Visualizing the Best and Worst Paid Jobs in the Tech Sector (howmuch.net)

An anonymous reader writes: We often associate the tech sector with high-paying jobs and cool offices, but it turns out that the grass is not always green on the other side. Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, personal finance site HowMuch has created a graph that showcases the 15 best and worst paid jobs in the technology industry.

Comments

More useless salary comparisons

[iotaborg]

Yet again we have these useless base salary comparisons that aren't indexed to cost of living. Many in the tech industry see significant portions of income coming from bonuses and equity. Consider the bay area; $150k total comp is more like entry level software engineer these days, and AI/ML folks can pull in $300k+ from the get go.

Re:More useless salary comparisons

[Darinbob]

$150K is still not a typical starting salary in for programmers Silicon Valley. I'd expect that to be more common in a reasonable job for someone with10 years experience. For entry level the person is a complete unknown though with no graduate school, that's way too high to start with, except for a few companies with more cash than brains.

There is a snag here though. What people report as good salaries rise faster than the typical yearly raise or rate of inflation. So if you're getting a decent 5% raise each year you may not be able to catch up. So people usually get the biggest boost in pay by changing jobs, because then the pay rise isn't limited to a certain percentage. Which is counter productive because it makes it hard to keep employees or get them caught up in pay.

Looking at TFA's graph...

[Nutria]

Customer Success Representative??

Right. And secretaries just loved it when they were "upgraded" to becoming Administrative Assistants.

Another useless survey

[filesiteguy]

Like others have reported, this survey is pretty much useless. An IT manager making $150/year in silicon valley is on the poor side, while one in - say, Lincoln Nebraska - would be very well off.

Same goes for the other numbers. Yes, they are relative, but do not take into account regional differences.

Pay went DOWN since 2000

[Anonymous Coward]

It's showing a programmer making $51.30/hour or $106,710/year (I'm assuming that's as a W-2 salary and benefits.)

I was a programmer in 2000 making $75K with benefits or $37.50/hour. (Metro Atlanta) That's $54.88/hour in todays money that's $109,760 a year. And according that website, the cumulative rate of inflation was 46% since then.

And the salaries for other things have fell behind too. I remember project managers getting over 90K back then.
I wasn't in Silicon Valley or anything, either.

I would expect much larger increases if there was truly a tech talent shortage.

Re:Pay went DOWN since 2000

[HornWumpus]

Put 2000 in context. The first dotcom bubble was going real strong in 2000. The most incompetent people I've ever seen warm seats were doing it in 2000, for fat bank.