It was a city that was wholly incompatible with me, and many others. I'm not going to come out and strictly say that Seattle is a bad place to be - because I know some people who are very happily situated there.
There were a few things that greatly bothered myself and many of my peers at Amazon/Microsoft:
- weather. I grew up in the Northwest, so this wasn't a big deal for me, but I know a lot of people were particularly annoyed at the constant overcast drizzliness. Note that Seattle doesn't actually rain very much, it's mostly just constantly damp, cold, and cloudy instead. Some time in September the sun will disappear behind clouds, and be completely absent until the following April. People in Seattle are extremely active and outdoorsy during the summers, but that's sort of like handing a starving man a bucket full of cheeseburgers.
- really limited social scene. Seattle isn't a convergent city - i.e., the vast majority of its population are locals, born and raised. Their social groups do not at all intersect with that of transplant workers who arrived later. There's a thinly veiled contempt by the locals for perceived transplant invaders driving up their cost of living (a belief that is IMO mostly true). The transplant demographic is extremely limited, and is almost entirely software people. These two factors put together means that 99% of your friends will be software people, and every party you go to will be full of software people. I had some crazier hobbies (read: hipster) that mitigated this to some extent, but even that wasn't enough. The social isolation and the homogeneous transplant population really gets to me.
Compare with where I am now (SF), where despite the dominance of tech, I still end up meeting tons of people from different walks of life just in daily life.
- transportation. I'm a pretty staunch urbanist, and while many neighorhoods in Seattle boast of the urban, carless experience, it doesn't actually pan out. Downtown, Belltown, Capitol Hill all try to execute on this lifestyle, but it's pretty half-assed - a lot of resources you will need are not accessible by transit or walking, and you are depriving yourself of the region's best food and sights if you go carless. Cars are not optional for a high quality of life in Seattle, even if you live centrally. Oh, your friends are talking about this amazing K-BBQ place in Federal Way? Welp, get a car. There's awesome dumplings up in Shoreline? Get a car. Want to do something other than drink on a weekend? Welp, car or you're hosed. Overall, King County Metro is the second-worst transit system I've ever used. It is somewhere between "ass-tastic" and "complete clusterfuck".
It was a city that was wholly incompatible with me, and many others. I'm not going to come out and strictly say that Seattle is a bad place to be - because I know some people who are very happily situated there.
There were a few things that greatly bothered myself and many of my peers at Amazon/Microsoft:
- weather. I grew up in the Northwest, so this wasn't a big deal for me, but I know a lot of people were particularly annoyed at the constant overcast drizzliness. Note that Seattle doesn't actually rain very much, it's mostly just constantly damp, cold, and cloudy instead. Some time in September the sun will disappear behind clouds, and be completely absent until the following April. People in Seattle are extremely active and outdoorsy during the summers, but that's sort of like handing a starving man a bucket full of cheeseburgers.
- really limited social scene. Seattle isn't a convergent city - i.e., the vast majority of its population are locals, born and raised. Their social groups do not at all intersect with that of transplant workers who arrived later. There's a thinly veiled contempt by the locals for perceived transplant invaders driving up their cost of living (a belief that is IMO mostly true). The transplant demographic is extremely limited, and is almost entirely software people. These two factors put together means that 99% of your friends will be software people, and every party you go to will be full of software people. I had some crazier hobbies (read: hipster) that mitigated this to some extent, but even that wasn't enough. The social isolation and the homogeneous transplant population really gets to me.
Compare with where I am now (SF), where despite the dominance of tech, I still end up meeting tons of people from different walks of life just in daily life.
- transportation. I'm a pretty staunch urbanist, and while many neighorhoods in Seattle boast of the urban, carless experience, it doesn't actually pan out. Downtown, Belltown, Capitol Hill all try to execute on this lifestyle, but it's pretty half-assed - a lot of resources you will need are not accessible by transit or walking, and you are depriving yourself of the region's best food and sights if you go carless. Cars are not optional for a high quality of life in Seattle, even if you live centrally. Oh, your friends are talking about this amazing K-BBQ place in Federal Way? Welp, get a car. There's awesome dumplings up in Shoreline? Get a car. Want to do something other than drink on a weekend? Welp, car or you're hosed. Overall, King County Metro is the second-worst transit system I've ever used. It is somewhere between "ass-tastic" and "complete clusterfuck".