Hired logoSoftware engineers in 11 U.S. cities have new data to inform their understanding of where to go for the best pay thanks to a report from Hired, “the company on a mission to get everyone a job they love.”

Hired’s State of U.S. Salaries Report focuses on three major points for software engineers and the businesses seeking to hire them:

  • How tech salaries stack up across 11 major U.S. tech hubs.
  • Where software engineers get the most bang for their buck when factoring in the cost of living.
  • How starting your career in San Francisco can affect your future salary prospects.

The news appears to be good again for Bay Area tech workers when it comes to software engineer salaries — an average of $132,000 a year, Hired says. But when you adjust for cost of living, the money goes much further in nine other tech cities, with the exception of New York. An engineer making $125,000 in Seattle would need to make $164,000 in San Francisco to maintain the same quality of life.

Hired salaries reportStarting your career in the Bay Area does have advantages when it comes to leaving, the report finds. Workers who say goodbye to that high-cost region command higher offers than candidates from any of the other cities in the report, Hired says. If a software engineer leaves San Francisco and goes across country for a $131,000 job in Washington, D.C., that’s still $16,000 more than the average engineer in that city makes.

Hired salaries reportEmployers can mine the report for a little intel, as well. Hired breaks down how many workers you can hire in each city with the same engineering budget. Your biggest team can be built in Atlanta; the Bay Area office will be a little less crowded.

Hired says its report is based on proprietary information gathered and analyzed by the company’s product data science team. “The salaries included reflect more than 80,000 interview requests and job offers from the past year facilitated through our marketplace of more than 3,000 participating companies and 10,000 job seekers,” Hired says.

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