Our Best Blogs of February posts includes stories on cities with the best tech salaries, the most in-demand tech skills and coding languages for 2019 and the growing influence of two executive positions in the tech industry. That’s a lot of great stuff to read when you’re waiting for the weather to break!
Top cities for tech salaries
The top cities for tech salary may seem obvious: San Francisco, Seattle and San Diego. However, soaring salaries in these cities and others has complicated the picture by driving up cost of living. A recent survey by Dice looked at the current state of tech salaries in urban areas and in doing so, took cost of living into consideration.
Once again, the Bay Area topped the list for top tech salaries. However, the average tech salary of more than $118,000 is actually “more like” $93,000, Dice said.
Tech professionals must think about if the monetary grind of Silicon Valley, which includes its long commutes, sky-high housing prices and other costly expenses, all to the tune of around $25,000 per year. While costs might deter some from moving to Silicon Valley, those organizations and hiring personnel in the region will have to pay out high salaries, lavish perks and benefits to be able to source the talent they need for their operations.
Buoyed by both major tech firms and a growing community of start-up companies, Seattle came in second on the Dice survey with an average tech salary of around $105,000, or around $95,000 after adjusted for cost of living.
The in-demand languages and skills for 2019
Software developers continue to be the most in-demand tech professionals in the United States. As for the kind of software developer abilities are being sought, recent figures show the typical collection of well-established languages are the most desired. In the US and the United Kingdom, enterprise utility and Android app language Java is still the most sought-after skill, followed by the web-scripting languages JavaScript and Python.
In addition to these three languages, many employers say they are seeking various correlated abilities. For instance, postings for Java developers often ask for experience with building enterprise-focused apps using Java EE.
Curiously, the demand for data scientist doesn’t seem to be as high right now as many had been projecting.
Bigger roles for CPO and CSO positions
Recent privacy-related incidents from Google and Facebook have ratcheted up the scrutiny on the entire industry and as a result, the Chief Privacy Officer (CPO) and Chief Security Officer (CSO) positions are becoming more and more important.
The first incident involved Google’s Nest smart-home product, which was found to have a clandestine microphone. The second incident involved major applications sending sensitive user data to Facebook, regardless of whether the user even has a Facebook account.
Due to these and similar incidents, the tech industry and tech-adjacent industries are not prioritizing the roles of CPO and CSO.
