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Comment by S_A_P | Hacker News Reader

In Houston TX, 80-100k for a job is pretty much a given if you can write code. .NET, Java and even PHP jobs easily pay that here, >5yrs experience can/will get you above that range.(sometimes by a large margin)

Yes, this is not an entry level salary, but its easily attainable in 5 years if you are someone that is attracted to a site like this. From the limited experience I have seen, its not uncommon anywhere in Texas or a large part of the US. I have seen some exceptions in Oregon(Portland had a bunch of 65-75k "senior" developer jobs when I looked into that city and North Carolina seems to have a strangely low market average)

I know that not everyone here is a developer or even technical but seems that those that aren't are more entrepreneurial which could lead to far higher pay when you get it right.

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Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but I've been looking in Houston for at least a year now, and I'm finding virtually nothing here, let alone anything at that sort of range. In my (admittedly limited) experience, the development jobs I've seen around are only offering 40-60k. I'd be interested in knowing where these cushy jobs are hiding.

Wow. You should move to Indianapolis. There are companies here dying to give some qualified programmer money. A salary of 80-100k is being offered to experienced Java, .NET -- even Ruby/Rails developers. (I just came from a Rails job at that level.) On top of that, it's a cheap place to live, and is building an interesting little community of tech/startup-minded people.

I dont know what your experience is but if you were coming in at a jr level that seems a bit low. 50-75k seems to be the range for 0-3 yrs of experience. If you are able to get in somewhere and work with the senior guys and find a good group of them who are willing to share knowledge with you it is very easy to get to mid/senior level with some effort.

I have seen some exceptions in Oregon(Portland had a bunch of 65-75k "senior" developer jobs when I looked into that city and North Carolina seems to have a strangely low market average)

How much of this do you think is attributable to differences in cost of living?

Is Portland really that much cheaper? Its not expensive there overall, but it doesn't seem all that cheap either.

I suspect that a direct calculation will show that Portland is more expensive, but the right type of person can live in Portland very happily on much less money than in Houston. Portland really promotes bicycling and light rail, while in Houston urban sprawl is the norm, and a car is virtually a requirement. Between the depressed Oregon economy and the somewhat bohemian culture that is modern Portland, there is probably a self-reinforcing lull in salaries.

It's more a matter of competition. I've worked for companies that picked Portland specifically because it had plenty of developers, but not as many employers, so the supply/demand dynamics favored a lower salary vs. other areas.

Hmm. A rather interesting contract compared to the larger tech cities that can't seem to get enough qualified developers- ever.

According to CNNMoney's Cost of living calculator, it's about 20% more expensive to live in Portland than Houston.

http://cgi.money.cnn.com/tools/costofliving/costofliving.htm...

Everything is bigger in Texas.

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