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Highest Paying Programming Jobs

Highest Paying Programming Jobs

January 25, 2020

Time To Read: 4 Minutes

Author: Conner Jensen

Question: What are the highest paying programming jobs?

Keep in mind when talking about the highest paying programming jobs I will be assuming the job is based out of the United States of America and the salary is in U.S dollars

1. Enterprise Architect

Median Base Salary: $122,585

According to glassdoor enterprise architect is the fifth highest paying job in America. They have a median base salary of $122,585 and there are around 1,555 job openings listed on glassdoor as of January 25, 2020.

Enterprise Architect's Responsibilites

  • Document business and technology roadmaps, including transitions from current to target architectures.
  • Ensure all architecture meets standards and qualifications
  • Build enterprise architecture, by hiring development and architecture staff
  • Review and analyze designs
  • Support "build or buy" recommendations

Required Qualifications and Expertise

Enterprise architects are required to have a computer science degree or equivalent training and experince. Anywhere from 6 to 10 years of systems architecture with large-scale databases and applications is also required.

Entreprise architects should be able to see the "big picture" when discussing and planning the development of architecture, information, technology, and infrastructure.

Hot Cities For Enterprise Architects

  • Washington, DC
  • Chicago, IL
  • Chantilly, VA
  • Austin, TX
  • Saint Louis, MO

2. Solutions Architect

Median Base Salary: $106,436

Solutions architect is currently ranked 13th in highest paying jobs and there are 8,215 job openings currently available on glassdoor.

Solutions Architect's Responsibilities

  • Support business development efforts through quoting and writing proposals
  • Consult with customers to understand project requirements
  • Ensure architecture security
  • Provide end-to-end technical guidance and expertise to help solve business problems

Required Qualifications and Expertise

A solutions architect is usually required to have around 5 years of experience in software system architecture as well as software engineering. Many jobs require a bachelors degree, however some will substitute equivalent experience.

Advanced knowledge in at least two or three compiled languages such as Golang, Rust, Java, or C# is usually required. Expertise in front end technologies such as JavaScript, HTML, and CSS is also a requirement for most jobs. Experience with AWS, and Azure is a plus as well.

Hot Cities For Enterprise Architects

  • Dallas TX
  • Seattle, WA
  • San Francisco, CA
  • Denver, CO
  • Houston TX

3. Data Architect

Median Base Salary: $104,840

Data architect is ranked as the 14th highest paying job in America. With a median base salary of $104,840.

Data Architect's Responsibilities

  • Advise management on approaches to optimize business success
  • Help define future data requirements
  • Effectively communicate highly technical information to numerous audiences
  • Create and or improve products by using modern technologies and solutions

Required Qualifications and Expertise

A data architect should have a bachelors degree or equivalent experience. At least 2 years in software development and programming in Java, Scala, Spark, Python, etc. Many jobs require experience with AWS and other cloud computing technologies.

Experience with docker, creating automated solutions and building data pipelines are also heavily sought after skills for potential data architects

Hot Cities For Enterprise Architects

  • Atlanta, GA
  • Washington, DC
  • Boston, MA
  • Charlotte, NC
  • Columbus, OH

4. Site Reliability Engineer

Base Median Salary: $100,855

A site reliability engineer is responsible for ensuring applications run efficiently and consistently at scale (millions of users).

Site Reliability Engineer Responsibilities

  • Provide deep technical troubleshooting
  • Use troubleshooting, monitoring and reporting tools to analyze the root cause of serious and impactful technical issues
  • Work closely with customer care, product management, and engineering to find solutions for customers

Note that many site reliability engineer's are required to work an on-call rotation and be available at all times of the day/night when critical bugs and errors happen.

Required Qualifications and Expertise

A bachelors degree or equivalent experince is usually required. Extensive experience with troubleshooting networking, and operating system including Debian, CentOS, Apache, HA Proxy, Nginx, RDBMS

Experience with AWS and Azure particularly in the areas of security groups, databases and load balancing.

Experience developing applications with common languages such as Python, Java, and Go

Hot Cities For Site Reliability Engineers

  • Atlanta, GA
  • Austin, TX
  • Santa Clara, CA
  • Saint Louis, MO
  • Seattle, WA

5. Cloud Engineer

Median Base Salary: $98,626

Cloud engineers play a key role in DevOps, using CD/CI deployment piplines to the cloud. They have a median base salary of $98,626 and there are currently 1,974 open positions on glassdoor.

Cloud Engineer's Responsibilities

  • Maintain and deploy cloud systems
  • Implement security best practices for cloud deployments
  • Debug and fix cloud networking problems
  • Offer deep insight into application and service performance

Required Qualifications and Expertise

A cloud engineer should have extensive experience with AWS, Linux, and Java environments at enterprise scale. They should have the ability to script using Python, Ruby, and Bash. They should have a deep understanding of Docker, containerization and security best practices.

Hot Cities For Cloud Engineers

  • Washington, DC
  • Chicago, IL
  • Denver, CO
  • Boston, MA
  • Reston, VA

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