Seattle ranks No. 1 on list of best-paying cities for software engineers

Bay Area
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http://www.seattletimes.com/business/technology/seattle-ranks-no-1-on-list-of-best-paying-cities-for-tech-jobs/

San Francisco, home to tech giants such as Yelp and Uber, ranked No. 3 on the best-paying list. The city has a median base salary for software engineers of $120,000 and its cost of living is more than 20 percent above the national average, giving it a real adjusted salary of $99,751.

The top five best-paying cities on the list were Seattle; San Jose, Calif.; San Francisco; Madison, Wis.; and Raleigh, N.C.

Seattle, WA
Real Adjusted Salary: $105,735
+7.1% above national average cost of living
Median Base Salary: $113,242

San Jose, CA
Real Adjusted Salary: $100,989
+21.3% above national average cost of living
Median Base Salary: $122,500

San Francisco, CA
Real Adjusted Salary: $99,751
+20.3% above national average cost of living
Median Base Salary: $120,000

Madison, WI
Real Adjusted Salary: $97,236
-2.3% below national average cost of living
Median Base Salary: $95,000

Raleigh, NC
Real Adjusted Salary: $94,142
-4.4% below national average cost of living
Median Base Salary: $90,000

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Looks like if you want to chill and not get stressed about housing prices, Madison is not a bad choice… But how many software jobs are there really?

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Someone once told me the top 3 most beautiful campuses in the US are:

Stanford, UW Madison and Cornell.

Seems like I am priced out of PA forever :sob: so maybe Madison is not a bad choice…

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UC Berkeley is more beautiful than the farm…strawberry creek, the hills, views of SF, fabulous old architecture. .Stanford doesn’t even come close…

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Did you ask your wife?

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Even she prefers Faber College…lol

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I’m shocked the cost of living is “only” ~20% higher here.

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Based on 28,000 interview requests and job offers provided by more than 5,000 companies to 45,000 job seekers on Hired’s platform, the company’s data team has determined that the average salary for a software engineer in the Bay Area is $134,000. That’s more than software engineers anywhere in the country, through Seattle trails closely behind, paying engineers an average of $126,000. In other tech hubs, including Boston, Austin, L.A., New York, and Washington, D.C., software engineers are paid on average between $110,000 and $120,000.

Higher salaries don’t mean much with jaw-dropping rents and other soaring expenses associated with life in “Silicon Valley,” and San Francisco more specifically. Indeed, factoring in the cost of living, San Francisco is now one of the lowest-paying cities for software engineers, according to Hired’s lead data scientist, Jessica Kirkpatrick. According to her analysis, the $110,000 that an Austin engineer makes is the rough equivalent of being paid $198,000 in the Bay Area, considering how much further each dollar goes in the sprawling capital of Texas. The same is true of Melbourne, Australia, where software engineers are paid a comparatively low $107,000 on average, but who are making the equivalent of $150,000 in San Francisco.

cola-salaries.jpg738Ă—1060 54.1 KB

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Austin is cheap for a reason…I have been down there on Labor day…80 degrees at midnight, 100% humidity. …you spend the whole summer inside with the AC going…Then cold in winter…All depends how much you value your free time, when you aren’t working…

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I value those extra $s towards by retirement, which I better squirrel away now because I will be 45 one day & Social Security is in dire straits.

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Well Seattle, the landlords…hmmm…the free market is going to figure it out and then rents and prices will go up. :smile:

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Look like can push up rent a bit more in Austin.

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Social Security is pay as you go. So if you want SS to be around in 50 years, you better let more immigrants come in to pay for your retirement… :slight_smile:

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Just comparing engineer salary is misleading. People coming to the Bay Area aren’t stupid. In fact they are the best in the world. Of course they knew about high housing costs etc. But nobody wants to be an engineer all their lives, and Bay Area offers all kinds of opportunities unmatched by any other places on that map.

Like, perhaps, starting your own unicorn?

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There are better ways. Check this out →

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Higher taxes? Hmm… I am not sure it will go down well with the rights…

Fundamentally I don’t want US to go down the road of Japan, where adult diapers outsell baby diapers. Even setting aside the economic impact, that kind of adult diaper society is pretty joyless and shall we say dead? Americans aren’t making enough babies, and I love babies!

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Large families don’t make sense with the high cost of raising kids.

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As I said in an earlier discussion to you that will not happen as there are 1.75 million legal immigrants to USA per year.

Here’s the link to the post → Why Are We Protecting Illegal Immigrants In This Country? - #34 by Roy321

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OK. I also meant legal immigrants. So no disagreement here. Moving on.

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