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Does anyone know why engineering salaries are so low in Chicago? Especially with regards to city size / cost of living / amount of tech? It baffled me when I l

Does anyone know why engineering salaries are so low in Chicago? Especially with regards to city size / cost of living / amount of tech? It baffled me when I lived there, and it still baffles me when I don't.

rhino369 11y ago
To add another reason beyond just cost of living: Chicago has a bunch of really high quality engineering schools nearby that produce an absolute ton of engineers. You have people from UIUC, Northwestern, Purdue, IUB, UWMadison, and Michigan all moving to chicago after graduation. It creates a sort of glut in the labor supply. A lot of them cannot or just don't want to move far away for more pay. A lot of the grads are from chicago or smaller midwestern cities.
chairmankaga 11y ago
Interested in your opinion on what the range should be, currently struggling with knowing my true value in this market.
sparuchuri 11y ago
My anecdata having worked in Seattle and Chicago now: Chicago's 'tech scene' is mostly either trading or tech applied in an incremental way to an existing business model, eg Groupon. The trading firms do pay quite well, but you'll be in an extreme niche and likely have limited insight into how you could ever leave, given you've not been building products/programming so much as coding performance improvements. The few "hard tech" companies I've seen come from Chicago are either a generation old at this point (eg Motorola) or have gone under (eg TempoIQ). The other fact of Chicago is, most of the tech talent here is here for reasons beyond having the best job ever. When I moved back, just about no one could believe that I didn't have a family/significant other/etc reason to move back beyond the job itself. When you have a market like that, employers have some buying power with the talent that does need to stay here. There's simply so few alternatives to the situation, given there's also little appetite for significantly striking out on your own, compared to the coast. Edit: I'll also say the appetite for go big or go home company growth is limited here. Can't tell you the last time I saw a "shoot for the moon" idea originate in Chicago. There are pros/cons to that, admittedly.
- jeffasinger 11y ago
  This conforms to a somewhat surreal experience I had talking to an internal recruiter in Chicago a few months ago. "Oh, you already have offers on the table in NYC and Boston, with no family here? Yeah, I understand why you wouldn't be interested in Chicago"
- DylanL 11y ago
  Having done the same (Seattle then Chicago) trading is big here, and pays well, but can be less than rewarding if you like building products. That being said, I think there are plenty of interesting tech companies here if you dig a bit. For example, CleverSafe (https://www.cleversafe.com/ https://www.cleversafe.com/), Signal (http://www.signal.co/ http://www.signal.co/), and BrainTree (https://www.braintreepayments.com/ https://www.braintreepayments.com/) are larger ones with real engineering challenges. And, if you are interested in a smaller Chicago company doing interesting things, feel free to check out Earshot (http://earshotinc.com/careers http://earshotinc.com/careers) - we are hiring. </plug> Even if Earshot isn't right for you feel free to connect with me if you are interested in the Chicago startup scene.
sharps 11y ago
This has been on my mind for awhile. My current theory is that Chicago companies don't need top talent and there are plenty of non-top talent engineers. simple supply and demand.
aerovistae 11y ago
Easier to hire here, supposedly. Fewer tech firms by comparison to SF/NY -> less competition for applicants. I'm in Chicago making ~95k and these threads the last couple days have been ever so mildly depressing, with people graduating same year as me and making $323k.
- rhino369 11y ago
  I left Chicago for a job and I totally regret it. 95k in Chicago is a really good living.
- mfoy_ 11y ago
  I mean, for what it's worth they say quality of life barely changes once you're past a threshold.[1] So I wouldn't worry about it too much. [1]http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/18/money-improves-quality-of-life_n_1434073.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/18/money-improves-qual...
  - aerovistae 11y ago
    I just have a hard time believing that. It's a funny contradiction because I know perfectly well I'm not really much happier now at $95k than I was at $60k, or working in a park for minimum wage a decade ago, but at the same time there's so much I'd like to do that I don't because I'm trying to save money, and at $323k it would be pretty effortless to save massively and do whatever I wanted.
    - plaguuuuuu 11y ago
      The things you want to do start to expand when you have more money, plus in the first place your budget for mundane shit blows out due to lifestyle inflation. If you socialise with other people in the same income bracket, it's going to happen.
      - graedus 11y ago
        Right, this will naturally happen for most people, but if you're mindful of this effect you can work to curb it if you choose. There are people in the top 1% who "feel poor" - because they live in expensive homes, drive luxury cars, feel the need to send their kids to the most expensive private schools, and have friends who own yachts - and there are millionaires who basically live like they make $80,000. I would aim more toward the latter (although obviously going too far in that direction can be unhealthy too).
scyclow 11y ago
When you adjust for cost of living, Chicago actually isn't that bad. After adjusting for COL, it's actually fairly high, according to: http://tgeonetta.com/cost-of-living-vs-salary-best-cities-for-software-developers-and-engineers/ http://tgeonetta.com/cost-of-living-vs-salary-best-cities-fo...
nemo44x 11y ago
Chicago is so incredibly cheap compared to NYC or SF. You can actually afford to own something in the most desirable parts of Chicago and can still have the benefit of not having to own a car in many cases. I thought about relocating to Chicago (it's a great, underrated city) and was shocked how cheap the rent was in places like Lincoln Park. I could just buy a place. I can't say that about NYC or SF where rents are more than double. What you pay $3,300.00/month for in NYC or SF you can get for $1,500.00/month in Chicago. Places I looked at also included parking. In a place like NYC or SF a parking spot can cost over $800.00/month. There's just so many wealthy people in NYC and SF and so much more demand for limited living space. Cost of living will influence salaries a lot.
- ocdtrekkie 11y ago
  I don't know about downtown, since I'm a suburbanite, but I've found in the Chicago area, it's generally cheaper to buy than rent. My first place was a condo, because renting was pretty much throwing money away. And if you can suffer the commute, in the suburbs, you get a condo AND a parking spot for $800 a month. o_o
  - nemo44x 11y ago
    I agree. When I was doing an apartment search I started to realize renting wasn't worth it in Chicago if you have the funds to buy. My goal was to find a 6 month lease so I could figure out where I wanted to buy. I'm a city guy so the 'burbs aren't for me. I've heard that condo's are being built rather rapidly in the city so the demand curve has stayed steady resulting in stable and affordable prices. I wish I could say the same about NYC. Even as more and more places are being built there are more and more people moving here keeping demand unbelievably high. But alas, the move was not to be (for now anyways).
- jrockway 11y ago
  Have to agree. I grew up in Chicago and moved to New York about 4 years ago. My W2 income in NYC is about 3x higher than it was in Chicago, though I am better at my job now than I was then so it's not all a cost-of-living adjustment. Anyway, I've begun the house search in New York City. I'm looking for a 1 bedroom apartment, in some place like Brooklyn Heights, Carrol Gardens, Gowanus, etc. Not Midtown Manhattan or Tribeca. Setting the budget to $700,000, literally everything available is a tiny shithole. I did find a small 1 bedroom apartment in Brooklyn Heights that's nice. 3 million dollars. I did the same search in Chicago. For half the money, you can get 1500 square feet, with nice modern finishings, 13 foot ceilings, etc. right downtown. If I were buying in Chicago, my conundrum would be "this is really too much space, my house is going to feel _empty_". The NYC and SF housing situation is really quite insane. The best career move I can imagine making is keeping my current salary and literally moving anywhere else in the world, except maybe London. The rest of the world is dirt cheap compared to NYC and the bay area. It's so crazy.
eldavido 11y ago
Social status. Developers don't have high social status in Chicago, whereas in the Bay Area, they do. I don't care what people say, pay is all just social status. Even relatively objective measures like, "I made the company XX" are only possible in the scope of narrow consulting engagements, and such estimates are hazy. Trying to quantify the long-term economic value of an employee is even worse.
- spyrosg 11y ago
  This. The value of social status could be easily tested by exchanging a high salary for significant ownership of the company. My bet is that people would be just as happy. Someone here recently ranted a bit against the fact that bright minds work in finance on useless work instead of greater things. The one answer from such a worker was about the huge difference between management compensation and worker compensation in those other, "more important" fields. Not the absolute salary.

rhino369 11y ago

To add another reason beyond just cost of living: Chicago has a bunch of really high quality engineering schools nearby that produce an absolute ton of engineers. You have people from UIUC, Northwestern, Purdue, IUB, UWMadison, and Michigan all moving to chicago after graduation. It creates a sort of glut in the labor supply. A lot of them cannot or just don't want to move far away for more pay. A lot of the grads are from chicago or smaller midwestern cities.

chairmankaga 11y ago

Interested in your opinion on what the range should be, currently struggling with knowing my true value in this market.

sparuchuri 11y ago

My anecdata having worked in Seattle and Chicago now: Chicago's 'tech scene' is mostly either trading or tech applied in an incremental way to an existing business model, eg Groupon. The trading firms do pay quite well, but you'll be in an extreme niche and likely have limited insight into how you could ever leave, given you've not been building products/programming so much as coding performance improvements. The few "hard tech" companies I've seen come from Chicago are either a generation old at this point (eg Motorola) or have gone under (eg TempoIQ). The other fact of Chicago is, most of the tech talent here is here for reasons beyond having the best job ever. When I moved back, just about no one could believe that I didn't have a family/significant other/etc reason to move back beyond the job itself. When you have a market like that, employers have some buying power with the talent that does need to stay here. There's simply so few alternatives to the situation, given there's also little appetite for significantly striking out on your own, compared to the coast. Edit: I'll also say the appetite for go big or go home company growth is limited here. Can't tell you the last time I saw a "shoot for the moon" idea originate in Chicago. There are pros/cons to that, admittedly.

jeffasinger 11y ago
This conforms to a somewhat surreal experience I had talking to an internal recruiter in Chicago a few months ago. "Oh, you already have offers on the table in NYC and Boston, with no family here? Yeah, I understand why you wouldn't be interested in Chicago"
DylanL 11y ago
Having done the same (Seattle then Chicago) trading is big here, and pays well, but can be less than rewarding if you like building products. That being said, I think there are plenty of interesting tech companies here if you dig a bit. For example, CleverSafe (https://www.cleversafe.com/ https://www.cleversafe.com/), Signal (http://www.signal.co/ http://www.signal.co/), and BrainTree (https://www.braintreepayments.com/ https://www.braintreepayments.com/) are larger ones with real engineering challenges. And, if you are interested in a smaller Chicago company doing interesting things, feel free to check out Earshot (http://earshotinc.com/careers http://earshotinc.com/careers) - we are hiring. </plug> Even if Earshot isn't right for you feel free to connect with me if you are interested in the Chicago startup scene.

sharps 11y ago

This has been on my mind for awhile. My current theory is that Chicago companies don't need top talent and there are plenty of non-top talent engineers. simple supply and demand.

aerovistae 11y ago

Easier to hire here, supposedly. Fewer tech firms by comparison to SF/NY -> less competition for applicants. I'm in Chicago making ~95k and these threads the last couple days have been ever so mildly depressing, with people graduating same year as me and making $323k.

rhino369 11y ago
I left Chicago for a job and I totally regret it. 95k in Chicago is a really good living.
mfoy_ 11y ago
I mean, for what it's worth they say quality of life barely changes once you're past a threshold.[1] So I wouldn't worry about it too much. [1]http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/18/money-improves-quality-of-life_n_1434073.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/18/money-improves-qual...
- aerovistae 11y ago
  I just have a hard time believing that. It's a funny contradiction because I know perfectly well I'm not really much happier now at $95k than I was at $60k, or working in a park for minimum wage a decade ago, but at the same time there's so much I'd like to do that I don't because I'm trying to save money, and at $323k it would be pretty effortless to save massively and do whatever I wanted.
  - plaguuuuuu 11y ago
    The things you want to do start to expand when you have more money, plus in the first place your budget for mundane shit blows out due to lifestyle inflation. If you socialise with other people in the same income bracket, it's going to happen.
    - graedus 11y ago
      Right, this will naturally happen for most people, but if you're mindful of this effect you can work to curb it if you choose. There are people in the top 1% who "feel poor" - because they live in expensive homes, drive luxury cars, feel the need to send their kids to the most expensive private schools, and have friends who own yachts - and there are millionaires who basically live like they make $80,000. I would aim more toward the latter (although obviously going too far in that direction can be unhealthy too).

scyclow 11y ago

When you adjust for cost of living, Chicago actually isn't that bad. After adjusting for COL, it's actually fairly high, according to: http://tgeonetta.com/cost-of-living-vs-salary-best-cities-for-software-developers-and-engineers/ http://tgeonetta.com/cost-of-living-vs-salary-best-cities-fo...

nemo44x 11y ago

Chicago is so incredibly cheap compared to NYC or SF. You can actually afford to own something in the most desirable parts of Chicago and can still have the benefit of not having to own a car in many cases. I thought about relocating to Chicago (it's a great, underrated city) and was shocked how cheap the rent was in places like Lincoln Park. I could just buy a place. I can't say that about NYC or SF where rents are more than double. What you pay $3,300.00/month for in NYC or SF you can get for $1,500.00/month in Chicago. Places I looked at also included parking. In a place like NYC or SF a parking spot can cost over $800.00/month. There's just so many wealthy people in NYC and SF and so much more demand for limited living space. Cost of living will influence salaries a lot.

ocdtrekkie 11y ago
I don't know about downtown, since I'm a suburbanite, but I've found in the Chicago area, it's generally cheaper to buy than rent. My first place was a condo, because renting was pretty much throwing money away. And if you can suffer the commute, in the suburbs, you get a condo AND a parking spot for $800 a month. o_o
- nemo44x 11y ago
  I agree. When I was doing an apartment search I started to realize renting wasn't worth it in Chicago if you have the funds to buy. My goal was to find a 6 month lease so I could figure out where I wanted to buy. I'm a city guy so the 'burbs aren't for me. I've heard that condo's are being built rather rapidly in the city so the demand curve has stayed steady resulting in stable and affordable prices. I wish I could say the same about NYC. Even as more and more places are being built there are more and more people moving here keeping demand unbelievably high. But alas, the move was not to be (for now anyways).
jrockway 11y ago
Have to agree. I grew up in Chicago and moved to New York about 4 years ago. My W2 income in NYC is about 3x higher than it was in Chicago, though I am better at my job now than I was then so it's not all a cost-of-living adjustment. Anyway, I've begun the house search in New York City. I'm looking for a 1 bedroom apartment, in some place like Brooklyn Heights, Carrol Gardens, Gowanus, etc. Not Midtown Manhattan or Tribeca. Setting the budget to $700,000, literally everything available is a tiny shithole. I did find a small 1 bedroom apartment in Brooklyn Heights that's nice. 3 million dollars. I did the same search in Chicago. For half the money, you can get 1500 square feet, with nice modern finishings, 13 foot ceilings, etc. right downtown. If I were buying in Chicago, my conundrum would be "this is really too much space, my house is going to feel _empty_". The NYC and SF housing situation is really quite insane. The best career move I can imagine making is keeping my current salary and literally moving anywhere else in the world, except maybe London. The rest of the world is dirt cheap compared to NYC and the bay area. It's so crazy.

eldavido 11y ago

Social status. Developers don't have high social status in Chicago, whereas in the Bay Area, they do. I don't care what people say, pay is all just social status. Even relatively objective measures like, "I made the company XX" are only possible in the scope of narrow consulting engagements, and such estimates are hazy. Trying to quantify the long-term economic value of an employee is even worse.

spyrosg 11y ago
This. The value of social status could be easily tested by exchanging a high salary for significant ownership of the company. My bet is that people would be just as happy. Someone here recently ranted a bit against the fact that bright minds work in finance on useless work instead of greater things. The one answer from such a worker was about the huge difference between management compensation and worker compensation in those other, "more important" fields. Not the absolute salary.