How much money do software engineers make in Auckland after graduated from AUT?

As a software engineer working in the not Auckland part of the industry, I have had people wonder why I haven't aimed for working in Auckland . Why that I don't consider that to be biggest validation for my talent and the easiest way for me to make bank. But the reality is that all that glitters isn't gold. Yeah sure Auckland has No1 programmers positions  now, and it makes sense that it is the most attractive part of the industry as it is the youngest industry. You see people living in vibrant cities and those salaries from the perspective of living somewhere where the cost isn't so high does gives the impression that that amount of money will go as far in a city as it does where ever someone was originally from. But there is an industry that is much larger than the Auckland  image. Jobs that sure aren't as flashy, with free food every day as perks. And oh no my salary is less than $100k. But hey I am able to have a job where I can have enough flexibility to work on what I want and to have time to have a personal life. I was able to buy a house and plan on paying off that mortgage within the year. And I don't live in the middle of no where either. I don't think I would be able to have that in one of the major tech hubs with a salary over $140k. There is just no way. People have to understand what they want, what they want to grow into and if it is possible to achieve that where they want to be. A single number isn't going to help with any of that.By the way,I am in Christchurch
 

I'm a software engineer. 4 years ago I started at 15 an hour. Now today I make 122k/year with a raise to 140k in the near future. My job doesnt have anything really for other perks, and this is kinda of low compared to whats possible. A big part of that is that I live in Auckland

I live in Wellington , and to me it's be extremely helpful to see someone else live what seems to me to be a mentally/physically healthy life style. I work for a company that shall be unamed which recently had my title switched from Developer to BI Analyst just so that they could save money ... For me it's tough because I have a tendency to try to remain loyal. Whether that's healthy or not is something off topic from the point I'm working towards. I work in a dead language that's software specific, VBA which is a lot like VBS, and I mainly work in SQL as well. A lot of what I do is tool creation and automation of tasks. I make roughly $70k a year, and that's not a lot to me in Wellington where I have a wife and two kids with the household being single income. Seeing someone else from the tech industry talk about personal struggles like yourself has helped me push myself to get out of my situation, but in a positive way. I started picking up Python again .I've built web scraping apps, and API tools as well .  and that life style balance is important. Also about how much money engineers make, that's kind of important to me too. Well,there's a lot of factors that play into it, but to me since I've actually never had a lot of experience with negotiating, or understanding what factors can play into salary, it'd definitely benefit me. Once I get to a place where I can get out of this current job, I'll need to understand what I need to look for to not end up in the same hole I got myself into these past 4+ years. Anyways, no pressures just wanted to let you know how your videos have impacted me for the better, and that the content you've shared about tech and your life has helped me and my family greatly.

I am about to head into Junior year of college studying electrical engineering (although that doesnt really matter) and I have gotten a summer internship and have not been enjoying it too much, I largely took it because of the high pay and travel opportunities compared to other internship offers I received. I have realized while working at the internship that chasing money is an incredibly fleeting feeling, I have not learned much and have not done much work. I mainly sit around and stare at the wall and the occasional excel spread sheet. More engineering students and young engineers should watch this video, I know if I had seen it before this summer I would have taken the other internship offer I had although I would be making slightly less

Salary is important, but enjoying what you do is 10x more important. At the same time salary is a value. It's the number that says "This is how much we (the company) value your work". If you have open salaries, this would kill the drive 9/10 times. Managers would be afraid of giving a high achiever more money than the lazy bastard watching youtube all day long. I have lazy colleagues, and I massive salary increases over the last years. They had barely if any increases. Why? Because I push for making the company better, and invest myself, they sit around, and wait for orders.