On: Why not just a simple spreadsheet of salaries?

[akhilcacharya]

$122K in RDU seems very high for a developer/engineer, strange.

[eitally → akhilcacharya]

It is high, but it depends on experience and who they work for. More common for people with 5-7yr experience is in the 90-110k range, but it's not abnormal to find skilled folks at places like SAS, Cisco, Citrix, Redhat, MS, Lenovo, BASF, IBM, NetApp, and many more earning above mean salaries.

Source: live in RDU, was an engineering director until last summer, hired lots of people here over the years and know a bunch more. What's disturbing is the number of companies only hiring contractors or contract-to-hire engineers around here.

[akhilcacharya → eitally]

That's very interesting. I'm in the area and thought it would skew lower, even for ~18 years experience like in the spreadsheet. It would be nice to know the company for that particular row.

[mhurron → eitally]

> What's disturbing is the number of companies only hiring contractors or contract-to-hire engineers around here.

So, no different than anywhere else.

[vonmoltke → eitally]

I need to look harder in RDU then, because I love North Carolina and would love the pay raise.

[eitally → vonmoltke]

If you prefer working in financial services, you can also check all the banks in Charlotte. Also, MetLife & Fidelity are constantly hiring like mad in Cary/Morrisville.

[vonmoltke → eitally]

Actually, I prefer embedded development. I could do financial services, but I'm not sure I want to.

[RickS → vonmoltke]

What's normal, in your experience, around the area? Thinking about moving out there and would love to talk more, email's in my profile.

[vonmoltke → RickS]

Oh, I'm in Dallas. "Normal" here is apparently ~$95,000 for 10 - 15 years experience.

[samstave → eitally]

What/where is RDU?

[rtkwe → samstave]

Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina is what it usually means, there's a lot of programming and biomedical business in the area between the 3 cities because we have 3 colleges in the area to feed new talent in for a lot of different fields.

(PS: When in doubt check airport codes.)

[samstave → rtkwe]

Ah, thanks - it was the U that threw me off..

[mhurron → samstave]

Raleigh/Durham North Carolina. RDU is the call for the international airport.

Others will also refer to it as RTP, but that's really a specific area in RDU.

[akhilcacharya → samstave]

Raleigh/Durham NC - we're probably the biggest tech hub behind Austin.

[stuff4ben → akhilcacharya]

Hardly. Atlanta, NYC, Chicago, Seattle, etc are all much bigger than RTP. It's nice here, but it ain't that good.

[akhilcacharya → stuff4ben]

Er, behind Austin. Austin is probably behind all of those save for maybe ATL, I don't know much about the tech scene there.

[moondev → akhilcacharya]

Bigger than NYC?

[vonmoltke → moondev]

NYC is behind Austin? I would put Austin #5 behind SFBA, NYC, Seattle, and Boston.

[base698 → samstave]

Most of the Clojure community seems centered in Durham now. Pretty wild.

[puredanger → base698]

Cognitect (where Rich Hickey works and Clojure is maintained) is based in Durham.

[stuff4ben → akhilcacharya]

It's not that high. Cisco for one pays very well. Not sure about IBM, NetApp, or some of the others, but that's expected around here.

Uh, I mean, that was a total fluke, there are no jobs here, go on about your business... ;)

[base698 → akhilcacharya]

I made $99K with about 7ish years experience and had friends that were in the $130K range about 5 years ago. It seemed high then too.

I was interviewing when I found the $99K job and another company said they'd pay $80K, but want to me work minimum 60 hours.