Menu
South Dakota governor Kristin Noem and Sioux Falls mayor Paul TenHaken are set on making Sioux Falls the tech capital of South Dakota. Healthcare is already a major industry in South Dakota’s largest city and, due to the infrastructure and innovation involved in healthcare, it often fosters tech development alongside itself. Hospitals and biomedical firms bring in software developers, database administrators, analysts, and a whole host of IT support professionals to maintain their systems and protect patient data.
For South Dakota as whole, the governor laid out five priorities for development over the coming years. Among these was “Leading the way in cybersecurity.” The plan to make this happen includes incubator initiatives for cybersecurity businesses that start up in South Dakota and resources for cybersecurity training in post-secondary institutions.
Sioux Falls, specifically, is developing into a tech hub for the state, having just elected the former CEO of a digital marketing startup as mayor in 2018. Mayor Paul TenHeken said, “I’m quite bullish on the fact that South Dakota and Sioux Falls could be a tech leader in the next several years.” To make this a reality, TenHeken has set Sioux Falls up to be an early adopter of 5G technology and plans to optimize city infrastructure for autonomous vehicles.
Between them, Noem and TenHeken make it a priority to attend tech and cyber conferences around the U.S. to popularize Sioux Falls as a great place for tech startups to do business and for young tech professionals to find work.
The population of Sioux Falls has been steadily increasing since a slight dip following the 2008 recession, However, the entrepreneurship and economic expansion is happening so quickly that the population can’t keep up. Despite efforts to train students in regional universities, firms still report a labor shortage. The unemployment rate of Sioux Falls is only at 2.2%, well below the national average. Glassdoor listed 7000 available jobs for job-hunters in the area – many supporting the local hospitals, Sanford and Avera. Considering these stats, Sioux Falls offers boundless opportunity for bootcamp graduates.
Apart from local hospitals there are a number of other major institutions that require tech workers for smooth operation. These include the regional airport, Augustana University, the University of South Dakota, and Bellevue University. Other notable employers of Sioux Falls residents include Great Western Bank, HF Financial Corp., Time Management Systems, Sencore, and Capital Card Services.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics calculates a Location Quotient to rank jobs that are relatively popular in a particular city compared to the U.S. as a whole. For Sioux Falls, these roles include Network Administrator, Network Support Specialists, Network Architects, Information Security Analysts, and Computer Programmers.
Below, we’ve broken down the average salary data for a variety of tech roles that a bootcamp graduate might find in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. To learn more about these careers, you can browse our comprehensive career guides.
| Job Title | Average Salary |
|---|---|
| Network Administrator | $67,390 |
| Network Support Specialist | $47,580 |
| Information Security Analyst | $90,810 |
| Network Architect | $110,120 |
| Computer Programmer | $58,890 |
| Web Developer | $57,290 |
| Software Developer | $79,940 |
