My impression is that in Chicago -- and really everywhere outside the SF BA and NYC -- has much weaker comp for engineers.
It makes sense, really. By far the majority of SE jobs in these places are in IT departments writing line of business software. These are Java and .Net shops usually and anecdotally it seems they pay from $60-90k.
The companies where engineers are profit centers -- web startups and software companies, etc -- are desirable and attractive. Importantly, these are usually high margin businesses. In competitive markets, these companies meet engineer scarcity with attractive pay and equity packages. In places like Chicago, for every opening at 37 Signals you have 5 applicants from places like Crate & Barrel.
This is unfortunate especially because even here in SF I think engineers are not yet paid what they are worth. I reach this conclusion by looking at the margins of software companies and profitable internet companies. You can clearly see the value software engineers are creating.
To be clear, I'm sure there are thousands of highly paid software engineers in the greater Chicago area. it's a very big city and there is a lot of money there. Hell there may be thousands of highly paid engineers in finance alone. Chicago is certainly the heart of trading in this country. I'm generalizing.
My standard of living in Chicago was much higher than in the sfbay, despite the salary being much lower. The cost of living in the Bay is outpacing salary packages for engineers, it's nutty.
Nearly every major study I've seen going back decades has Chicago having lower comp numbers for tech than SV. But usually its on the order of 3-10%. How that compares in cost of living adjusted terms I don't know.
The 60-90k number sounds absurd to me. Having worked in Chicago for quite some time, 60k is what a new graduate could have earned 10 or 12 years ago in the middle of the last bubble burst. 90k seems like a plausible starting point now for an entry level Java developer.
The last time I worked in a .NET shop, we would not have been able to hire any of our targeted developers for anywhere near those numbers and that was 5 or so years ago.
On the southside I was offered $40k for custom Magento development (php) after a "trial period"... they said $50k was impossible for the next couple years even if I did great. That offer was the worst I've ever heard.
Now I make the average salary of a web developer in Chicago according to glassdoor. I have 5 years experience as a dev, with a ton of holes in my resume (because my heart is in doing my own startups). Just thought add that anecdote.
I'm getting $75k as a Python engineer with 5 years experience. Am I absurdly underpaid?
My job feels easy, I have flexible hours, little oversight, independence to build cool things, good benefits, and I feel very lucky that anyone would pay me so much money to sit in a climate controlled office playing with a computer.
As with any market based pricing its hard to say whether the price is right or wrong. Because the real price is what the market will bear.
I will say, for the broad outlines that you've given that is a low compensation figure. And projecting a bit, I can probably figure out why. First you said yourself, that you don't value yourself much more highly than you are currently getting paid. Why should anyone else?
Secondly, the way you present your product (Python engineer) lowers the prestige/premium it should cost. First, but least importantly, because Python, in general, pays slightly less than other technologies. Second, and much more importantly, being a programming cog to be placed into a programming assembly line is much less valuable than being a business problem solver that uses and builds technology.
I'd recommend going over to patio11's blog and reading:
I wouldn't presume to say whether you are underpaid or overpaid. But I will tell you this. I started at Google in the a little after the middle of the last decade, with no experience, just a bachelor's degree, not knowing my ass from my elbow. I started at $90k, not including $50-100k of stock and bonus, and was making nearly double that within a couple of years (certainly before five had passed). The fresh grad new hires today make a lot more than I did.
My understanding is that most of the big and medium names in the Bay are offering at least what I started out for people with no experience.
That said, my house cost almost $2M, and it is not a terribly nice house by the standards of anywhere but here. So . . . do with that what you will.
It makes sense, really. By far the majority of SE jobs in these places are in IT departments writing line of business software. These are Java and .Net shops usually and anecdotally it seems they pay from $60-90k.
The companies where engineers are profit centers -- web startups and software companies, etc -- are desirable and attractive. Importantly, these are usually high margin businesses. In competitive markets, these companies meet engineer scarcity with attractive pay and equity packages. In places like Chicago, for every opening at 37 Signals you have 5 applicants from places like Crate & Barrel.
This is unfortunate especially because even here in SF I think engineers are not yet paid what they are worth. I reach this conclusion by looking at the margins of software companies and profitable internet companies. You can clearly see the value software engineers are creating.
To be clear, I'm sure there are thousands of highly paid software engineers in the greater Chicago area. it's a very big city and there is a lot of money there. Hell there may be thousands of highly paid engineers in finance alone. Chicago is certainly the heart of trading in this country. I'm generalizing.