SEER Interactive developer Chris Le leaves for New York City SEO firm Conductor

Chris Le is leaving SEER Interactive for a job at NYC SEO firm Conductor.

SEER Interactive developer Chris Le announced last week on his blog that he would be leaving Philly for a position at New York City SEO firm Conductor. His departure sparked a lengthy discussion on the Philly Startup Leaders (PSL) listserv about how to keep tech talent in the city.

“Losing Chris to NYC is a loss to this community,” wrote PSL’s Gloria Bell. “Just like every student that leaves after graduation, every company that relocates is a loss.  We as a community need to find a better way to stop this from happening.”

That isn’t exactly how the dozen or more people who jumped into the conversation saw things, including Le himself.

In his blog post, Le, who was named as a local SEO leader to follow in a Technically Philly guest post, explained the move this way: “SEER knows that my talent and my passion is with software but SEER isn’t going to be software company anytime soon.” Le said he left SEER on good terms. Read the whole blog post here.

He elaborated further on the PSL listserv, saying that the decision was also driven by his wife’s career and the fact that he couldn’t work for another local SEO firm because he had signed a non-compete. Despite the move, he said that he believes in the city’s future and will still be a Philly developer at heart.

“They can take a developer out of Philly but they will never take the Philly out of this developer,” he wrote.