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IT-life in Austin
It is known that the IT industry is one of the fastest-growing not only in the United States but all over the world. It requires more and more personnel, salaries are growing, and the areas of application of their knowledge are truly limitless.

Previously, there were no questions about where to go to a programmer in America: all the most important things happened in Silicon Valley and San Francisco. Everyone who wanted to create a startup or build a career in the IT field has directed their footsteps here. However, due to this excitement, the prices of housing and living have become simply cosmic.


One of the best places to live for IT professionals is the cozy city of Austin in the USA, Texas. Against the backdrop of the oil boom in the United States, Austin is constantly developing and improving, many IT jobs in Austin, Texas are being created. In addition, there are several factories and R&D centers of large technology companies like Apple and Samsung. In addition, the city is relatively close to California, where you can go for the weekend.

Life in Austin

Austin has a large number of IT companies and start-ups, government organizations, Congress, and the governor's office are located here. Austin is experiencing a period of rapid growth and explosive development in the IT industry.

To start working and living conveniently in Austin, you need a car. There are American cities where you can (and even should!) live without a car, for example, New York. In Austin, distances are so long and public transport is so underdeveloped that getting from point A to point B can be a problem.

The system works like this.
You approach the scooter on the street, scan the code with your smartphone. The application opens and you can go. The average price is 15 cents per minute. When the ride is over, you need to complete it in the app, take a picture of the scooter, and leave it anywhere. There are special people who pick up and charge them when the battery runs out. There are so many scooters that the city is already trying to limit their number. They are left anywhere, drowned in the river, and so on. What concerns living conditions, in Texas, as a rule, you rent an apartment in an apartment building.
These are two-three-storey buildings with a courtyard area. Such apartments are managed by a management company. Swimming pool, grill, jogging tracks, covered parking spaces, garages - you can come home from work, put on your swimming trunks, walk 20 meters, and end up at the resort. A two-bedroom apartment of 130 square meters cost more than $ 1,500. Plus utilities, some of which you pay on your own (for example, electricity), concluding agreements with companies, and making auto payments via the Internet. Utilities are not cheap in Austin, with air conditioning and electricity it costs between $ 150 and $ 200 during the hot months. The apartment's water bill will be $ 20-30, but if you need to water the lawn of your own home, prepare to spend a lot. In the event of a pipe leak, a bill for $ 300 may come. But garbage disposal and pest control are mere trifles: an amount in the region of $ 10, which is included in the landlord's bill.

Property values ​​are rising in Austin. A large number of people from California and New York move here without reducing their wages for work - they can spend money on whatever they want. This causes great discontent among local residents. So that you understand: Texas has some of the highest real estate taxes. If you bought a house 25 years ago for 100 thousand dollars, and now it costs 300 thousand, your taxes will automatically triple. This is the essence of the capitalist economy - if you cannot afford such a house, then sell it and move into housing for which you can pay.

If you have school or preschool children, you are recommended making having a good public school in your area a priority when choosing a housing. It’s just very important in America, where it’s common to sell a house and buy in another area because the school is better there. By the way, Austin has an excellent school education compared to other cities.

IT Industry in Austin
IT people in Austin are considered a privileged class. The IT jobs in Texas Austin are so hot and in demand that salaries and social benefits are not comparable to other industries. Here the demand for IT project manager jobs in Austin, TX is the same as in other countries.
So, according to the rating from Expert Market, the 20 best cities in the world to work in the IT industry are:
  • Berlin
  • Austin
  • Toronto
  • San Francisco
  • Boston
  • Tel Aviv
  • Los Angeles
  • Amsterdam
  • Montreal
  • Paris
  • Bangalore
  • Seattle
  • Vancouver
  • Moscow
  • Chicago
  • London
  • New York
  • Sydney
  • Sao Paulo
  • Singapore
As we can see, Austin ranks second on the list. Let’s see why.

People graduating from the university, having worked as a volunteer for a year, claim 70-80 thousand dollars a year. Experienced specialists of IT manager jobs in Austin, TX can reach the number of 130-150 thousand a year. So that you understand - the median household income in the United States is 47.5 thousand dollars per year. And even if they are millennials, spoiled, lacking communication skills, and believe that everyone owes them - the employer needs to reckon with this fact. There is also a difference - since the IT sphere itself is older here than in other countries, there are many 40-year-old programmers in America. And these are simple programmers with IT jobs in Austin, TX who do their job perfectly. In many countries, hiring an older employee is a risk for the employer, and losing a job after the age of 50 is tremendous stress. In America, we did not notice this. For example, an American woman in her 50s had a dramatic change in her personal life. She calmly quit her job for a couple of months to recover, and then just as calmly found a new place. Social mobility in America is very high, which allows older people not to feel on the sidelines.

The average term of work of American IT specialists with IT project manager jobs in Austin, TX in one place is 15-18 months. In America, it is absolutely natural to move from one state to another, and people jump from company to company, which increases the risks. You invested in human integration and training, waiting a few months before the employee began to pay off. A year and a half pass, this person rises and leaves, because the competition for resources is colossal. What to do about it? The good news is that people are different: one cares about money, another dreams about the office across the street from home. One needs a comfortable parking space, while the other needs a cool team. To stay long, an employee must truly align with the company's values. Startups that position themselves primarily through making money have a harder time retaining an employee than a company seeking to change the world. Finding people who want to change the world just like you is difficult. But these are the people who will be devotees.

How much do Austin programmers get?
Salary is a significant factor for job seekers, but it is even more important in Austine, recently named Silicon Hills.
The city has large regional offices of such companies as Amazon.com, Apple Inc, 3M, Intel, IBM, Oracle, Paypal, Cisco, Texas Instruments, eBay, Google, General Motors, Whole Foods Markets. These employers always have a large number of open positions in IT, engineering, design, marketing, and sales.
In the capital of Texas - Austin, there are jobs for:
programmers;
It-technologists;
web designers;
It-mechanics.
It-engineers;
Specialists in this industry will be employed by companies such as:
Pay Pal and Texas Tool will provide jobs for professionals with the following specialties:
engineer
manager
marketer;
economic analyst.
Engineers earn from 45 to 150 thousand per year.
In the field of software, the salary of a programmer is 60-140 thousand per year, including taxes.
The average earnings of 80 percent of IT jobs in Austin, TX are between $ 37,000 and $ 97,000 per year, excluding taxes. Of them:
15%
earn from 37 to 45 thousand $;
50%
earn from 45 to 71 thousand $;
15%
earn from 71 to 97 thousand $.
The remaining 20% ​​generally earn more than $ 97,000 per year.
In 2019, the highest salaries were recorded at IBM - an average of $ 73 thousand.
Leading programmers (Senior programmers) earn a bit more than ordinary specialists (Middle Developers), their annual earnings are on average $ 93 thousand.
PL / SQL, ASP.NET, Java, and .NET programmers receive salaries above the national average. The earnings of specialists with IT jobs in Texas(Austin) in Microsoft Access, Visual Basic, and PHP are slightly lower. Usually, Java programmers can also work with SQL, and C ++ specialists can program in C #.
Experience in programming is the main factor to get IT jobs in Austin, Texas, therefore, the salary will largely depend on the work experience as a programmer. 83% of Austin IT workers are men.
The work experience of programmers working in Austin IT companies is:

  • 15% - less than 1 year;
  • 40% - 1-4 years;
  • 20% - 5-9 years;
  • 16% - 10-19 years old;
  • 9% - 20 years.
As a rule, programmers with more work experience receive a higher salary. Specialists with less than 5 years of work experience receive an average of $ 49,000. If the work experience is from 5 to 10 years, then the average salary will be equal to $ 63 thousand. IT veterans who have worked for 10 to 20 years are paid an average of $ 71 thousand.
Most IT companies provide health insurance, and some even dental and ophthalmological insurance, which is also an important factor when choosing IT jobs in Austin, TX.
Percent of companies providing insurance:
82%
- medical;
64%
- dental;
50%
ophthalmic;
16%
not provided.
Lets’s see a salary example of one company in Austin, National Instruments. The company manufactures testing equipment and technological products. Lead Engineer here earns $ 122,486, Senior Technical Officer has $ 112,500 on average, In-house developer gets $ 64,129 on average. The company score by employees is 3.9 out of 5.
As we can see, engineers and developers are leading in this category as well, with 18 of the 20 highest-paid positions. Topping the list are machine learning engineers who perform the most advanced tasks in artificial intelligence, earning an average of almost $ 150,000 a year. They are followed by senior software engineers who earn about $ 149,000 a year. Platform engineers rank third, with an average annual salary of nearly $ 135,000.

After engineers and developers, software architects receive the highest salary. They help set coding standards, tools, and platforms, and make complex design decisions. The average annual salary for a software architect is $ 122,372.
Any job on this list pays above the median income in Austin, which itself is higher than most other regions in the United States.

IT self-employment in Austin
It's great that Texas has a very respectful attitude towards people who are trying to do something of their own. Texans see this as courage and strength. You will never meet people who would say with a sour face: “Oh, is it necessary? Find a job for 150 thousand dollars a year and sit still. " On the contrary, they say: "Well done." There is a specific vibe of small business. If you buy a trailer and start selling pies, people are very supportive of your endeavor. Of course, it can be difficult because the environment is very competitive. Some survive, some do not. But the experience you get is phenomenal.
In America, many specialists are building an outsourcing model initially focused on startups. The classic startup has limited money and cannot compete in terms of salaries and bonuses with Google and Apple, Wordpress, or Atlassian, which also have offices in Austin. One programmer costs the company 120 thousand dollars a year with taxes, and if you use the outsourcing model, you can save huge money and get a product to later transfer it in-house and work with it inside the company.
It can be quickly realized that the most important thing in Texas is building personal contacts or networking. Some pros say that there are two places in America where personal contacts mean so much for business - these are New York and Texas. Both here and there people prefer to work with those they know.
Life outside of work

If you invite a person to a beer, you can talk to him about football, children, family, and discuss who studied where. Be very careful when discussing political issues. There is a huge social rift in America right now, and as soon as the conversation about values ​​comes up, you can become an enemy for your opponent. It's not even about party affiliation or voting. Probably the problem is that in Texas people are not particularly interested in what is happening outside the United States. This is typical for all Americans who have enough of their own inside the country - they have a huge territory, many emigrants, and a variety of cultures. They are much more self-absorbed than Europeans, which is logically understandable.

Conclusion

In Texas, you can live on 75 thousand a year. But this does not include taxes that you pay yourself. Texas is attractive because there is no personal income tax (California has). This means that in Texas you do not pay state taxes - only federal taxes. The effective rate depends on income and the number of household members. The calculation takes place in this way: you have earned a certain amount of money, and then you begin to count which number of this amount is not taxed. For each child, the state releases a certain amount, plus by default you are entitled to 12 thousand dollars a year, not taxed. The same applies to your dependents. In addition, education expenses are deducted. If this free money remains sixty thousand, then in Texas you can live very comfortably on it. If a programmer is competent enough to work in Texas, for sure he can expect a good salary. After quitting a year later, you can go for an upgrade. By this time, the programmer will already have the experience, he will acquire connections and will be able to count on a larger salary. If you go to California, the cost of living is higher. In California, if you don't have $ 150,000 a year (that's 12,000 a month per household), you're poor.

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GMT+3
Saturday and Sunday: day off
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