| Actually, I'm also in Atlanta and I have been for over 20 years and I think I have a good understanding of the local tech scene and salary. It depends on what you want to do and whether you want to stay in Atlanta. From what I can tell from talking to recruiters, looking at salary surveys, and friends who are also in their 40s who have been aggressive about their careers longer than I have and eschew management, the ceiling for individual contributors and low level architects/dev leads (statistical ceiling without going way out on the bell curve) is around $150-$160K total comp and that's pushing well into the 4th quintile. You can gradually get over that hump by being an "implementation consultant" for a consulting company, but still you may be looking at around a top end of $180K - $200K. It also may require a fair amount of travel. I'm not sure which would open more doors or what doors you are trying to travel through. Personally, I have no desire to get into management and want to stay hands on. More money is always nice, but not strictly necessary for me. The cost of living in the 'burbs in Atlanta is so low compared to what you can make as developer with 10 years of experience, it's not really worth the extra headache for me to take on more responsibilities right now. If a company was willing to pay for my education, I would definitely go the Executive MBA route. It is so easy to teach yourself almost anything in computer science once you have the foundation and I don't think you get much "credit" for getting academic credentials in computer science as you would get for business. Besides, the online computer science degree from GA Tech is cheap - $7000. The EMBA is $80K. A $7K reimbursement is nothing. |