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Higher-paid, faster-growing tech jobs are concentrating in 8 US hubs

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Re: Higher-paid, faster-growing tech jobs are concentrating in 8 US hubs

#261
post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very few engineers (as a percentage of all engineers) even in the Bay Area earn that much (base, all-in, or otherwise). Typical non-management compensation (all-in) is going to cap out ~15% or more below $300k. I've taken several salary surveys and done plenty of research through publicly available sites (e.g. glassdoor, linked in, payscale, etc.). For what it's worth, my all-in compensation is well below $300k/year…

I'm not saying these salaries are normal - I understand I am highly paid. My point is you can typically do better financially in the Bay Area if you are great at what you do. And something I think a lot of people don't appreciate is that by moving to the Bay Area you are more likely to open yourself up to those opportunities in the future. I would have a completely different career had I never moved here.

I don't think "being great" is any more of a differentiator here than anywhere else. In fact here in the Bay Area who you knows matters more than what, just like anywhere else, and in some ways more.

Definitely agree with respect to opportunities, though. Even at double the cost of living or slightly more, the doubled salary means one is saving more in absolute terms and has access to a much better job market.

Re: Higher-paid, faster-growing tech jobs are concentrating in 8 US hubs

#262
post #123
post #16

Yep those are all the cities my tech oriented friends either live in or dream of living in.

Denver is conspicuously absent, although the city itself isn't over a million.

Yeah I tend to see Boulder instead of Denver. That may have to do with the percentages of tech jobs. Denver is still a big Energy city.

Re: Higher-paid, faster-growing tech jobs are concentrating in 8 US hubs

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always been confused as to why Chicago isn't more of a tech hub. Great city, great people, cheap housing, good transportation (by US standards), good schools, etc. Are the Google, Microsoft, and Amazon offices engineering offices? I know that the Microsoft one is not.

When I looked, Chicago had: - Cost center IT departments for the healthcare and insurance sectors out in the exurbs (presumably low respect and high risk of outsourcing). - Quant trading for the commodities market downtown (and really nothing else, unless finance is your cup of tea). I'd love to work for a SV-style technology company in Chicago.

I don't think there is an SV-style company outside of SV because the SV ecosystem is not really replicable.

That said, Chicago has quite a few non-finance tech companies: - Vividseats - Grubhub - Spothero - Sproutsocial - Uptake - Orbitz - HERE technologies - Trunk Club

There are a myriad of smaller startup companies you've never heard of, as well as traditional corporate types like IBM, etc.

Re: Higher-paid, faster-growing tech jobs are concentrating in 8 US hubs

#264
post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying these salaries are normal - I understand I am highly paid. My point is you can typically do better financially in the Bay Area if you are great at what you do. And something I think a lot of people don't appreciate is that by moving to the Bay Area you are more likely to open yourself up to those opportunities in the future. I would have a completely different career had I never moved here.

I don't think "being great" is any more of a differentiator here than anywhere else. In fact here in the Bay Area who you knows matters more than what, just like anywhere else, and in some ways more. Definitely agree with respect to opportunities, though. Even at double the cost of living or slightly more, the doubled salary means one is saving more in absolute terms and has access to a much better job market.

> In fact here in the Bay Area who you knows matters more than what, just like anywhere else, and in some ways more.

I got my current job applying through the website knowing nobody at the company. There are just more (and better) opportunities here.

Re: Higher-paid, faster-growing tech jobs are concentrating in 8 US hubs

#265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the main toolsets in use / in demand on the software side? I'm in the Bay Area and I'm feeling underpaid. Please tell me what to learn. Off-topic: try a five day water fast for your migraines. You need neuronal autophagy.

Personally what I look at is what someone has built. If someone is a great engineer they can adapt, although there are some limits to this (I wouldn't hire someone who only works with MATLAB for a position that largely involves coding in C++). What I like to see are demos, not papers (although a demo of a paper is excellent). ROS is something of a standard framework used in many places. AI is largely a buzzword and c…

Thanks, very helpful.

Most modern illness is caused by a pervasive lack of autophagy, which is basically a cellular cleaning cycle for your body. Since we're all rich and we eat and snack all the time, autophagy cycles are basically never activated. The body needs "feasting" for cellular growth, but is also _needs_ famine for cellular dismantling and re-purposing. Otherwise you'll have cells with damaged mitochondria that keep clinging to life even though they are broken and very inefficient. Sometimes these damaged cells even replicate out of control, AKA cancer.[1] Cancer cells, since they typically rely on sugar fermentation for fuel instead of oxygen, would normally be "marked" as damaged and dismantled during an autophagy cleaning cycle, but since we never stop eating sugar that never happens. Same with migraines.. in my view you basically have a bunch of damaged cells in your brain that need dismantled and cleared out. But unless you fast (or eat keto, however that's a bit less efficient for autophagy) your neural cleaning cycle simply never runs.[2]

https://www.amazon.com/Tripping-Truth-Metabolic-Theory-Cance...

http://perfecthealthdiet.com/2010/09/migraine-sufferers-shou...

Re: Higher-paid, faster-growing tech jobs are concentrating in 8 US hubs

#266
post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good, I hope they do leave, and it's 9 months of rain, not 6 :). Will the last person to leave Seattle please turn out the lights?

So you'd like to turn Seattle into Detroit? I take it you don't live here.

Actually, I'm a PNW native, my parents were, their parents were, ... My dad lost his job as part of the big Boeing bust of 1971 (where the "will the last person to leave Seattle please turn out the lights" sign came from!). Seattle as ALWAYS been a boom and bust town way before I was born.

We always exaggerated the rain and the people just kept coming. So there must be something else going on.

Re: Higher-paid, faster-growing tech jobs are concentrating in 8 US hubs

#268
post #12

I get that you work with what you have (in this case, a corpus of job postings), but a ranking that places Baltimore in the top three tech hubs fails the sniff test. CBRE has a better list here (email registration wall): https://www.cbre.com/research-and-reports/Scoring-Tech-Talen... I'm biased in that it places Atlanta unusually high, but overall it is a better, less surprising ranking: Bay Area Seattle New York Was…

Atlanta is amazing. It has an extremely low cost of living, yet there are tech companies here paying SF wages. Anecdotally, my rent is $1300/mo for a 900 sqft loft directly on Atlanta's Beltline [1], and my total comp is (edit: decided to remove this since I might get doxed. I'll be happy to talk with anyone seriously considering Atlanta via email). It's also been really interesting to see Georgia rocket to the #2 lo…

Can you give a ballpark total comp for your ballpark years of experience? Atlanta is one of the places I've thought about moving to since it's not too far from my home town, but I've heard traffic sucks.

Re: Higher-paid, faster-growing tech jobs are concentrating in 8 US hubs

#269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read somewhere that California has a tradition of lane splitting due to the fact that it was an early adopter of multiple controlled access freeways that would be often have traffic jams for miles. Most early motorcycles would overheat if not moving, so motorcyclists had a high incentive to drive between stopped cars in a traffic jam. This tradition continues to the present day, even though legality of lane splitti…

Actually lane splitting has been legislated in the past year and is definitely legal when not >15mph faster than nearby cars.

What I read is that what "lane splitting" is was legally defined in 2016 but the action was not officially sanctioned or made illegal. Illegal lane splitting is covered under reckless driving. You can see some of the CHP recommended guidelines here[1]. If you have a reference for the lane-splitting legislation, I'd appreciate it as a California rider myself.

[1]http://lanesplittingislegal.com/assets/docs/CHP-lane-splitti...

Re: Higher-paid, faster-growing tech jobs are concentrating in 8 US hubs

#270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it depends on what you count as a 'tech job.' I'm in Cambridge, and obviously the universities are major employers, and biotech/pharma is a dominant industry (our neighborhood surrounded by labs).

Software engineering, I guess, which is my field. I've heard that university work in this tends to be mediocre (and with pay to match), although biotech/pharma can be good.

I've been in the area for a while and have done both plus standard software jobs.

University/academic jobs do tend to have low pay but do usually have great benefits. The work varies, sometimes super cool sometimes not. It tends to be a mix of people REALLY into what they're working on and people who'd rather not be working at all riding a cushy gig.

Biotech/pharma pays better and if you like the domain can be really cool. The software isn't that much different than the rest of the world for the most part. In most places be prepared to be viewed as a second class citizen as the MDs and PhDs get top billing.

All this said i believe that the bio space is where to be as a software pro in Boston

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