Good man.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/family-fund-for-heroic-metro-employee

Welp, if you actually understood how rent control works you, too, could take advantage of it. Just a suggestion.

Jessica Palmer Photo. In your price range and very sweet!

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I grew up there. Completely agree. I think employers like CoStar and Deloitte move back-office functions there because they face less competition for tech talent.

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"About to" is a big stretch. ChatGPT and the like will be tools for human engineers but it will be decades before they will fully replace them imo.

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Not in gov, but tech consulting companies are definitely not paying that little for a senior. 110 is a starting salary, seniors can be making upward of 200+ with a good wlb and remote. Besides some companies that are heavy on the RSUs probably did not realize that much money anyway.

Check out Tabitha Maegan Photography. She is way in your price range and delivers an outstanding product and more importantly experience for your family.

https://www.tabithamaeganphoto.com/

Too bad many of those jobs are about to be replaced with automation.

Hey remember when I said
> and people will try to justify it but their justification will also make zero sense

That justification you gave is the one that gets passed around and if you spend more than 5 minutes looking into it you realize it's all utter crap.
If it were true that it's because Houston "has a lot of engineers", then Huntsville should be at the very top of the pay scale, given it has more engineers per capita than any other city, but it's barely above the bottom.
You can look at this infographic that's about a decade old and yes, Houston has plenty of engineers - but what this graphic ignores is software engineers, as it only includes hardware engineers. Software engineers bring in much higher salaries than petroleum engineers at the highest levels. Part of this is skewed because software engineering isn't a "professional engineer" role, meaning most other engineering roles can be designated on whether you have a PE or are in training, whereas someone that dropped out of community college can functionally be a software engineer.
But beyond that - engineers aren't the only ones that command high paying roles, professional degrees do. This article does a phenomenal job at laying that out. Other than the energy sector, Houston is nowhere on this list. DC has the highest percentage of professional degrees, Houston isn't even top 10.
But let's look at the energy sector, which commands Houston. The DoE has one office in Houston and it employees approximately 1300 employees. On the other hand, GSFC, in Greenbelt (where I work), has over 10k employees. And that's one office. SWE is a huge growing field, and in DC alone, you have Amazon, Intel, Meta, Google, Apple just to name those off the top of my head. I have friends at Meta with similar experience to mine making 2-4x my pay, I doubt you see that in Houston.
The real answer you're looking for? Politicians. Politicians ultimately have some say in arguing for higher cost. Republicans have a tendency to threaten kneecapping programs if they don't get what they want, and Democrats have a tendency to spread their cheeks when threatened. THAT is why Houston has such a high pay area, because it was weaponized. Otherwise pay in small cities wouldn't be relatively good, whereas pay in big (blue) cities wouldn't be relatively ass.

There is a Facebook group called Moms and Moms to be of Capitol Hill and there are a bunch of photographers in there that are eager. And their prices are much more reasonable!!

Do you live near any bus routes? It might take a little longer but generally the buses start earlier. My husband and I took the bus to Union Station for an early Amtrak once.

>Richmond...where such a layoff is more of a body blow

One of my C1 friends moved his family down there post-pandemic and leveraged that Agile org salary to qualify for a mortgage in RVA's [still] red-hot real estate market. He's had at least one offer since the layoff, but the payscales just don't compare and he's headed for a short sale.

> The pay there is higher than DC, even though the COL is 40% lower than DC. It makes zero sense (and people will try to justify it but their justification will also make zero sense)

Federal pay is based on the cost of labor, not cost of living. Houston has a lot of engineers which drives up the cost of white collar labor in that market.

There’s an initiative to get special pay tables for the 2210 series (the most common IT position) but it’s not funded (or has some other hold up). I kinda doubt it’ll ever get implemented. It probably wouldn’t solve everything but might help.

Maybe it’s advancing, maybe it’s not

While not $345K but there is a good amount contractors around the same age making $180K range. Still small potatoes compared to what they were making.

Were the salaries you were seeing competitive to Capital One?

Lol. You think some 27yr old programmer, that worked for meta, who made $345k a year is going to work for the Fed or one of the million consulting firms in and around the beltway for $110k?

This is not at all productive but I am amazed people spend such large sums on photos. It’s like the wedding industry - it costs $100, unless it’s a wedding then it’s $800. And people pay it!

If you’re interested in a fed job and are okay with Texas, check out Houston jobs. The pay there is higher than DC, even though the COL is 40% lower than DC. It makes zero sense (and people will try to justify it but their justification will also make zero sense)

Nooooooo

Absolutely not, no