Highest Paying Cities for Software Developers in the US
The benefits of a good salary can be quickly negated by living in an expensive area. If you’re a software engineer, these cities offer the best overall pay after you factor in the cost of living.
The Glassdoor rankings are based on “real adjusted wages” in each city, which is determined by comparing the local average basic wage in each city with the federal government’s living wages for that area. Basically, you can have a higher salary in one city, but if it’s more expensive to live there, you don’t actually make more money. Here are the top five cities:
- Seattle, Washington : With a real adjusted salary of $ 105,735 and 4,205 job openings.
- San Jose, California : With real adjusted salary of $ 100,989 and 2017 openings.
- San Francisco, California : With real adjusted wages of $ 99,751 and 2,232 job openings.
- Madison, Wisconsin : With a real adjusted salary of $ 97,236 and 105 job openings.
- Raleigh, NC : With a real adjusted salary of $ 94,142 and 416 job openings.
San Jose and San Francisco may seem obvious because of Silicon Valley, but it’s interesting to see Seattle rank first. The average base salary in California is better, but it comes down to the cost of living in Washington. In places like Madison and Raleigh, the cost of living is actually lower than the national average, so you save a lot more of your hard-earned salary there. The rest of the list, 25 cities in total, you can see at the link below.
Top 25 Highest Paid Cities for Software Developers | Glass door