| Here's the review of Registered Nurse from US News Best Jobs. Salary infor is based on BLS data. https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/registered-nurse The median salary for a nurse, nationally, is $68,450, which isn't high. The median salary (again nationally) for a software developer is $100,080. If you drill down to best paying cities, though Registered Nurse is a well paid job. In San Francisco, for instance, the median salary for a Registered Nurse is $136,610. https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/registered-nurse/... According to BLS stats, that's actually higher than the median salary for software developers in San Jose (the highest paying place, at $133,010) and certainly higher than San Francisco ($122,420). There's a lot to dig into here, in terms of data, so I don't want to come off as claiming that the stats above are conclusive. First, nursing is a tough job, and deserves to be paid well, If it is, that's great, and if it isn't, that's a problem. I also don't have any problem whatsoever with registered nurses getting paid more than software developers. I actually think software developer is often a more stressful, dreary, and dis-spiriting job than many people here on HN believe. I work for a university, and I definitely have cold sweat moments when I worry about lost data, broken processes, and security breaches. And a lot of what I do is wading through legacy code with a fine toothed comb. I believe a lot of dev work is like this. Another factor is that nursing requires a specific set of coursework and a specific set of credentials. In software development, we have no such requirement - you can read a book on "PHP & MySql" (or don't read it) and call yourself a software developer. Then again, actually majoring in CS (or a related field) at a reputable university is challenging, and passing the coding interview at a place like google is also challenging (challenging for me, I failed to get through, some people here on HN will say it was trivially easy for them). Is the job more flexible? As a developer, I can go off and grab a cup of coffee more or less whenever I want, but shifting my schedule to part time, or working three very long schedules, or leaving the field for a while and coming back where I left off - all things that I discovered would be more useful than "coffee flexibility" when I acquired a mortgage and school aged kids and a spouse who also has a full time job, honestly, I don't think that software developer offers as much. Burnout may be common. Age discrimination? (or what I like to call "Age related employment issues, since I don't think it has to be discrimination per se that makes it tougher to be a developer as you get older)? Pay? I don't know if the BLS data includes highly variable pay such as stock options. I think it's based on tax returns, so it does include some variable pay, but may not capture it all. There are just so many factors, it's hard to draw very strong conclusions. I am comfortable, however, saying that the data does not clearly support the notion that in the Bay Area, registered nurses are underpaid. I'd say the data moderately supports the contention that registered nurses are well paid (again, in the bay area and a few other high cost areas). |
Concretely, average SE salaries in flyover states are pretty comparable to average RN salaries in flyover states.