Austin's Average Tech Wage is $100,500

From stateman.com, June 24, 2008

Economist Jon Hockenyos said high-tech wages have risen in Austin because the makeup of the local high-tech work force has changed. There are fewer people manufacturing things and more professional people, including engineers and software developers, involved in product development.

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Also see a related story at the Austin Daily Texan.

Austin Has 3rd Highest High-Tech Wages in US

From Austin Business Journal, June 24, 2008...

Austin ranks third among U.S. cities when it comes to highest high-tech salaries, a new study shows. The average high-tech worker in Austin earned $100,500 in 2006--113 percent more than that the metro area's average private sector wage, according to the American Electronics Association report titled Cybercities 2008: An Overview of the High-technology Industry in the Nation's Top 60 Cities.

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My Wife Has a Theory

I have often wondered why the tech job postings are so sparse in Austin (compared to other places I have worked -- Houston, Dallas, New York, Los Angeles, Sacramento...). Austin is, after all, a decently sized city, and a very attractive place to live and work. The economy here has a definite technological bias: Semiconductors, Software, Hardware, Web Hosting...

It has corporate headquarters for many major corporations, and Home Depot and Hewlett Packard have huge data centers here. Then there are all of the Texas state agencies which employ many tech workers...

Why, then, do we have such a drought in employment requisitions here? My wife theorizes that there are lots of tech job req's here, but that there is an insider network which is privy to these openings, and many job openings, therefore, do not get published. I don't know how much truth there is to this, but I do not dismiss this possibility.

Or does it have more to do with Austin being weird? By that I mean that the techniques for locating jobs in Austin do not follow the same paradigm as in other cities. If this is the case, can someone decode the Austin methodology?

Any thoughts?

Let's Help Each Other Out

The intent behind this journal is twofold:

1. To document as much as possible the job sites, job search tools, and the Austin companies which have a need for tech employees, and
2. To collaborate with other Austin tech professionals to drive out the above information, as well as Austin job market tips

Please feel free to use all that appears here for your own purposes, and if you can contribute something, it would be most welcome. I thank you, and the other Austin tech professionals thank you!

Information and suggestions can be posted as comments to one of my posts, and the post can become a discussion thread. Or, alternatively, you can send an email to rca2.austinjobs@blogger.com, and it will become a draft post of your own. After I review it for appropriateness (and to filter out any spam posts) I will publish it for all to see.

TIA!

Austin Really Is Weird!

Whereas Austin is a very high-tech area, with lots of big tech companies, there always seems to be a dearth of tech job listings for Austin. I am starting this blog to serve as a hub of resources and job-seeker tips for the tech professional in Austin.

Of course, tech companies are not the only source of tech jobs. Companies, large and small, in all industries employ technology professionals to design, develop, and manage technology for their interests. Take Home Depot, for example. They are not a tech company, but they have a huge data center in Austin that employs many tech professionals.

On the left side of the page you will see a collection of links and RSS feeds which pertain to Austin tech jobs. I will add new sites and feeds as I discover them. Currently, the links have a decidely "database" flavor to them, as my expertise is data architecture and data modeling. But I intend for this to become technologically ecumenical and be a good resource for all tech jobs in (and near) Austin. Please comment on this (or future) post if you know of a cool site or feed that should join this collection.

I am planning to add links for all of the major companies and tech headhunters in Austin. I have a list which is now outdated, but I will use that as my springboard. I am planning to get company and contact info for as many of Austin's tech employers as I can.

Please email suggestions, comments, and info to rca2.austinjobs@blogger.com.