Looking to make the biggest bucks in the fastest growing industry?

There are two crystal clear — albeit unsurprising — commonalities among the top 10 highest paying jobs in the tech industry. If you want to cash in the biggest checks, you have to:

Step 1: Become a killer programmer or big data expert. Step 2: Move to the West Coast.

See also: 10 Programming Languages You Should Learn Right Now

Most of the highest paying jobs are, naturally, in the root of tech innovation in Silicon Valley. This is also among the most expensive cost-of-living areas in the nation. A few up-and-coming tech hubs, like nearby San Francisco, Seattle and even Silicon Beach down in Southern California made it on the list as well.

Folks who know how to handle, parse and analyze an overwhelming amount of data will get the fattest paychecks in 2015 — three of the five highest paid jobs are centered on big data. We dug into the CyberCoders database of hundreds of thousands of job postings to find the average salaries of technology-related jobs. Here are the highest paying jobs and the cities in which they're located.

1. Data Scientist | $150,000 | Seattle, Washington

Data scientists are some of the most expensive and coveted professionals around today. "It’s important to note that data mining as it relates to data science is not traditionally taught in university-level computer science curricula," says Ray Bao, data scientist at CyberCoders.

While there are new, in-demand programs, like UC Berkley’s Masters of Info and Data Science, "oftentimes, what is taught in academia pales in complexity to real-world problems," Bao says.

So what’s the path to becoming a money-making data science expert? This infographic by Data Camp breaks down the typical background and necessary hard skills: According to the graphic, the core set of skills you need to learn centers heavily on statistics and mastering the appropriate programming tools, including Python and R, as well as database querying language SQL.

But that’s not all; data science requires deep analytical thinking and creativity. Data scientists should be able to not only solve complex problems through data mining but also ask the right questions to extract meaningful conclusions about the data, Bao says.

Bao suggests subscribing to Revolution Analytics to stay abreast of using open source R for big data analysis in addition to browsing Stack Overflow to learn and help other developers.

2. Data Engineer | $148,000 | Mountain View, California

While data scientists are charged with extracting meaning from massive amounts of data, data engineers are usually experts in formatting datasets, which enables other folks or stakeholders to analyze that data.

"They will likely work with Hadoop, MapReduce, Storm and all the other big data technologies out there, depending on the needs of the project," Bob Moore, CEO of RJ Metrics, a big analytics firm, says. "Because this field changes rapidly, it is critical to have experience working with a given technology, to have mastered core engineering skills and to be able to learn quickly."

Similar to data scientists, data engineers need to be well-versed in data manipulation techniques. Data engineers who can build and maintain heaps of data are valuable to companies that use this data to gain a competitive edge.

3. Ruby on Rails Developer | $147,000 | Silicon Beach, California

Ruby on Rails developers in the SoCal area are getting the biggest bucks for programming in the nation. Aspiring Ruby on Rails professionals should check out Code School. As with any other technology language, practice is critical to becoming a master.

So what are you expected to know? Having a strong understanding of the basics, including Ruby language, is important to build upon a solid foundation.

According to Joseph Biscan of Infinum, it’s a language that anyone can start learning. He offers some helpful resources in his blog, including Programming Ruby, a tutorial book on learning Ruby as well as Rails guides.

4. Machine Learning Engineer | $131,000 | San Francisco, California

Machine learning as it relates to artificial intelligence is an exciting field that focuses on developing complex programs that enable computers to teach themselves to grow. Ubiquitous examples of machine learning are Google’s web search, spam filters and self-driving cars.

"Machine learning is the science of getting computers to learn without being explicitly programmed," says Sebastian Thrun, professor of computer science and director of the artificial intelligence laboratory at Stanford University, according to Gigaom.

To master this specific skill set, again, it’s crucial to have a solid mastery of Python and R for statistical programming. Overall, machine learning is a crucial tool for manipulating big data in a useful, profitable way.

5. Android Engineer | $131,000 | Mountain View, California

As mobile adoption is generally ubiquitous these days, with users spending an average of 2 hours and 42 minutes per day on mobile devices, it’s not a big surprise to see Android engineers make the top five most lucrative tech careers. (For good measure, iOS engineers were among the top 10.)

This is perfectly in line with our 2014 study, revealing that Android is outpacing iOS in terms of job demand, as Android-supported platforms have skyrocketed over the last couple years.

To get started mastering Android skills, it’s crucial to have a good understanding of Java as well as XML and OOP to render configurations and generate the UI.

Mashable Job Board Listings

The Mashable Job Board connects job seekers across the U.S. with unique career opportunities in the digital space. While we publish a wide range of job listings, we have selected a few job opportunities from the past several weeks to help get you started. Happy hunting!