Getting Back to Reality.

There's still high demand for some tech professionals, but gone are stock options, company cars and other cushy perks 

DON'T believe all those scare stories about layoffs and cutbacks and filing for bankruptcy because you couldn't pay your tax bill from all that option money that was gained and lost.

Life in the tech sector can still be a six-figure affair.

There's just one catch: You must have a specialty that everybody wants.

"Salary ranges will be askew and will take a while to get back in line," said Don Speth, president of Independent Resource Systems Inc. of Agoura Hills, a recruiting firm. "However, companies have to survive and can't do it without the right people."

That doesn't mean you'll get a company car or free dry cleaning -- common perks of a year or two ago. But given the right skill, you could find yourself nearly as much in demand.

In a compensation survey completed last April, the Information Technology Association of America estimated that 425,000 of 900,000 open information technology jobs this year will go unfilled. Salaries for IT senior managers can still range from $88,741 to $133,267.

Sometimes, it just comes down to the luck of the marketplace: Folks with knowledge in Java, Oracle and some e-commerce software applications are still in demand, but those with experience in local area network systems have been getting hit because of troubles in that sector.

Many tech professionals have fine-tuned their skills, such as taking classes in Java programming to supplement AS/400 experience.

Web mavens aren't necessarily out of luck -- even after the dot-com crash. This is especially true in the design arena, where the remaining e-commerce businesses must refine their sites. Database and networking skills, for example, remain in high demand.

"A lot of the Web sites were strictly Web magazine format. providing information and design and layout," said Bill Coleman, vice president of compensation at Salary.com, an online salary information company. "The e-commerce part is the secured transaction and doing business through the Web site. Established companies have their Web sites; they're now trying to incorporate the transactional aspects and beef up that part where they're going to make money."

According to Salary.com, a senior Web designer in the metro Los Angeles area can make up to $114,460 and a manager of e-commerce in the same region can make up to $92,248.

Others have been able to find work if they take a demotion in title, realizing their job responsibilities were heightened only because of the number of startup companies needing those high-level skills were greater last year.

"People coming out of those environments should be leveraging the diversity of their skills and experience and what they know, whereas those with a more standard corporate background don't have that. Their job was network administrator, for example, and that's all they did," Coleman said.

He said that only a small number of people have seen their paychecks cut.

Same goes for upper-level types.

Compensation for chief executives, directors and other executive spots at tech companies with intellectual property or hard science products is up 10 percent over the last two years, said Bob Bellano, director at Los Angeles executive search firm cFour Partners. Those companies could include software, Internet infrastructure, optics and semiconductor firms.

Chief financial officers often make easy transitions from startups to hard science companies, many of which are at the second or third stage of financing and are ready for a chief financial officer.

Even marketing executives could be sought after if they have some technical knowledge, like a computer science degree, said Joshua Jones, account manager at Search Associates Inc. in Los Angeles.

And while recruiting revenues are down, companies still need search firms.

Dave Knight, president and chief executive of Los Angeles recruiting firm HireTechs.com, said companies will sometimes go after people already employed rather than someone who was recently laid off. The reason: laid off workers are sometimes the ones deemed least productive.