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NimrodO0l1
TFCSD
What size of house can you buy in Silicon Valley on a 100K salary?
Engineering salaries on the rise
Sylvie Barak
1/24/2012 1:57 PM EST
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--Salaries in the tech sector, especially for engineers, are at their highest level since 2008, according to a recent survey, with average yearly pay for tech professionals in Silicon Valley pushing past $100,000.
Dice.com said Silicon Valley salaries averaged at $104,195, up five percent over last year’s results. The study also found Silicon Valley companies more likely to pay bonuses to employees, with 38 percent of tech workers in the region reporting a bonus last year with an average payout of $12,450.
Outside the Valley, tech employees are also seemingly doing better than ever, with Dice reporting that 12 of the top 20 cities for tech jobs had above average wage growth.
Austin, Texas saw a 13 percent jump in pay to average $89,419, while Portland, Oregon showed an annual wage increase of 12 percent to $82,055. Houston saw seven percent growth ($89,307); and Washington D.C. experienced nearly six percent growth ($94,317).
Chicago and Seattle both saw healthy five percent increases in average tech salaries, while Denver and Dallas/Ft. Worth posted four percent growth. New York, Los Angeles and Raleigh, North Carolina each increased three percent.
In terms of bonuses, Dice found that the number of technology professionals receiving bonuses was 32 percent in 2011, three percent higher than in 2010 and eight percent higher than in 2009.
The most lucrative industries for engineers, said Dice, were the telecoms, hardware, banking, utilities/energy and software spaces.
Dice.com said Silicon Valley salaries averaged at $104,195, up five percent over last year’s results. The study also found Silicon Valley companies more likely to pay bonuses to employees, with 38 percent of tech workers in the region reporting a bonus last year with an average payout of $12,450.
Outside the Valley, tech employees are also seemingly doing better than ever, with Dice reporting that 12 of the top 20 cities for tech jobs had above average wage growth.
Austin, Texas saw a 13 percent jump in pay to average $89,419, while Portland, Oregon showed an annual wage increase of 12 percent to $82,055. Houston saw seven percent growth ($89,307); and Washington D.C. experienced nearly six percent growth ($94,317).
Chicago and Seattle both saw healthy five percent increases in average tech salaries, while Denver and Dallas/Ft. Worth posted four percent growth. New York, Los Angeles and Raleigh, North Carolina each increased three percent.
In terms of bonuses, Dice found that the number of technology professionals receiving bonuses was 32 percent in 2011, three percent higher than in 2010 and eight percent higher than in 2009.
The most lucrative industries for engineers, said Dice, were the telecoms, hardware, banking, utilities/energy and software spaces.
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Sanjib.Acharya
1/24/2012 2:16 PM EST
The chart in this article shows the salary rise for the software engineers. Any good news for the folks in electronics?
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chanj
1/24/2012 2:37 PM EST
The rise seemingly shows the demand of these skills due to the change of business in the valley. In the last few years, there are more social networking startups opening than ever before. The demand of certain skills would be high. What about the other engineering professions?
It would be nice if similar study is done to hardware engineer's, system engineer's and system administrator's.
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SylvieBarak
1/24/2012 2:38 PM EST
I requested a chart :) But that was the only one they distributed with the report.
Hopefully I'll have an update for you soon!
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SylvieBarak
1/24/2012 4:01 PM EST
The answer I just got was: "The response rate for Electrical/Electronics Engineers is too small to disclose. However, tech professionals in the Computer Hardware industry overall did see a pay raise, up five percent year/year to $78,789 on average."
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selinz
1/24/2012 9:26 PM EST
IEEE has a salary calculator. What does that say? Has anything been posted?
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BobsUrUncle
1/27/2012 9:06 PM EST
"The response rate for Electrical/Electronics Engineers is too small to disclose."
Guess there's a good reason for that -- unemployment.
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mranderson
1/30/2012 12:40 AM EST
Many companies have shortages and need to pay to keep experienced talent for all aspects of ASIC design.
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TFCSD
2/1/2012 12:21 AM EST
What size of house can you buy in Silicon Valley on a 100K salary?
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NimrodO0l1
2/6/2012 5:34 PM EST
Much bigger than you could in 2007.
I started to prefix that with 'Sadly', but perhaps it is a good thing.
Nevertheless, Sigh!
Not sure I believe in salary increases in the long-term. It may be that companies have cut all the people they think they should of and now are desperate to keep those identified as worth keeping. (I could be very wrong on this as I am not senior management and they rarely consult with me.) But, long-term India and China are producing lots of engineers at least some of which are or will be good enough to compete with US engineers.
As so many articles have pointed out, when manufacturing goes overseas, much of innovation will occur overseas. It is interesting that Intel and a few better run companies do not send manufacturing overseas.
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