I grew up in Raleigh (born, elementary school through NC State) there and recently moved north to start my first job...IMO, the jobs with competitive compensations just don't exist in Raleigh at the new grad level. Almost all of the top students that I know of move to Seattle, NYC, SF etc after graduating.
Housing is also surprisingly expensive in the nicer parts of town given the necessity for a car. With that said, it's a great option if you're comfortable with the opportunities here and want to settle.
This is not true at all in my experience. What compensation number do you think is fair for new CS grads?
10 years ago new CS grads were getting 60k/yr and moving up quickly. Now that I often hire for the area, it's closer to 70k in my experience. Yes, you can move to SFO and make 90k, or more? But you have to adjust drastically for cost of living. Perhaps you get better RSUs and free lunch?
Once you get more senior salaries the salaries are even more competitive. The only thing that doesn't seem popular is huge pile of RSUs that you'd get working for one of the SFO companies.
90k is considered very low today overall. The average new grad gets like ~150ish, give or take 20. If you get a big signing bonus like they do at Facebook it goes up to 225k+ TC for the first year. My friend graduating this year just signed an offer for ~210k first year at a trading company.
It’s definutely worth it to chase the money out of undergrad IMHO.
What to grads typically do with all that money. I started on about $30k and it was more than enough. Is it all squirreled away for the future? I'd hope so!
Housing is also surprisingly expensive in the nicer parts of town given the necessity for a car. With that said, it's a great option if you're comfortable with the opportunities here and want to settle.