Tech salaries in Austin

[Hill Country]

Here is the latest survey (2017) from dice for tech job salaries.

http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_T...chPro_2017.pdf

So Silicon Valley is about 20% more than Austin.

I think my HW design job pays about the same base as those of SV.

[balor123]

Originally Posted by deadcoder

- Big Data (Data Scientists, data engineers, architects, etc)

A friend of mine is a recruiter and she places people in contract jobs for these types of positions. The highest rate she's filled was for an effective salary of about $350k. While that's high, it sounded like there were plenty of positions in that neighborhood. Considering I make about half that here, I'd say that's damn good money! I don't work in this field but in my field there are certainly people making ~$200k+. Not a trendy industry but one which values specialized domain knowledge and problem solving over specific skillsets.

Getting $150K-$200K (base salary) is not very rare here.

Maybe not very rare. It's still rare. Like top 5% of technology workers I'd guess.

Another route to an income like this is to work at a company in a high cost living center and then relocate here. If they like you enough, then they'll keep employing you at your old salary. Usually it involves some travel to stay relevant but it's a good deal that most people can take advantage of. I know a few people who've done this (myself included) and, while I don't think it's common, I'd guess that it's on the uptick.

[mhudson78641]

Originally Posted by balor123

A friend of mine is a recruiter and she places people in contract jobs for these types of positions. The highest rate she's filled was for an effective salary of about $350k. While that's high, it sounded like there were plenty of positions in that neighborhood. Considering I make about half that here, I'd say that's damn good money! I don't work in this field but in my field there are certainly people making ~$200k+. Not a trendy industry but one which values specialized domain knowledge and problem solving over specific skillsets.



Maybe not very rare. It's still rare. Like top 5% of technology workers I'd guess.

Another route to an income like this is to work at a company in a high cost living center and then relocate here. If they like you enough, then they'll keep employing you at your old salary. Usually it involves some travel to stay relevant but it's a good deal that most people can take advantage of. I know a few people who've done this (myself included) and, while I don't think it's common, I'd guess that it's on the uptick.

Agreed. I see a lot of salaries in my job and most tech positions I see are the 140-160 range. Most of the higher incomes are either executives, lawyers or self employed.

[beaste]

Originally Posted by deadcoder

Sure, experience in these fields pay pretty good $ in Austin
- Big Data (Data Scientists, data engineers, architects, etc)
- Cloud (Cloud Architect, DevOps, etc)

Languages/tools they use mostly:
- Scala, R, Python, Chef/Puppet
- AWS (EC2, EMR, S3, Redshift, Cloud*, etc), Spark, Hadoop ecosystems, Elasticsearch/Solr, Splunk, Kafka, Storm

These are based on my experience from last 2 years (hired & got hired). If someone has good experience(4+ years) in most of them, they get the most $. Getting $150K-$200K (base salary) is not very rare here.

I'm pretty sure some other fields pay good money too but I can't comment about that.

Most importantly, how much you are up-to-date with the latest technologies - that's the key thing.

I work in that field and making six figures but I'm not making $150K+ so I mist be doing something wrong!

[deadcoder]

Originally Posted by beaste

I work in that field and making six figures but I'm not making $150K+ so I mist be doing something wrong!

I don't think so, may be my comment need a bit more clarification. My $150K+ comment was mainly for those folks who have experienced in almost all of those. I agree, it's not very common in our industry and we hardly find that kind of candidates. If you have such experience and looking for a switch, you should PM me If not, try to expand your domain. For example, if you are more on Cloud, focus on Big Data, or vice-versa, all of them are very correlated and having all of them under your belt give you the best bet

[beaste]

Originally Posted by deadcoder

I don't think so, may be my comment need a bit more clarification. My $150K+ comment was mainly for those folks who have experienced in almost all of those. I agree, it's not very common in our industry and we hardly find that kind of candidates. If you have such experience and looking for a switch, you should PM me If not, try to expand your domain. For example, if you are more on Cloud, focus on Big Data, or vice-versa, all of them are very correlated and having all of them under your belt give you the best bet

I will have to PM you anyways just to network in this crazy industry man!

[TagalongCookie]

I'm a software engineer in silicon valley at a top tech company. I'm considering Austin because even with a large salary (even by Bay Area standards), it's barely enough to support a family of 4. I love the area I'm in, the walkability score, excellent school, and the perfect climate. However, it's very unlikely I'll ever get into home ownership in my current location with home prices starting at 1.5M for a tiny townhome. It seems as soon as people start having families, they realize it's time to leave the bay area. It's just impossible without dual tech incomes.

I've done some research on salaries and cost of living for several areas. Austin initially sounded like a great option, but on paper it doesn't appear to be as cheap as I thought with the Texas sized property taxes. Seattle actually seems better off financially, but has it's own set problems that I'm well aware of.

So I'm curious how the techies in Austin feel about their quality of life? It seems like the city is getting really expensive really fast. I know some of the big tech offices have remote campuses there, but I generally find remote work to be mainly B-projects and have limited potential for career growth. It also seems like living in the Austin area will probably put me in the North Austin suburbs (because West Austin and the central core is pricy), which means I probably won't have that nice walkability score I'm so fond of. Difficult decisions. I'll have to schedule a visit but wanted to get a pulse of how the tech workers feel about the silicon hills? Are you happy with your move? Any expats from the bay area of Seattle that can comment on the differences/challenges/benefits they've noticed. Thanks so much!

[Hill Country]

Originally Posted by TagalongCookie

It seems as soon as people start having families, they realize it's time to leave the bay area. It's just impossible without dual tech incomes.

Exactly same reason we came from the Bay Area to Austin in 2008. DW quited her SW engineer job. It is enough to support a family with a single tech income here.

BTW, I don't hear people refer to Austin as Silicon Hill anymore. A shrinking number of HW employment, and more diversification of tech jobs.

[deadcoder]

Originally Posted by TagalongCookie

It seems as soon as people start having families, they realize it's time to leave the bay area. It's just impossible without dual tech incomes.

You're spot on! Couldn't agree more.

Originally Posted by TagalongCookie

I've done some research on salaries and cost of living for several areas. Austin initially sounded like a great option, but on paper it doesn't appear to be as cheap as I thought with the Texas sized property taxes. Seattle actually seems better off financially, but has it's own set problems that I'm well aware of.

I kind of agree with you here. Looks like you are well aware of pros/cons about Seattle, if you think you can cope up with that, I would recommend you to pick Seattle over Austin. We couldn't, as weather was pretty important for us.

Originally Posted by TagalongCookie

So I'm curious how the techies in Austin feel about their quality of life? It seems like the city is getting really expensive really fast. I know some of the big tech offices have remote campuses there, but I generally find remote work to be mainly B-projects and have limited potential for career growth. It also seems like living in the Austin area will probably put me in the North Austin suburbs (because West Austin and the central core is pricy), which means I probably won't have that nice walkability score I'm so fond of. Difficult decisions. I'll have to schedule a visit but wanted to get a pulse of how the tech workers feel about the silicon hills? Are you happy with your move? Any expats from the bay area of Seattle that can comment on the differences/challenges/benefits they've noticed. Thanks so much!

Quality of life is simply great. We had so many opportunities to move to Bay Area when we were in Southern California, but every time we did our research, it was always ended at Austin. Yes, it's true that you'll not get same tech culture(meetups and conferences are not up to the mark as SF/Bay) here but it's good enough and much better than some other tech hubs. B-projects is common in most of the big companies who recently moved(or started moving) to Austin, but one of the good thing about Austin is you have plenty of options. If you don't like it, you will find another one. There are good amount of strong VCs backed startups as well as mid-size tech companies. If you care about walkability score, just pick the company based on that. Most of the startups are in the downtown areas, whereas most of the mid/large size tech companies are in north side. Hope it helps.

[Sqoots]

Austin is where engineers go to build families.
Silicon Valley is just where they get experience.