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I looked at the cities with average salaries and saw that they were at an average of $110k. Why would you bother with that kind of salary when you can work for

I looked at the cities with average salaries and saw that they were at an average of $110k. Why would you bother with that kind of salary when you can work for a SV based company remotely for probably more cash and better growth opportunities? It's rather rare to get stock options or grants to begin with. Then add in how unexciting the companies are typically (can someone even name a tech-heavy company from Kansas City that's not an onshore outsourcing center like a lot of NC's RTP area or much of the Southeast?). Unlike the FB or Googler comparisons often cited I'm nobody special or talented and managed to get $130k+ from miserly employers in not very tech friendly areas, so I can't see how anyone with decent talent taking local jobs in places with as horrible traffic like Chicago or Atlanta with solid career prospects would want to go there. Lack of locally grown talent from universities certainly isn't a problem for most (Georgia Tech is pretty solid, for example). So doesn't that mean they're suffering from brain drain to a fair degree?

dennyabraham 10y ago
comparable quality of life at 110 in chicago is ~180 in sv and probably much higher elsewhere. also, traffic in a place like chicago is an experience very few people in tech ever deal with, given the mass transport.
- sb8244 10y ago
  Can confirm. I work in Atlanta and most people I know don't deal with traffic. Maybe a little but not crazy. There are lots of places to live on public transit and lots of companies hiring on those lines.
  - zellyn 10y ago
    Really? When we returned to Atlanta, we bought a pretty expensive house in Morningside, so that we can be close in and not deal with traffic. Most people I know in Atlanta have to deal with terrible amounts of traffic.
    - lostcolony 10y ago
      I think it depends on where you're working, and what age your coworkers are. If you're working in the city with a wide range of ages, you have people who are more 'settled' living out in the suburbs and commuting in. But if you're working in, say, Alpharetta, with mostly young people, a lot may have moved to be close to work (or if they're fresh out of college, taken an apartment near by anyway). Because, yeah, everywhere I've worked in Atlanta, a majority of people have had some pretty lousy commutes.
  - frankydp 10y ago
    Second this. The sheer volume of employers means that finding something that meets your salary, interest, and commute is almost always possible. Not to mention the 60% savings in cost of living over SV. http://www.bestplaces.net/cost-of-living/san-francisco-ca/atlanta-ga/110000 http://www.bestplaces.net/cost-of-living/san-francisco-ca/at... And, at the end of the day housing is so cost effective it is almost not crazy to move for a job, even within the metro.
    - devonkim 10y ago
      The distribution of jobs around there seems to be non-obvious and may require a lot more effort to find certain market sector jobs. For example, I literally just looked 30 min ago in Atlanta for jobs at Google and there's not a single software engineer / operations engineer job listed. Meanwhile, there's a hundreds, maybe thousands in jobs for well-known software companies in SV while in Atlanta I can see pretty generic jobs at Coca Cola, GE, or a smattering of entertainment. Otherwise, I've only seen cost-cutting outsourcing jobs (typical for technology dinosaurs) that are likely for customers that are terrible at software by executive decision. Despite the dollar utility value difference I'll still assert that the most optimal career path for ambitious, diligent tech workers regardless of whether you're looking for money or for long term life balance is to go for as high as you can comfortably go in the Bay Area or maybe NY when young and with few expenses and go somewhere lower cost of living to settle down. Finance people aren't being stupid by going to NYC early in their career I'd imagine. This career pattern is supported by a study linked on HN a while ago (sorry, can't find link at the moment) with a report on expected earnings when going from the Bay Area elsewhere - starting with as high of salary as possible helps negotiate your pay when going to a lower cost of living area. Your marketable skills should have grown better working at a tech company doing cutting edge projects than for the usual enterprise shovelware projects that are the bread and butter of tech companies outside tech hubs as well.
- borkborkbork 10y ago
  The Chicago devs that work downtown ride public transit or commuter rail. The ones that don't work downtown don't have much traffic to deal with.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    Traffic is a problem if you live in the suburbs. Otherwise, it isn't.
    - stbtrax 10y ago
      It's a problem if you work in the suburbs and your work isn't across from a Metra station.
borkborkbork 10y ago
I'm a homegrown Chicago developer who moved to NYC last year and I haven't looked back.
- hackaflocka 10y ago
  By "homegrown" you mean?
  - borkborkbork 10y ago
    I'm from Chicago and learned to program at school in Chicago.
    - hackaflocka 10y ago
      By school do you mean "high school". I took "home grown" to mean that you learned programming yourself, not via a degree in college.
curiousgal 10y ago
I am always in awe of how well-paid SW Engineers in the US are, like, I know SAP developers in my country with a salary of $7k per year.
- tuna-piano 10y ago
  Curious, what country? And do you think the $7k developer is a similiar quality as the US $100k developer? Crazy that the difference in citizenship can matter that much. By the way, I'm from Chicago, and knew many talented folks with 2-3 years post college getting in the $70k's. Much lower than the easy $100k quoted here.
  - ghostly_s 10y ago
    Someone I know in Chicago with 2 years post-school experience has entertained several offers in the 90k range for front-end dev positions this past year, and this is with a 2-year degree. I assumed back-end/compsci grads were pulling much higher than that, am I missing something?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- devonkim 10y ago
  Lower cost developers regardless of talent / skill typically don't work for companies that prioritize highly skilled, productive engineers in their budgets and plans. Enterprise software companies like SAP, IBM, HP, etc are notorious for this and prioritize relatively few, rare roles that match market rates for a lot of technology leaders. Software that is really slow to release and change due to its customers being slow and bureaucratic have less business need to hire the top tier developers that can keep them competitive - their primary levers in driving business are now sales based, and if you want a career in sales I think those companies are excellent. When HP acquired the company I worked for, they compared themselves in compensation and growth to IBM, SAP, etc. - no mention of Google, Microsoft, or even Yahoo. Furthermore, software developers in the US have so many options that can result in lots of churn when they get assigned really terrible technical work while there's fewer options or a different management approach that treats human labor as a commodity (competes primarily upon price, not much else - it is inefficient to have John Carmack write a bunch of REST calls for a CRUD app, but maybe a team of 12 very cheap developers that are poorly managed can be thrown into a basement and figure it out). It's just globalization at work. American living standards are high (and should well be as the world's largest, richest economy) IMO and salaries are adjusted for the socioeconomic expectations. I grew up here as a child of immigrants and a father used to being abused as an employee relatively (in the bottom 30% of compensation for experience and skill). The kind of luxuries that people expect all the time in terms of housing and leisure activities is a bit myopic though even among Americans that grew up in poverty decades ago I've noticed. "Country people" driving Mercedes SUVs and living in 2500 sq ft houses that need maids is evidently something that exists. I lived perfectly fine by my ideas of adequate living for years after college on less than $1k / mo because I didn't have many interests that required much money but this is around the poverty line it seems. I'd love to live with such a simple life and bank the rest of my income but it'd be a lonely road.

dennyabraham 10y ago

comparable quality of life at 110 in chicago is ~180 in sv and probably much higher elsewhere. also, traffic in a place like chicago is an experience very few people in tech ever deal with, given the mass transport.

sb8244 10y ago
Can confirm. I work in Atlanta and most people I know don't deal with traffic. Maybe a little but not crazy. There are lots of places to live on public transit and lots of companies hiring on those lines.
- zellyn 10y ago
  Really? When we returned to Atlanta, we bought a pretty expensive house in Morningside, so that we can be close in and not deal with traffic. Most people I know in Atlanta have to deal with terrible amounts of traffic.
  - lostcolony 10y ago
    I think it depends on where you're working, and what age your coworkers are. If you're working in the city with a wide range of ages, you have people who are more 'settled' living out in the suburbs and commuting in. But if you're working in, say, Alpharetta, with mostly young people, a lot may have moved to be close to work (or if they're fresh out of college, taken an apartment near by anyway). Because, yeah, everywhere I've worked in Atlanta, a majority of people have had some pretty lousy commutes.
- frankydp 10y ago
  Second this. The sheer volume of employers means that finding something that meets your salary, interest, and commute is almost always possible. Not to mention the 60% savings in cost of living over SV. http://www.bestplaces.net/cost-of-living/san-francisco-ca/atlanta-ga/110000 http://www.bestplaces.net/cost-of-living/san-francisco-ca/at... And, at the end of the day housing is so cost effective it is almost not crazy to move for a job, even within the metro.
  - devonkim 10y ago
    The distribution of jobs around there seems to be non-obvious and may require a lot more effort to find certain market sector jobs. For example, I literally just looked 30 min ago in Atlanta for jobs at Google and there's not a single software engineer / operations engineer job listed. Meanwhile, there's a hundreds, maybe thousands in jobs for well-known software companies in SV while in Atlanta I can see pretty generic jobs at Coca Cola, GE, or a smattering of entertainment. Otherwise, I've only seen cost-cutting outsourcing jobs (typical for technology dinosaurs) that are likely for customers that are terrible at software by executive decision. Despite the dollar utility value difference I'll still assert that the most optimal career path for ambitious, diligent tech workers regardless of whether you're looking for money or for long term life balance is to go for as high as you can comfortably go in the Bay Area or maybe NY when young and with few expenses and go somewhere lower cost of living to settle down. Finance people aren't being stupid by going to NYC early in their career I'd imagine. This career pattern is supported by a study linked on HN a while ago (sorry, can't find link at the moment) with a report on expected earnings when going from the Bay Area elsewhere - starting with as high of salary as possible helps negotiate your pay when going to a lower cost of living area. Your marketable skills should have grown better working at a tech company doing cutting edge projects than for the usual enterprise shovelware projects that are the bread and butter of tech companies outside tech hubs as well.
borkborkbork 10y ago
The Chicago devs that work downtown ride public transit or commuter rail. The ones that don't work downtown don't have much traffic to deal with.
- tptacek 10y ago
  Traffic is a problem if you live in the suburbs. Otherwise, it isn't.
  - stbtrax 10y ago
    It's a problem if you work in the suburbs and your work isn't across from a Metra station.

borkborkbork 10y ago

I'm a homegrown Chicago developer who moved to NYC last year and I haven't looked back.

hackaflocka 10y ago
By "homegrown" you mean?
- borkborkbork 10y ago
  I'm from Chicago and learned to program at school in Chicago.
  - hackaflocka 10y ago
    By school do you mean "high school". I took "home grown" to mean that you learned programming yourself, not via a degree in college.

curiousgal 10y ago

I am always in awe of how well-paid SW Engineers in the US are, like, I know SAP developers in my country with a salary of $7k per year.

tuna-piano 10y ago
Curious, what country? And do you think the $7k developer is a similiar quality as the US $100k developer? Crazy that the difference in citizenship can matter that much. By the way, I'm from Chicago, and knew many talented folks with 2-3 years post college getting in the $70k's. Much lower than the easy $100k quoted here.
- ghostly_s 10y ago
  Someone I know in Chicago with 2 years post-school experience has entertained several offers in the 90k range for front-end dev positions this past year, and this is with a 2-year degree. I assumed back-end/compsci grads were pulling much higher than that, am I missing something?
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
devonkim 10y ago
Lower cost developers regardless of talent / skill typically don't work for companies that prioritize highly skilled, productive engineers in their budgets and plans. Enterprise software companies like SAP, IBM, HP, etc are notorious for this and prioritize relatively few, rare roles that match market rates for a lot of technology leaders. Software that is really slow to release and change due to its customers being slow and bureaucratic have less business need to hire the top tier developers that can keep them competitive - their primary levers in driving business are now sales based, and if you want a career in sales I think those companies are excellent. When HP acquired the company I worked for, they compared themselves in compensation and growth to IBM, SAP, etc. - no mention of Google, Microsoft, or even Yahoo. Furthermore, software developers in the US have so many options that can result in lots of churn when they get assigned really terrible technical work while there's fewer options or a different management approach that treats human labor as a commodity (competes primarily upon price, not much else - it is inefficient to have John Carmack write a bunch of REST calls for a CRUD app, but maybe a team of 12 very cheap developers that are poorly managed can be thrown into a basement and figure it out). It's just globalization at work. American living standards are high (and should well be as the world's largest, richest economy) IMO and salaries are adjusted for the socioeconomic expectations. I grew up here as a child of immigrants and a father used to being abused as an employee relatively (in the bottom 30% of compensation for experience and skill). The kind of luxuries that people expect all the time in terms of housing and leisure activities is a bit myopic though even among Americans that grew up in poverty decades ago I've noticed. "Country people" driving Mercedes SUVs and living in 2500 sq ft houses that need maids is evidently something that exists. I lived perfectly fine by my ideas of adequate living for years after college on less than $1k / mo because I didn't have many interests that required much money but this is around the poverty line it seems. I'd love to live with such a simple life and bank the rest of my income but it'd be a lonely road.