WSJ Tech News Briefing · Friday, September 25, 2026
Data center jobs, despite community backlash, offer surprisingly high salaries compared to similar roles elsewhere, with entry-level engineers earning around $60,000 and experienced roles reaching up to $120,000, according to WSJ reporting. These facilities, however, employ a small staff, typically 50 to 100 people, for millions of square feet of space, leading to a perception of emptiness.
“Compared to other sort of similar jobs at other companies, the pay is said to be higher. Indeed has done some analysis, at least for the maintenance hourly workers, that found that their wages were more than 40% higher than similar hourly maintenance jobs at other facilities.”
“But I think some of the employment related backlash comes from the fact that people expect a facility that might be 1 million, 2 million square feet, large to employ more than a few hundred people.”
“And so when you walk around one of these facilities, it can be a little eerie because a lot of the rooms are empty and there's these big cavernous hallways that just stretch forever that you can't see the end of and you can't really see people.”