As though it's a binary choice. Washington DC metro, or the boonies.

Yeah, there are a lot of medium sized midwestern and southern cities that would have had the best of all worlds except 1) presumably a lot of software developers amazon wants to hire don’t want to live in these places and 2) related to 1, there aren’t a lot of software developers already there.

I wish they had considered more cities like Cincinnati, Nashville, or Cleveland. Those are actually fine places and they have low COL (although Nashville’s is getting up there). Plenty of other cities in the US also fit that profile. Even though I’ve heard bad things about working for Amazon and wouldn’t work for them in Seattle or DC, I would seriously consider taking an Amazon SDE salary somewhere that salary could go very far

> 1) presumably a lot of software developers amazon wants to hire don’t want to live in these places and 2) related to 1, there aren’t a lot of software developers already there.

That, in turn, requires the presumption that a lot of software developers want to live near DC.

I'd love to know which major U.S. city does not have terrible traffic near its downtown.

There was a wreck on GW Parkway a few months back so I was in park for an hour. Unmoving. At 9:30 pm.

It's bad everywhere but DC has a weird love of choke points and funnels and abrupt 70 degree turns with no shoulders or overflow or spillover.

I don't know what you consider major but I've never had issues in Milwaukee

Might consider a revisit. Seattle traffic is now in the top 10 (9th) of horrible. [1]

[1] https://www.geekwire.com/2018/seattle-traffic-congestion-nin...

> And amazon (and many other tech companies) adjust their salary to cost of life in the area.

Which raises costs for everyone and the "___location adjustment" is usually less than what is really needed.

I was expecting it to be a bit further out, like Chantilly/Ashburn/Manassas. Close enough to serve the function but far enough out costs for employees/real estate is lower.