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Thought experiment: Would developer salaries in general be as high as they are today if we hadn't happened to choose an area with such high cost of living area

Thought experiment: Would developer salaries in general be as high as they are today if we hadn't happened to choose an area with such high cost of living area as our nexus, with the consequential requirement to pay so much to attract talent? That is, would a guy like me (or you) be able to pull in multi-six-figures a year to telecommute to the Bay Area from out in the sticks if there weren't so many poor souls physically there keeping rates up for the rest of us? What would things look like if the tech hub were in Ft. Worth TX instead (or Scott's Bluff, Nebraska), with hundreds of miles of flat empty cheap land in all directions to keep housing prices down near zero.

eloisant 10y ago
The cost of living follows salaries of the tech sector, not the other way around. Even the tech hub was not on a peninsula, you'd still have an expensive center and poor people would have to suffer a long commute like East Bay people do in the Bay Area. Just look at London or Paris: it's not cheap despite not having the same geographical problem. It's not as expensive as the Bay Area because there are many people with various jobs, not just highly paid tech workers.
- whack 10y ago
  It's a combination of demand and city-policies. San Francisco has a lower population density than queens, but the same housing price levels as Manhattan. If the city got its act together and built up a housing density that's on par with Manhattan, cost of living would fall dramatically. Good governance matters. It makes a huge difference in cost-of-living. The way SF is run, it's almost as though people want the cost-of-living to be as high as possible.
  - softawre 10y ago
    > The way SF is run, it's almost as though people want the cost-of-living to be as high as possible. Surely you're joking? Of course that's what they want. SF people, home owners, are voting on SF policy. Do you want to lose half the value of your house?
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      > SF people, home owners, are voting on SF policy. Do you want to lose half the value of your house? Its more complex than that, as SF people voting on policy also include renters, and even if rent control insulates them from directly paying for price increases, market price declines save them money (and both increases and declines affect local costs of other goods, so they affect CoL even if they don't directly affect existing renters rent payments.) But, renters are largely people who have decided the trade-off of quality for cost at the current price does make sense, so they are less likely than outsiders who might want to move to SF if it was more affordable to make trade-offs that impact the qualities that they prefer in SF for lower prices, even if it would reduce their cost of living.
- galdosdi 10y ago
  The long commute for those who can't afford the center is not actually a law of nature. Better infrastructure gives better results. For example, you can get to midtown manhattan in half an hour on NJTransit from East Orange, NJ, a very cheap place to live. The NYC metro area is chock full of affordable neighborhoods where the tradeoff is merely having a commute, not a LOOONG commute. Ideally, you have your infrastructure scale as the city grows, to maintain constant commute times for workers even as they move further out.
toomanybeersies 10y ago
No, they wouldn't be as high. In most other developed countries, developer salaries are about the same as physical engineering salaries and other highly skilled jobs.
bluedino 10y ago
>> What would things look like if the tech hub were in Ft. Worth TX instead Hasn't helped Austin
talmand 10y ago
>> with hundreds of miles of flat empty cheap land in all directions to keep housing prices down near zero. I can assure you that housing prices in that area are not near zero, even with all that land that is not necessarily available for development.
lj3 10y ago
Artists and designers also live in the bay area and work for bay area tech companies, but they don't get paid the same salaries developers do. The video game industry is also in the bay area, but they don't need to pay as much to attract talent. Their salaries are less than web devs, but not that much less. Salaries are a function of supply and demand. In that way, it wouldn't matter if the companies are in SV or in Kansas: they're still shooting themselves in the foot. Every company wants to hire the best, the top 10% of developers, when in actuality they probably only need to avoid the bottom 25% (assuming tech talent follows a bell curve). By setting up the ridiculous filters to hiring, they're artificially limiting the supply of developers on the market by 65%. In doing so, they keep the salaries of developers artificially high.
- FT_intern 10y ago
  UX engineers are paid well though if you consider "UX engineer" as the new fancy term for designer

eloisant 10y ago

The cost of living follows salaries of the tech sector, not the other way around. Even the tech hub was not on a peninsula, you'd still have an expensive center and poor people would have to suffer a long commute like East Bay people do in the Bay Area. Just look at London or Paris: it's not cheap despite not having the same geographical problem. It's not as expensive as the Bay Area because there are many people with various jobs, not just highly paid tech workers.

whack 10y ago
It's a combination of demand and city-policies. San Francisco has a lower population density than queens, but the same housing price levels as Manhattan. If the city got its act together and built up a housing density that's on par with Manhattan, cost of living would fall dramatically. Good governance matters. It makes a huge difference in cost-of-living. The way SF is run, it's almost as though people want the cost-of-living to be as high as possible.
- softawre 10y ago
  > The way SF is run, it's almost as though people want the cost-of-living to be as high as possible. Surely you're joking? Of course that's what they want. SF people, home owners, are voting on SF policy. Do you want to lose half the value of your house?
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > SF people, home owners, are voting on SF policy. Do you want to lose half the value of your house? Its more complex than that, as SF people voting on policy also include renters, and even if rent control insulates them from directly paying for price increases, market price declines save them money (and both increases and declines affect local costs of other goods, so they affect CoL even if they don't directly affect existing renters rent payments.) But, renters are largely people who have decided the trade-off of quality for cost at the current price does make sense, so they are less likely than outsiders who might want to move to SF if it was more affordable to make trade-offs that impact the qualities that they prefer in SF for lower prices, even if it would reduce their cost of living.
galdosdi 10y ago
The long commute for those who can't afford the center is not actually a law of nature. Better infrastructure gives better results. For example, you can get to midtown manhattan in half an hour on NJTransit from East Orange, NJ, a very cheap place to live. The NYC metro area is chock full of affordable neighborhoods where the tradeoff is merely having a commute, not a LOOONG commute. Ideally, you have your infrastructure scale as the city grows, to maintain constant commute times for workers even as they move further out.

toomanybeersies 10y ago

No, they wouldn't be as high. In most other developed countries, developer salaries are about the same as physical engineering salaries and other highly skilled jobs.

bluedino 10y ago

>> What would things look like if the tech hub were in Ft. Worth TX instead Hasn't helped Austin

talmand 10y ago

>> with hundreds of miles of flat empty cheap land in all directions to keep housing prices down near zero. I can assure you that housing prices in that area are not near zero, even with all that land that is not necessarily available for development.

lj3 10y ago

Artists and designers also live in the bay area and work for bay area tech companies, but they don't get paid the same salaries developers do. The video game industry is also in the bay area, but they don't need to pay as much to attract talent. Their salaries are less than web devs, but not that much less. Salaries are a function of supply and demand. In that way, it wouldn't matter if the companies are in SV or in Kansas: they're still shooting themselves in the foot. Every company wants to hire the best, the top 10% of developers, when in actuality they probably only need to avoid the bottom 25% (assuming tech talent follows a bell curve). By setting up the ridiculous filters to hiring, they're artificially limiting the supply of developers on the market by 65%. In doing so, they keep the salaries of developers artificially high.

FT_intern 10y ago
UX engineers are paid well though if you consider "UX engineer" as the new fancy term for designer