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Where the Highest Paying Tech Jobs Are
prostoalex writes "Where would you look for a high-paying tech job? If your answer is Silicon Valley or Research Triangle, Forbes magazine suggests some other destinations. When you take the cost of living and consider the net pay adjusted for that cost, places like Montgomery, Ala., Idaho Falls, Idaho, and Fort Smith, Ark. suddenly seem quite attractive."
In other third world countries where these tech jobs are being outsourced to, $USD400-$600/month is very high. I live in Manila, and the minimum wage is roughly less than $USD 6.00 daily. Those who work in outsourced tech-support call centers make $300 monthly and they're very happy about it. I had a short web-design stint making about $450 monthly and I was really really happy about it, to say the least. Single people here could live like kings on that.
I once oversaw moving a firms's HQ and IT functions from Silicon Valley to San Antonio, TX because of the "math" some white collar genius put together like this Forbes nonsense. Sure, the "average" wage was one-half of what it was in Palo Alto, but because of the "quality" of local talent, we ended up hiring THREE TIMES as many staff to do the same amount of work. (For the math-challenged, that meant productivity sucked by 50%.) This wasn't just a drain on company resources, but on the few people who DID know their chops and had to hoist it in for the dullards. Those that made the move and saw the disaster had to in turn move completely out of the area to restore sanity to their careers. And the "icing on the cake" is that San Antonio is the only place I've stood hip deep in mud and had sand blow in my face. No thanky-thanky.
+-+-+-+-+-+-+ "I don't know what's wrong with you, but I'm quite sure it's hard to pronounce."
Denver?
Seriously, the problem with these communities is one of the major reasons the cost of living is so low is because the vast majority of jobs there pay very little. Sure, there might be some relatively high-paying tech jobs, but the problem is there are only 5 tech jobs in the whole city.
I've considered India, but I'm seriously looking at Mexico and Costa Rica. I'm partial to Mexico because I love Mexican culture (and I already have many friends there), but Costa Rica is really an up and coming high tech nation.
It's possible to have a very high standard of living for less money in these countries. And if your material needs are not great, you can live incredibly cheaply, save up a bunch of money and retire early.
The other thing is that, depending on how you work it, you might not be taking a cut in pay at all. All many of us need is to be at the one end of a wire. These countries have internet infrastructure, at least in the bigger towns and cities. Last time I was in Mexico, I met two people that were living there and making a living this way. One was a daytrader (remember those?) and the other had a web development company he had basically started in the U.S. When he moved to Mexico, his clients hardly noticed. He's making even more money now because he's found a lot of local talented designers and coders that work for lower pay, but he's still getting paid the same. And because he pays at the upper end of the prevailing local wage, his workers love him.
Moreover, he told me that because he lives in Mexico, he's much less likely to have to go to a day long meeting to discuss what exact shade of green should be used to maximize the branding of a particular website. Clients are less likely to fly him in to discuss trivial shit. Or they fly out to him because it's an excuse to visit Mexico.
Anyway, if you can work at the end of a wire, seriously consider some of the developing nations. I can't guarantee that you'll prosper, but I can guarantee you'll have a very interesting time.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
As someone who lives in Huntsville (born and raised here) and also does some business in Montgomery, I'd have to agree. I'm not aware of a whole lot of tech jobs available in Montgomery; there's always demand in Huntsville (especially as another 7-12 thousand Army and contracter jobs come to Huntsville in the next few years). I don't know how the cost of living compares (Huntsville is a good bit lower than the Atlanta area though). The "metro" areas around Montgomery and Huntsville are about the same size IIRC, but Huntsville has a lot more "outside" influence (German rocket scientists in the 1950s and people from all over the world since).
Huntsville can be an odd place sometimes; mixing rocket scientists and rednecks has interesting results.
"I have no idea where the people here work if they can afford to shop at all the new places. But above all, there are only two kinds of buildings under construction here. Churches and banks. Where do these people work???"
:)
I live in Ft. Collins also. Try HP, Poudre Valley Hospital, Eastman Kodak, Anheuser-Busch, Agilent, Celestica and Colorado State University for starters. Within a half-hour drive or so your will find IBM, Ball Aerospace, NOAA, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Lockheed Martin, and the University of Colorado to name a few. All this is in a town within an hour or two of some of the best skiing, hiking, camping, climbing and biking in the country and a very affordable cost of living. Oh and did I mention there are several great microbreweries right in town
Seriously, the only people I hear rag on Ft. Collins are the ones that have lived there their whole lives and don't realize how good they have it.
This place sucks! The job market is bad and you're going to be pretty much stuck working for either the state government or the DoD if you can find someone that has the right connections to get you a job. If you don't have a secret clearance, your chances seriously go down. Tech here just ain't it. Most places in Texas have lower costs of living with larger populations and better job markets. That's why I plan to head there in 2008.
I've GOT to get out of this redneck filled, racist, little freaking town!
Huntsville also has no real public transportation and requires that one use a car to get anywhere at all. Factor in the cost of petrol. I grew up in Huntsville, but I'm glad that my family moved out of there before I finished school and that I was able to discover a world where one doesn't have to pay a an arm and a leg and massively pollute just to get some milk from the store or visit the post office.
I had to travel to Huntsville a few times for NASA work. It got barren pretty quickly when you drove anywhere and it was brutally hot. People who lived there said it was too hot in the summer to do much of anything and the lack of any pedestrian features (like sidewalks) encouraged a lot of the waistlines I saw. One local even said he felt safer visiting Boston than being in downtown Huntsville after dark. Most of the jobs and companies down there are dependent on government $ which means that they are at the mercy of politics. The focus on the military also means there is little variety in the types of jobs available.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
If you want to know where high paying jobs are go to Alberta, Canada it's insane!
McDonald's workers are getting $15/hour, signing bonuses and $100 extra pay if you show up for all your shifts that week.
Housing is a bit of a problem, there's a booming business finding old homes, ripping them off their foundation and dragging them to Calgary.
Calgary is sprawling outward at an incredible rate, it's bigger in area than NY city.
It's all from oil, tar sands that is, Canada exports oil since we make more than we use. The US gets about 10% of its oil from Canada and that will probably increase due to the US public's of growing concern about "foreign oil".
People are going there by the thousands every day, it's crazy!
But in spite of what that AC said, the girls down there are not hot at all. At least, according to my brother.
I've been to Costa Rica, and your brother is full of crap.
Or else he just wants to keep you away and keep the girls to himself.
The libertarian solution to the failures of capitalism is to apply more capitalism til the failures are fixed.