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Comment by asark | Hacker News Reader

Mid-career developer rates in my much-smaller-market-than-Chicago city are like $120-150k—salary, that is. $4k/week's the minimum I'd need to even consider jumping to consulting/contracting, and even then I'd probably need more like $5-6k/wk to make it a good idea.

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Just curious, how come Glassdoor shows just $82k for Chicago [1]? Are these reported values far too low or is there something else at play? As your market is $135k and you implied Chicago has higher salaries.

I am not from the US and just try to understand if all the high salaries that get mentioned here on HN are reality.

[1] https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/chicago-software-develope...

Salaries have gone kinda nuts the last 3ish years. IDK what's going on, but that's the state of things. Still, even 3-4 years ago ~$70-80k was entry-level around here, as far as places with actual money went. Maybe (unfunded) startups or something else that's getting included in the stats (state jobs?) drag the average down? I'd certainly assume Chicago averages higher than here—we're very much a tier under them, so far as tech-hubbitude.

Chicago isn't very much of a tech-hub outside of fintech, and the business culture is completely different than the west coast and newer startup-focused markets. Things are shifting a bit, but by and large its not a place dripping with VC dollars looking to fund startups and burn cash on developer salaries.

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