San Diego Housing Bubble News and Analysis

Without knowing what field your husband is in, I don't know why he wouldn't be able to command at least 100K (and probably more).

I have 14 years of experience and make just a bit under what he was asking for as an automated test engineer (QA) with a background in embedded systems design (I work in hospital equipment design). My brother has similar years of experience in DSP and makes a bit more than I do (working for a satellite video equipment manufacturer). I would say the normal wage for a senior software engineer (someone with 12+ years experience) in this area is probably around 95-105K. I think mechanical and hardware engineer's average a bit lower, but 70K would definitely be very much on the low side.

Of course, it depends on his field - sometimes if you get overspecialized, it can actually work to your disadvantage if theres not a large enough market for those skills at the moment (something I learned a few years back myself) - after all, if there's only one company hiring in an area for a particular specialty - and that company knows it - they can turn that to their advantage.

We had a different experience with SD salaries. In your field do they also pay for your move? Not in my husbands' (aerospace). Do you feel that $300,000 is then an excellent price for a 3/2 or would you find it hard to save up the $30-$60K for the down payment?

I think the housing market will not be able to sustain price growth until we have single payer health insurance in the US.

Working so hard to put money into a home, instead of blowing it on a cruise, is futile if anyone in your family cannot obtain health insurance. The hospitals will treat you, sure, but will then put a lein on your home.

It really depends on the area he is in. Chemical Engineers are generally the highest paid in the profession. It used to be that vacume engineers were paid a lot, but now they have fallen down the engineering earning list some.

Here in Silicon Valley, sofware, EECS, and EE's, make a great deal due to demand with folks with that kind of experience making well above what he was asking for. But I don't know the SD levels.

What field is he in? 15 years of experience means a lot for a company that don't have many qualified engineers but for a company that have many experienced engineers they can easily hired a kid out of college for $55K or someone with some experience for around $65-$80K.

Most companies have a range that they are willing to pay. My company pays senior engineers around $75K to $105K. I think $120K is near Manager level salary for most companies. Boeing, Lockeed, Northrop, Raytheon and other aerospace companies pay a lot more (15% to 30% more) but it is also hard to get in.

I would agree. I am not sure about the profession your husband is in. I am familiar with EECS salaries as well and personally fall into the 18 years of experience range and see that ASIC designers/managers with 15-20 years experience get offered between 120-150k depending on the needs of the company.

SD Realtor

I don't think you can understand the job market based on a single occurrence like that. As a hiring manager I can assure you there are billions of reasons why a person with an ideally matching resume would not be hired, and the salary he or she is asking is just one of them.
Maybe your husband was overqualified. Maybe he didn't answer a key question during the interview. Maybe they are behind on affirmative action compliance. Or maybe a decision-making person in that company is an idiot.

Northrop Grumman Corporation - Defining the Future

This comapany just got a big contract I believe. I think there is a job fair coming up in a week or two.If not this one, someone here can hopefully clear up my mistake.

Sometimes I look at 100k like this $50hrX40hrs week X 50 weeks.Doesn't look like that much money anymore,coming off a boom anyway. I think it doesn't look as easy as it did in the last few years anymore though.

My last W2 job back in y2k offered $105k when I had 7 years of experience back then. I started consulting later that year and never went back. I know of many people making over $100k as full time employees. We are telecom ASIC engineers.

I know a lot of IT/Engineers here in San Diego with less than 12 years of experience and makes more than 120K.

If you have an engineering degree, and you jump into sales, you make a range of $150K to 250K with 5+ years experience in technical sales in SD.
(For a few much higher, but realistic, that is the range right now in SD).

nla, these IT engineers, are you speaking of network engineers or systems? Windows or Linux? Both?

I'm moving down from the SF Bay area and I landed a engineering job in that range. I believe CA companies are having significant difficulty finding qualified candidates because they are limited to professionals already in California or other high priced areas. Very few professionals from TX, IL, AZ, CO etc are willing to move out here.

In what IT sub-fields are the wages over 120K? I am surprised to see this...the IT jobs I think are paying around 90k max. I can understand EEs and software folks making over that figure.

Sandi,
affirative action? I thought that was suppose to be dead. I know the UC system has been trying to get around it for years but other than that I kinda thought the laws were "hire the best canidate" not "hire the best canidate that doesnt look like the rest of your employees". Is that all just wink wink?

In what IT sub-fields are the wages over 120K? I am surprised to see this...the IT jobs I think are paying around 90k max. I can understand EEs and software folks making over that figure.

My sister-in-law makes $100K as a database administrator with about 9 yrs of experience. Her bf, also a database administrator, just got an offer for $125K with 12 yrs of experience.

affirative action? I thought that was suppose to be dead.
I wish it was; I believe focusing on racial differences perpetuates discrimination. I don't know how strictly it's enforced, but I do know the rules are still there. For example, employers have to ask all prospective employees those race/age/sex questions (optional) and report the results to the govt.

so conclusion is $90 to 120k in general.

that gets us $10k per month, 6k after 401k and social security and taxes.

2k per month for housing would be feasible, 3k per month would be a stretch. assuming 20% down, the said engineer will need a $400k home.

When I said IT, I meant the IT industry as a whole not just support. Most of these people that I know are Sotware Engr, DBA, Sys. Analyst, etc.

IT salaries are all over the place. I have 10yrs experience as a Sr. Java EE Engineer and also have some architecture experience. The median for my position according to salary.com is around $115k/yr plus a 5-15% bonus.

But I've seen salaries as low as 80k and as high as 120k for the same position. This accounts for the quality of the person being hired of course, years of experience really means nothing. I know people who have 10 yrs experience who are not so good at their job and people with 3yrs experience who were whizzes.

I know people who have 10 yrs experience who are not so good at their job and people with 3yrs experience who were whizzes.

ditto. I've been working for 6 months with a junior engineer, this is her first job out of school, and I'm blown away at how much she's learned...  She is better than most people with many years of experience under their belts.  Sad thing is, management doesn't know how to keep people like this.  That's why quitting is always on her mind. 

As it happens, I got my annual raise today and finally broke $100k. I gather that I'm a few thousand below mid-scale for a Principal Engineer at a "big defense company" (that starts with an R). That's three years in my current job and five years post-PhD; total experience is either 6 or 12 years depending whether you count grad research. I gather that folks with lower degrees but the same rank made similar or slightly higher salaries...

Given that I'm doing semiconductor work, I'm sure I could make a lot more in Si Valley or at a startup, but it's not worth the extra hours to me.

Any idea what Qualcomm pays for a project manager

Actually, a lot of startups pay below "scale" - of course, if that startup goes public, there's a huge difference between a stock option issued at $0.10 (what I got a large block grant at when I worked at a startup), and a stock option issued at $43.00 (what I got issued this year). On the other hand, that stock option issued at $0.10 may wind up fairly valued (as tissue paper) if the company never goes public or the company needs to do massive reverse splits due to running out of capital and needing new venture capital partners (both of which happened at my startup - they should've taken the buyout at $10/sh that was offered just before the telecom bust heh).

Fuggy,

Maybe your husband just isn't very good at what he does... or maybe he's a lousy interviewer. Maybe he's a fat schmuck. Maybe the person interviewing him didn't like him for some reason. Not knowing him it's hard for me to say.

What I do know is that your assumptions are ridiculous.

Employers in San Diego

Tend to pay a lot less than in other major cities like Silicon Valley and NYC- think they are still stuck in the stone age economy way of thinking!

This is a job search site for 100k+ salary jobs. I've haven't looked at it though:

http://www.theladders.com/

Concerning the IT jobs, I wonder how many work hours, and are these people on-call.

BTW, what is the percentage of population in high paying professions like Medicine, Law and Engineering that are also new first time homebuyers? I doubt it is a large enough percentage to consider that the norm. I would say they are a minority and insufficient. A large percentage of professionals who are experienced enough to earn such a salary are already homeowners and not in the pool to create new demand.

Remember that higher earners also have bigger liabilities like their BMW/Lexus/Mercedes lease, vacations, partying out etc. They are not about to give up their entire lifestyle and live on Ramen noodles to buy one of these overvalued houses even if they would qualify. And yes, their expectations of a house are also that much higher than average so they are not likely to be content buying some small matchbox size crappy condo for half a million dollars.

My company has a few engineering jobs if there are any power engineers. Specifically military HIGH power and motor drive applications. I dunno what we pay but we always have a helluva time finding power engineers that can handle high power stuff.

If you know anyone that has experience and is looking send them to Power Paragon (L3 Communications) in Anaheim,
http://www.powercontrolsystemsgroup.com/
I think we are looking for program managers too....

Misheloff: At least we can assume your an idiot.

As far as IT and the Bay area is concerned, it seems like the entire industry/region has been taken over by H1B's.

The worst part is the recruiters. I don't even speak or deal with ANY recruiters unless they work directly for the company that has a job.