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My wife and I currently live in a very low cost of living area (aside from very high taxes), and are trying to develop a game plan to eventually move to San Diego. I believe we would only be looking to rent as the plan is to live there for 2-3 years and soak up the sun while building up our careers some more.
I understand that moving to SD will likely mean a fairly dramatic cost of living change, though I was wondering if salary also tends to scale with that...
About me:
Low-cost of living area ($130K house = 1900 sq ft, 3 bedrooms, 1.5 bath). Total mortgage including taxes, interest, insurance, etc is under $1000/mo.
I currently make just over $61K as a UNIX/Linux systems administrator w/ 4 years full-time enterprise experience in RHEL, AIX, Solaris, HPUX, IBM storage, TSM, LAMP environments, clustering (HACMP, Veritas, Red Hat, RAC), etc, masters degree, and currently 5 active Linux certifications.
Any one able to help me to guesstimate what the market salary for my skill-set in SD might be? If it does not increase drastically, would I still be able to afford living in a nicer area? We really like La Jolla, Downtown, Coronado, etc. Really only looking for perhaps a 2 bedroom nice apartment.
Wife currently brings in ~50K/yr, so our annual take-in is currently just over 110K. In her field, I don't expect her to make too much more in SD, though I am hoping my salary may jump a bit.
In reality, you may make less. SD is notorious for the 'sunshine tax' [read about it on past threads here on this forum; use search feature]. Even before real estate went sky high in SD, wages were not commensurate with COL.
Also, the quote above is average...many jobs will be lower. [There are other search results you may want to look into re: salary averages for your skill set...Seems like you'd be on the higher end with your background.] Hopefully, Sassberto or someone else on this forum who works in IT and has expert insight on the market here in SD will chime in.
With your combined salary, it's entirely possible to rent a nice 2 bedroom-Carmel Valley/Del Mar, Encinitas, Carlsbad are other areas you might consider.
Also, research past threads re: 'Is SD a good place for a young professional' as far as growing career, etc., for more perspective and insights, to make sure this is the place for your professional growth.
I think you're in a potentially great situation to live in SD for 2-3 years for the so cal experience, which is what it sounds like you want. If you could rent your house out while away, that might be a bonus, too.
Okay -I know IT is a great job field to be in, but I really believe that unless you are a military contractor, in healthcare or biotech, I am not sure about the opportunity for you to grow your particular field here. There are other cities that are highly technically-focused. I am not sure where exactly those cities are, but they aren't in SoCal. I know Sacramento was once a booming technology center, but I think the economy put a damper on that.
San Diego "tries" because we have SD Tech and Qualcomm, but those are mostly engineering jobs.
Considering everything you nailed down in your post, it sounds like you could have fun for a few years out here.
In general, it can be a challenge getting a gig here from afar or getting one quickly if you decide to move. Its been said on many other 'I want to move to SD' threads, but definitely try to have some kind of financial cushion that can carry you over for at the very least 6 months. Its not surprise that landing a decent job here that is relevant to what you want to do can take some time.
Not to derail your post, but curious if there were other cities you were considering besides SD?
Being somebody who has hired and interviewed people, your experience and skills come off as a red flag.
" I currently make just over $61K as a UNIX/Linux systems administrator w/ 4 years full-time enterprise experience in RHEL, AIX, Solaris, HPUX, IBM storage, TSM, LAMP environments, clustering (HACMP, Veritas, Red Hat, RAC), etc, masters degree, and currently 5 active Linux certifications. "
If you are really good at what you do and did all that in 4 years and have experience and skills in Redhat, AIX, LAMP(Linux, Apache, MyQL, PHP) and more plus you have a masters and a ton of certifications, I would think you're full of crap or you're just not that good considering your salary.
IT is filled with paper candidates. If I saw a resume filled with all the things you listed, plus a Masters, plus a bunch of certificates, and all that in only 4 years, I'd probably throw your resume in the trash in all honesty. Many people have been around the block to just not believe it. You might be legit and all, I'm just saying this is the challenge you're going to face. Especially moving to a new city where you don't know anybody.
And you're salary is going to hurt you at most places. There are a lot of places that want salary history. And proof of it. And in San Diego, they aren't going to care where you lived or worked or the COL. If you made 61K, but think you deserve 80K or something, nobody is going to give that to you looking at your salary history. Your best bet is a company who has a set rate of what they are looking to give and don't care what you made in the past. But that's hard to come by.
Good luck on your search, but unless you want to become a manager, you probably shouldn't tell potential employers you have all these certifications and skills plus you have a Masters degree. I have plenty of friends who deleted their MBAs from their resume because companies thought they were over qualified. Or worse, they were thought to be guys who would hate being in an IT heads down job. And many of them were just techies who just got an MBA from some small school because they could, not because they were so into becoming some Manager.
Not to derail your post, but curious if there were other cities you were considering besides SD?
We really enjoy Boston and also considered Austin. However, Boston's weather is close to what we are experiencing now and we fell in love with SD after a recent trip. I think it would really be nice for a couple years.
Being somebody who has hired and interviewed people, your experience and skills come off as a red flag.
" I currently make just over $61K as a UNIX/Linux systems administrator w/ 4 years full-time enterprise experience in RHEL, AIX, Solaris, HPUX, IBM storage, TSM, LAMP environments, clustering (HACMP, Veritas, Red Hat, RAC), etc, masters degree, and currently 5 active Linux certifications. "
If you are really good at what you do and did all that in 4 years and have experience and skills in Redhat, AIX, LAMP(Linux, Apache, MyQL, PHP) and more plus you have a masters and a ton of certifications, I would think you're full of crap or you're just not that good considering your salary.
IT is filled with paper candidates. If I saw a resume filled with all the things you listed, plus a Masters, plus a bunch of certificates, and all that in only 4 years, I'd probably throw your resume in the trash in all honesty. Many people have been around the block to just not believe it. You might be legit and all, I'm just saying this is the challenge you're going to face. Especially moving to a new city where you don't know anybody.
And you're salary is going to hurt you at most places. There are a lot of places that want salary history. And proof of it. And in San Diego, they aren't going to care where you lived or worked or the COL. If you made 61K, but think you deserve 80K or something, nobody is going to give that to you looking at your salary history. Your best bet is a company who has a set rate of what they are looking to give and don't care what you made in the past. But that's hard to come by.
Good luck on your search, but unless you want to become a manager, you probably shouldn't tell potential employers you have all these certifications and skills plus you have a Masters degree. I have plenty of friends who deleted their MBAs from their resume because companies thought they were over qualified. Or worse, they were thought to be guys who would hate being in an IT heads down job. And many of them were just techies who just got an MBA from some small school because they could, not because they were so into becoming some Manager.
My first job out of undergraduate was a UNIX administrator for a major aerospace/defense company. I helped my team manage a very large heterogeneous environment of mission-critical UNIX servers and that's where I gained the majority of my exposure to these technologies. It also paid 100% tuition and certs, so as a single guy at the time I took full advantage.
As it is difficult to truly master a particular technology in such an environment, my last couple years have been at a much smaller (5000 employee) company where I've focused exclusively on AIX, RHEL, LAMP on 50+ websites, DS8000 and SVC storage, TSM, and Oracle.
Thus far, salary hasn't been as big of a component for me as free tuition, exposure to high tech, and resume building has been. SD will be my next step forward.
My first job out of undergraduate was a UNIX administrator for a major aerospace/defense company. I helped my team manage a very large heterogeneous environment of mission-critical UNIX servers and that's where I gained the majority of my exposure to these technologies. It also paid 100% tuition and certs, so as a single guy at the time I took full advantage.
As it is difficult to truly master a particular technology in such an environment, my last couple years have been at a much smaller (5000 employee) company where I've focused exclusively on AIX, RHEL, LAMP on 50+ websites, DS8000 and SVC storage, TSM, and Oracle.
Thus far, salary hasn't been as big of a component for me as free tuition, exposure to high tech, and resume building has been. SD will be my next step forward.
I think that's impressive, but what you write reads like somebody trying to throw as many keywords into something as you possibly can. And this is just some forum where many people won't even know what those terms or acronyms mean. And at this point, you already have a Masters degree, so are you trying hard to find somebody who will pay 100 percent tuition? Most places aren' t the military and they just aren't going to pay full cost. Especially considering you already have a masters.
I am wondering why you would move to San Diego if you are looking at building your resume and moving forward though. San diego isn't known as a hotbed for careers in general, and they aren't known to pay well for the most part. Which also means no free tuition, but I'm not sure what you would really need that for at this point anyway. It's great to always want to learn, but at some point, it does become about the money and not free tuition if you already have multiple degrees.
There are some big companies in San Diego where you'd be exposed to different technologies, but in all honesty, places like Qlcm and Sony (which who knows about considering they are slashing many jobs) are not going to give you free range. More likely you'd come in as the Linux Admin and pretty much stick to that. You might get your hands dirty in other things, but these places are big corporations with many employees and departments. It's very unlikely you'd be doing it all on Oracle, MySQL, Linux, AIX, web stuff and so on.
The other option is smaller companies, but you are going to be "the guy" who has to do everything and while you might get your hand dirty in a lot of things, you aren' t going to be exposed to some huge corporate network or system. More likely you need to work 24/7 to keep the fires from burning.
San diego is a great place, but it's more the place where you come to enjoy life for a few years and then move somewhere else. Or it's a place where you might find a great job, but you're probably not going to move up the 'career' ladder as you would in other big cities. It's just not that kind of work culture here. Many people come here to party or have a more laid back lifestyle compared to heads down building a career for the future. Does it happen ? Of course, but I wouldn't recommend San diego to somebody who is looking to move up in the world. Which it seems you are more interested in than anything else.
At the end of the day, you might need to accept that you'll probably find some $70K per year Sys Admin job that touches on some of what you like, but you're probably not going to move up into better roles and you're probably not going to get promoted and so on. And there aren't a ton of other places to jump to where you'd get a huge bump in pay and better technologies and experience. That's just San diego. You might not have to burn the midnight oil like some other places often, but you won't be moving into bigger and better things for the most part either.
If you just want some mid level Sys Admin job, make a decent salary or rate, live a more laid back lifestyle and enjoy the sunshine for a few years, you will love San Diego. But if you are looking to find some job at a company where you'll build up your resume, learn all the latest and greatest technologies, get promoted and so on, you might be disappointed coming here.
Considering everything you nailed down in your post, it sounds like you could have fun for a few years out here.
In general, it can be a challenge getting a gig here from afar or getting one quickly if you decide to move. Its been said on many other 'I want to move to SD' threads, but definitely try to have some kind of financial cushion that can carry you over for at the very least 6 months. Its not surprise that landing a decent job here that is relevant to what you want to do can take some time.
Not to derail your post, but curious if there were other cities you were considering besides SD?
100% agree.
this city is expensive and one of the reasons is because you still have lots of ppl wanting to move here to chase their dreams. austin is more promising for your profession.
San Diego in the midst of "Los Angelification" Limited geography with all the growth. Tech professionals, creatives, IT etc. either outsourced, contracted, free-lanced. Be a big fish in a small pond somewhere else, honestly- but good luck!
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