Rooted Miami 🌱

New city. New roots. From nomad to local, one side quest at a time.

Track: Brain Gain: Miami is a magnet for talent. How does it keep the talent it attracts?

The problem

Miami attracts engineers but doesn’t keep them. Miami-Dade tech workers leave at about twice the rate of the overall workforce (10.9% vs 5.2% a year; Census ACS 2023–24). Miami pays about what Austin pays, but costs 16% more (29% more for housing; BLS OEWS 2025, BEA 2024). Leavers earn more than stayers, so the strongest people go first.

Affordability isn’t something we can fix. But New York is expensive too, and people stay there for two reasons: opportunity and belonging. Miami is missing both for newcomers. They live alongside the city instead of within it, and leave at the first shock: a layoff, a lease renewal, friends moving away.

Why us: I moved from NYC, watched my friends leave Miami, and I hire engineers here. I live both sides of this problem.

The solution

A two-sided platform:

🌱 Rooted for People (engineers): Pana, an AI local companion, gives every newcomer a welcome package delivered as a
game. Side quests across five pillars (Commuer & skills, Practical start) take themthrough Seed → Sprout → Rooted → Grove, milestones that mean something.

• Pana: chat, text or talk by voice. Bilingu (“got laid off,” “lease renewal”), andrecommends what people like you who stayed did
• Engineers near you: opt-in, reciprocal inthborhood with shared interests
• Know your number: salary negotiation with real BLS data, Austin buying-power parity, a script, and practice with
  Pana
• Calendar: sign up for dinners, rituals and hackathons; export to Google, Apple or Outlook
• Purpose: mentor FIU / MDC / UM students, s local students stay too

🏢 Rooted for Business (companies): Talent F agent, connects companies with opted-inengineers who are here to stay. Every first message must include a pay band, checked against Austin parity.

The flywheel: rooted engineers attract companies, companies bring jobs, and jobs give engineers more reasons to stay.

Trust by design

• Engineers are private by default and choose exactly what companies see
• “Hide me from these companies” (for exampl
• Companies never see wellbeing, check-ins or intent to leave
• We never scrape LinkedIn: users import the
• One account can be both an engineer and a hiring manager, with the data kept separate

How it’s built

Next.js 16 + TypeScript + Tailwind · Better Auth (hashed passwords) + Drizzle (SQLite / Turso) · Pana and Talent
Finder on Gemini / Gemma 4, with an Ollama lbrowser Web Speech for voice · deployed onVercel.

Data: BLS OEWS May 2025 · BEA Regional Price Parities 2024 · Census ACS PUMS 2023–24 · Gensler City Pulse · AmeriCorps
civic data. Member, talent-pool and event dand labeled as such.

What’s next

Pilot with one Miami employer and a newcomernkedIn data-export import; partnering withthe Beacon Council / Talent Bridge Miami; expansion to other cities with Austin as the benchmark.

Live: https://rooted-miami.vercel.app · Code: https://github.com/karlarey/rooted-miami