How have Portland SE salaries gone up so quickly?

Question

I've been following the Levels.fyi yearly salary reports for a few years now. In 2019, Portland was not on the list at all. In 2020, Portland moved up to 9th-highest salaries. In 2021, Portland moved up again to 6th-highest salaries.How does the median SE salary of a place go up more than $40k/yr in a couple years? What is the mechanism behind this sort of change? Is it companies opening new offices? Is it existing companies increasing their compensation package by a huge amount?References: https://www.levels.fyi/2021 https://www.levels.fyi/2020/ https://www.levels.fyi/2019/

phren0logy · Accepted Answer

I live in PDX, and across this time-frame we've seen an explosion in homelessness, significant increase in crime/vandalism, closed/abandoned businesses, and soaring real estate prices.I would not be shocked if much of this increase has been necessary to retain and attract people during a difficult time for the region.

giantg2 · Answer

Could be reporting bias. Levels is self reported and wouldn't have rigorous sampling, to my knowledge. Not ton mention it's new and growing which could mean younger, lower paid, job seekers might have been a bigger part of the user base earlier on. Maybe Glassdoor or another larger source would be better. Not sure if the BLS goes down to a city level.

fdgsdfogijq · Answer

Amazon upped their mid career pay bands by a full 100-150k. Is having effects across the Seattle area, and salaries in general

PragmaticPulp · Answer

Big companies are opening Portland offices as places like California and Seattle become less attractive due to rising prices.levels.fyi salaries should be viewed more as the upper limit for top 5% developers, though, not necessarily the average across all jobs in the city.