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By the Numbers: The Highest-Paying States For Tech Professionals
Nerval's Lobster writes The average technology professional made $89,450 in 2014, according to Dice's latest salary survey. When it comes to salaries, however, not all states and cities are created equal. Those tech pros living and working in Silicon Valley are the highest-paid in the country, with an average annual salary of $112,610—but that salary grew only 4 percent year-over-year, lagging behind cities such as Portland and Seattle. Dice has built an interactive map that shows where people are making the most (and least). As you click around, note how salary growth is particularly strong in parts of the West, the Northeast, and the South, while remaining stagnant (and even regressing) in some middle states. If anything, the map reinforces what many tech pros have known for years: that more cities and regions are becoming hubs of innovation.
How 2005, guess I dont need to see it anyway.
Salary means nothing unless you can compare it to the cost of living in each city. I would suggest a high wage in Silicon Valley is actually lower than many other areas due the the high cost of rent and real estate.
I went from $107K just outside Los Angeles to $124K in silicon valley and lost in the deal
I mean really that thing doesn't present information so much as hide it.
Missing some states there...
$80K here in Metro Atlanta is like $250K out there - and that's not even including lifestyle.
Meaning, commute times, being able to own a house, health club member ship to swim and play tennis, free time (Those SV jobs seem to want you there 24/7.) and a bunch of other things.
After looking at rents and whatnot, for me to do a one to one move, I would demand no less than $400K/year, - NO stock options. And that's at an established company like Google.
Those flaky startups that will be out of business in 6 months? NFW! Been there done that, got ripped off.
And those people wonder why they can't find any qualified people. Geeze bozos! It's because the word is out that you pay shit.
No Dice...
Minor rant aside, where I live in the mid-west we are rich with tech companies but the cost of living here is oh so very cozy that ~$70,000 here probably equates to ~$140,000 in Silicon Valley and other parts of the country where the cost of living is high.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
Got a car, since the cost of living is lower here. Actually, a few vehicles (car, truck, boat). Don't need a bike anymore. I've bicycled for recreation all around the USA. Road across Nebraska a few times - have done many MS-150s in Texas, Georgia, NC. Cost of living matters.
Also have a 3600 sqft McMansion on a small 1 acre estate - thanks to a lower cost of living here.
Don't have many crazies living nearby either.
I can surf and ski in the same day too. That is hardly a reason to live somewhere with 30% higher cost of living for the same salary.
My $130K/yr in Atlanta goes a long way.
Fortunately, I can visit Cali for a day or so to help me remember why I never want to live there. Don't get me wrong, it is a nice place to visit, sorta like Omaha, but I don't want to live there anymore.
I have friends who lived/worked in SF for a few years. They didn't like it and moved back to Houston, Tx. I lived in Houston for 8 yrs and thought it was an armpit. To me, it was. I didn't enjoy the weather, but many folks do. I did like the people in Houston. I like most people around the world, provided they aren't small-minded.
Happy that you like it in Cali. Finding happines in our lives is important. Just because it isn't right for me, doesn't mean it isn't right for everyone. Plus if everyone moved to where I lived, traffic would get worse. Don't need that.
You need to look up the definition of 'professional'.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
As someone who was born and raised in St. Louis, MO -- I can tell you it really depends. In the last decade or so, my opinion is that it's time to get out of St. Louis if you're trying to make a living there doing I.T.
It has several "big players" who hire for tech positions and pay well, but the problem is what's available outside of those options. Enterprise Leasing, for example, has their corporate HQ in St. Louis and employs a lot of I.T. workers. (Some of my best friends worked for them for years.) You've also got options like Boeing, Energizer or the A.B. brewery.
But take a closer look and you can see a trend of Boeing scaling things back over the years in St. Louis. (Ever since they bought out McDonnell Douglas, they've been shrinking the size of that campus.) A.B. hasn't been the same ever since they sold out to InBev, either. And the once well regarded A.G. Edwards Company is now Wells Fargo Advisors, a company not exactly known for being a "great place to work" in I.T.
Don't forget the auto makers who used to have plants in St. Louis and are now gone.
The cost of living is reasonable (especially housing prices), but crime is pretty bad these days (just look at the insanity ever since the Ferugson riots), and the once amazing riverfront area is pretty much gone too.
These days, you find the occasional good I.T. position open in STL working for the Federal Reserve or maybe a contract with the Post Office. As in all cities, I.T. jobs are available with the school districts and hospitals too -- but you won't hear a whole lot of stories of high job satisfaction with many of those. I guess there are some openings at Emerson Corp. too, but that puts your workplace right in the middle of where all the Ferguson fallout lies.
After living there for around 40 years, I had enough ... saw the writing on the wall, and got out. Working in the DC area now, I was initially unhappy with the cost of living making my salary increase an actual pay cut. But you learn how to live cheaper out here, in trade for a longer commute - and eventually settle into something that's effective. (Or don't, and accept the higher cost of living as an acceptable trade for being in the heart of the DC night life, etc.) By using public transportation, I literally went from putting over 1,000 miles per month on my vehicle to only putting 2,000 on it in 5 months. That requires a change in habits but makes it cheaper to live here than it first seemed.
I don't know about SV, but I live in the northwest suburbs of Chicago and have a significantly higher cost of living than most of northern Illinois. For instance my parents live an hour southwest of Chicago and have a 50% larger house for 75% of the cost.
But I am not just paying the extra money to be closer to higher paying jobs. I get better schools, better restaurants, better entertainment options, and of course better career options. I also live next to more affluent neighbors, which means my daughter will have more affluent friends, have better internship opportunities, etc. That makes a big difference. My high school techie friends from the same small farm town my parents still live in mostly have jobs as satellite dish repair men or something similar. My wife's high school techie friends from the northwest suburbs build robots for Microsoft Research or other similar jobs. Part of my high cost of living is paying so my daughter has the same head start in the "who you know" category that my wife did.
When you look at "self-made" millionaires and other outstanding success stories, you will almost always notice they came from highly affluent upper middle class families in areas that would give them more opportunities than your average person. The creators of the next Microsoft, Facebook, etc. are mostly likely already born in a place like New York City, Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, Denver, etc, not the rural Midwest. And in a similar fashion, the next generation of C-level executives, big shot lawyers, etc. are probably also going to be mostly from these high COL areas.
Paying for that high COL in part helps increase the chance that your next generation has a chance of sitting at that table. And even if my children are not that ambitious, at least I enjoyed better food options and a better theater scene for my money.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
There are options to one's lifestyle that matter vis a vis cost of living. If you live frugally in a high cost of living area, you may still be spending more than if you live frugally in a low cost of living area, but you can probably save/invest more money from that high salary, so it may pay off as part of a long term plan to build up capital.
I also realize that inflation can wipe out savings. Any long term plan is something of a gamble. My point is, that one shouldn't be too simplistic about weighing the alternatives.
In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)