Fifteen Best Cities That You Never Thought of For Tech Jobs
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@thanksaj said:
Now Baton Rouge, that's surprising...
Yeah, I drive through there regularly and... what?
And how did Dallas and Houston not make the list when half of those places did?
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@scottalanmiller said:
@thanksaj said:
Now Baton Rouge, that's surprising...
Yeah, I drive through there regularly and... what?
And how did Dallas and Houston not make the list when half of those places did?
Dallas might not have made the list for the same reason NYC and Silicon Valley didn't.... too obvious.
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It's also possible that because SO many of the jobs in the Dallas area are lowering paying jobs, and this is about the average salary and not the number of jobs, that Dallas didn't make the list. The vast majority of IT jobs in Dallas are call-center jobs that don't pay well.
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@thanksaj said:
It's also possible that because SO many of the jobs in the Dallas area are lowering paying jobs, and this is about the average salary and not the number of jobs, that Dallas didn't make the list. The vast majority of IT jobs in Dallas are call-center jobs that don't pay well.
True, Dallas is not at the top of the payscales by any stretch. But it is definitely not primarily a call center city. Deal with the Datamart and stuff and it is a decent amount of fairly high end IT.
What this list REALLY deals with is software engineering, something that Dallas does not do. That's why Austin, which has no IT, is on the list.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@thanksaj said:
It's also possible that because SO many of the jobs in the Dallas area are lowering paying jobs, and this is about the average salary and not the number of jobs, that Dallas didn't make the list. The vast majority of IT jobs in Dallas are call-center jobs that don't pay well.
True, Dallas is not at the top of the payscales by any stretch. But it is definitely not primarily a call center city. Deal with the Datamart and stuff and it is a decent amount of fairly high end IT.
What this list REALLY deals with is software engineering, something that Dallas does not do. That's why Austin, which has no IT, is on the list.
I don't know Scott. Even the jobs that aren't at the major companies like Verizon and Intel Security are with MSPs that work primarily remotely, so still basically a call center. Every job I had in Dallas was at some form of a call center. And that's the vast majority of the jobs.
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@scottalanmiller , yeah, software dev jobs pay well, even though they are, like you said, by no means IT. An entry-level dev job pays along the lines of a lot of senior level IT jobs, in my experience.
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@thanksaj said:
@scottalanmiller , yeah, software dev jobs pay well, even though they are, like you said, by no means IT. An entry-level dev job pays along the lines of a lot of senior level IT jobs, in my experience.
Not quite, but it does generally lack the low end jobs that IT has (there is no call center equivalent in software engineering.)
Austin pays horribly for IT, far lower than Dallas.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@thanksaj said:
@scottalanmiller , yeah, software dev jobs pay well, even though they are, like you said, by no means IT. An entry-level dev job pays along the lines of a lot of senior level IT jobs, in my experience.
Not quite, but it does generally lack the low end jobs that IT has (there is no call center equivalent in software engineering.)
Austin pays horribly for IT, far lower than Dallas.
I know that's not a perfect comparison, but entry level devs can start at 50 or 60K, which is what I've seen tons of senior engineers make in IT.
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@thanksaj said:
I know that's not a perfect comparison, but entry level devs can start at 50 or 60K, which is what I've seen tons of senior engineers make in IT.
That's not a real senior salary. You are seeing people get senior as a title in lieu of pay. Those are more likely to be mid-levels getting a senior title to make them happy for getting so much lower than even mid-level pay. Not for full time people. No real senior engineer is working full time and getting $50K, even if you live in low cost countries you'll make that much. You can make that doing outsourced work in India if you are a senior engineer level.
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The problem is, companies handle out both "senior" and "engineer" to people who are not doing either to make their positions sound more attractive. It really causes problems because then people go on Glassdoor and report really low rates for the industry that are far lower than they really are.
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@scottalanmiller said:
The problem is, companies handle out both "senior" and "engineer" to people who are not doing either to make their positions sound more attractive. It really causes problems because then people go on Glassdoor and report really low rates for the industry that are far lower than they really are.
Yeah, my title at the new job is Level 1 TAC Engineer. I don't choose it but it is what it is.
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@thanksaj said:
It's also possible that because SO many of the jobs in the Dallas area are lowering paying jobs, and this is about the average salary and not the number of jobs, that Dallas didn't make the list. The vast majority of IT jobs in Dallas are call-center jobs that don't pay well.
Just for you.
HP (EDS) and Dell (PerotSystems) have mostly six figure jobs. Contact centers are normal here, because everyone needs to start somewhere. But there are plenty of high paying IT jobs out there, you just don't have access to them yet. Things like with the finance industry at Comerica, accounting firms like KPMG, big oil in ExxonMobil, and telecommunications with AT&T. And that's JUST the Dallas side of the DFW Metroplex. There are 18 Fortune 500 companies based in DFW, not to mention all the others out there with large operations here or smaller companies based here.
You skew a different way, come back with 10 years experience, you will see a very different landscape.
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@PSX_Defector said:
@thanksaj said:
It's also possible that because SO many of the jobs in the Dallas area are lowering paying jobs, and this is about the average salary and not the number of jobs, that Dallas didn't make the list. The vast majority of IT jobs in Dallas are call-center jobs that don't pay well.
Just for you.
HP (EDS) and Dell (PerotSystems) have mostly six figure jobs. Contact centers are normal here, because everyone needs to start somewhere. But there are plenty of high paying IT jobs out there, you just don't have access to them yet. Things like with the finance industry at Comerica, accounting firms like KPMG, big oil in ExxonMobil, and telecommunications with AT&T. And that's JUST the Dallas side of the DFW Metroplex. There are 18 Fortune 500 companies based in DFW, not to mention all the others out there with large operations here or smaller companies based here.
You skew a different way, come back with 10 years experience, you will see a very different landscape.
This ^^^^
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At least three of the largest financials have their engineering operations in the DFW too, which anyone outside of financial IT would not see. CitiGroups's global engineering center of excellence is there with more than 20,000 people in the six figure and higher engineering division (which confusingly includes administration as its largest group, so not actually engineering) and is the largest single office complex in the Metroplex (at least it was in 2010) and since then J.P. Morgan has moved into town doing the same thing. Goldman - Sachs is moving engineering in. BNP Paribas too, from France, puts their US engineering in Dallas (right downtown, same building as GS.) Those are just the ones that the public knows the names of. At least one top clearing house puts tons and tons of six and seven figure IT jobs (seven figure would be IT management there) on the Fort Worth side of town.
Don't forget that all IT for AA and Southwest is there in town too.
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IBM's Cloud division is based in Dallas too.
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That's a whole lot of tech in one city!
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@nadnerB said:
That's a whole lot of tech in one city!
Fourth largest metro area in the U.S., so you would expect there to be quite a lot. Largest southern US city. Largest number of millionaires in any city in the world. One of the highest income to cost of living ratio averages in the world. Low taxes (no state or city taxes, only federal.) Tons of open space to build and expand, decent weather (a little hot.)
When you consider that, it's actually not an impressive list. NYC, San Francisco and London would dwarf this.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Low taxes (no state or city taxes, only federal.)
That's incorrect. Although in Texas we do not have an INCOME tax it doesn't mean we are not taxed out the ass for other things. Our property taxes are pretty high as compared to other places, our sales tax is beefy, and fees are constantly going up and up.
This is a problem when discussing tax policy. Just because we don't see something come out of our paychecks doesn't mean we don't pay it in other ways. The best way to live in Texas is to rent an apartment, don't drive, and buy only from out of state online retailers who don't charge local sales tax.
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@PSX_Defector said:
That's incorrect. Although in Texas we do not have an INCOME tax it doesn't mean we are not taxed out the ass for other things. Our property taxes are pretty high as compared to other places, our sales tax is beefy, and fees are constantly going up and up.
True. Property taxes are crazy high. I pay as much on $135K house in Texas as I pay on a $350K house in NY. But sales tax is almost identical between the two, on the high side but not super high. And Texas does not tax Internet purchases like NY does.
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@PSX_Defector said:
The best way to live in Texas is to rent an apartment, don't drive, and buy only from out of state online retailers who don't charge local sales tax.
Almost but I beat you. Live with relatives, don't drive and only buy from out of state online
