4 ms·

Apologies for the throwaway, and numbers are rough $140k: - 1500/mo in 401k - 6200 after-tax, after 401k income - 2800 savings from after-tax income -

Apologies for the throwaway, and numbers are rough $140k: - 1500/mo in 401k - 6200 after-tax, after 401k income - 2800 savings from after-tax income - Total discounted savings/mo, roughly: 2800 + .85 * 1500 = 4075 Is the bay area cost of living expensive? Absolutely. But I'd argue if you're a generally frugal person you'll save more (in absolute terms) here than anyplace else. I doubt I could get much above $100k anywhere else but NYC.

zzalpha 9y ago
So 3400/mo or less in expenses? Mind breaking that down? What's your housing situation? Transportation costs?
chank 9y ago
$100K+ is doable in just about EVERY major metro area outside of New York as a developer depending on experience. e.g. You won't find that for jr-mid level positions but Sr. and up you can easily.
- rCK94wVCBk 9y ago
  Throwaway, but for perspective in Minneapolis there's quite a few Sr dev positions pay $125k+, if you play your cards right there's even a few $210k jobs for people with 3-5yrs experience.
  - heuermh 9y ago
    ok, Throwaway, I'll bite. My username at usual suspects.
JamesBarney 9y ago
In Houston sr. devs(3+ years of experience if your driven, 7 if your not) are easily making 100k+. And most devs who are on hacker news could easily make 140k+.
- tylorr 9y ago
  "And anyone who is on hacker news could easily make 140k+" If only it were that easy.
  - JamesBarney 9y ago
    You're right, not everyone, but last time I talked to a recruiter they said good .NET tech leads were making 140k-160k, and 6 month contract gigs were paying 60-90/hr. The good devs I know are all making 120k-150k while the mediocre devs I know with 5+ years of experience are making 100k+.
- bdcravens 9y ago
  I'll second the comment about $100k in Houston, though in general most of the jobs are in health care or energy, and you'll find yourself doing something like .NET or ColdFusion. I do think you overestimate the average skill level on HN though :-)
  - JamesBarney 9y ago
    It's true. I write enterprise .NET for health care and energy companies :). But you get to write some cool things. The last three things I built were A system that takes sensor data from wells across the world, runs them through a physics engine, and displays those results to users across the world in real time. A web app that lets users easily write complex queries to retrieve cancer tissue information across multiple departments in a large research institution. An app to upgrade an entire codebase using a compiler to figure out the semantic meaning of different code snippets and transform them to the new version. So it's not all boring :). And I haven't met a mediocre dev who was familiar with Hacker News. Honestly I've thought about replacing my tech interviews with one question "Have you heard of Hacker News?"
  - tluyben2 9y ago
    What is wrong with .NET? For some reason it is not sexy here but c# and certainly f# are great languages and large parts of the stack is open source. Not quite sure why it is seen as something negative especially when something like JS is seen as positive.

zzalpha 9y ago

So 3400/mo or less in expenses? Mind breaking that down? What's your housing situation? Transportation costs?

chank 9y ago

$100K+ is doable in just about EVERY major metro area outside of New York as a developer depending on experience. e.g. You won't find that for jr-mid level positions but Sr. and up you can easily.

rCK94wVCBk 9y ago
Throwaway, but for perspective in Minneapolis there's quite a few Sr dev positions pay $125k+, if you play your cards right there's even a few $210k jobs for people with 3-5yrs experience.
- heuermh 9y ago
  ok, Throwaway, I'll bite. My username at usual suspects.

JamesBarney 9y ago

In Houston sr. devs(3+ years of experience if your driven, 7 if your not) are easily making 100k+. And most devs who are on hacker news could easily make 140k+.

tylorr 9y ago
"And anyone who is on hacker news could easily make 140k+" If only it were that easy.
- JamesBarney 9y ago
  You're right, not everyone, but last time I talked to a recruiter they said good .NET tech leads were making 140k-160k, and 6 month contract gigs were paying 60-90/hr. The good devs I know are all making 120k-150k while the mediocre devs I know with 5+ years of experience are making 100k+.
bdcravens 9y ago
I'll second the comment about $100k in Houston, though in general most of the jobs are in health care or energy, and you'll find yourself doing something like .NET or ColdFusion. I do think you overestimate the average skill level on HN though :-)
- JamesBarney 9y ago
  It's true. I write enterprise .NET for health care and energy companies :). But you get to write some cool things. The last three things I built were A system that takes sensor data from wells across the world, runs them through a physics engine, and displays those results to users across the world in real time. A web app that lets users easily write complex queries to retrieve cancer tissue information across multiple departments in a large research institution. An app to upgrade an entire codebase using a compiler to figure out the semantic meaning of different code snippets and transform them to the new version. So it's not all boring :). And I haven't met a mediocre dev who was familiar with Hacker News. Honestly I've thought about replacing my tech interviews with one question "Have you heard of Hacker News?"
- tluyben2 9y ago
  What is wrong with .NET? For some reason it is not sexy here but c# and certainly f# are great languages and large parts of the stack is open source. Not quite sure why it is seen as something negative especially when something like JS is seen as positive.