From my seat here at The Hideout in downtown Austin, it would appear most of the people here are spending more on their coffees than they're making in wages as they work on their laptops.
But that's likely a wild miscalculation.
In fact, Austin is filled with freelancers, developers and contract engineers carrying out projects big and small for tech startups, as well as tech giants.
A new report by Hired shows those contract workers may not only have a little more workplace freedom than the rest of us, their pay is also higher. Hired, the online job hunting company, says the average tech contract worker in Austin makes $71 per hour, which adds up to $147,680 a year if they work a 40-hour week, which can be a big "if" for many workers. That's about $38,000 more than full-time software engineers make in Austin.
The analysis indicates the average Austin-based tech contractor would need to earn $269,521 to have the same standard of living in San Francisco. So, despite Austin's ever-rising cost of living, it's still relatively good here. And it's even better if you can work for an Austin tech company. Local companies tend to pay higher freelance engineering fees -- $95 per hour -- than others.
As you may recall, Nerdwallet ranked Austin as the best place in the nation for freelancers last year.
Here's a look at the top 10 cities ranked by best standard of living for tech contractors (based on the value of their salary in San Francisco).
1. Austin: $71/hour, $147,680/year - would need to make $269,521 in SF.
2. Chicago: $82/hour, $170,560/year - would need to make $256,279 in SF.
3. LA: $98/hour, $203,840/year - would need to make $251,640 in SF.
4. Boston: $90/hour, $187,200/year - would need to make $231,154 in SF.
5. Denver: $67/hour, $139,360/year - would need to make $227,816 in SF
6. DC: $82/hour, $170,560/year - would need to make $204,068 in SF.
7. San Francisco: $106/hour, $220,480/year
8. Seattle: $78/hour, $162,240/year - would need to make $198,815 in SF.
9. New York: $95/hour, $197,600 - would need to make around the same amount of money in SF.
10. San Diego: $64/hour, $133,120/year - would need to make $168,563 in SF.
