies, etc. Photography, autocross, music. A project I am working on which may be relevant: http://www.iwsti.com/forums/showthread.php?t=84794 Resume, details, and published papers available upon request.
Meh, I got more runaround at the interview. I was interviewed for a position that I don't qualify with someone who didn't know they were interviewing me. This lady and I figured I'd be talking to a couple of people. It turns out someone was out sick and I didn't get to meet with him. So I'm sending along my resume to that person and possibly doing a phone interview. What a fishing expedition!
Not too much hands on experience Justin, but a great education...I am glad that you are up here...I am ready to move out of here soon...LOL... Mark