14 ms·

If you’re a software engineer, where should you live to maximize your income?

62 points by asdsa5325 8y ago

whyaduck 8y ago
The adjustment they make on income is opaque. It's hard to judge what those values actually represent. I can't believe that the median salary in San Francisco before adjustment is anywhere near $55k.
throwaway_bmore 8y ago
Skeptical to see baltimore so highly ranked
- chomp 8y ago
  Why? There are a TON of government jobs there.
  - throwaway_bmore 8y ago
    In the city?
  - existencebox 8y ago
    I left Baltimore for Seattle, having left a position that included govt funded research, and with many friends in related positions. The ease of finding, stability, and pay of jobs all seem DRASTICALLY better in Seattle than Baltimore. This is a very subjective comparison, because I was a much more junior dev back then, but even when going for internships/starter jobs, I had far more opportunities in CA/WA/CO than on the east coast (excepting NY, of course). Now, don't take this to mean there isn't a tech job ecosystem, I was able to keep a gainful chain of good employers, but as said, they were by and large much smaller, less stable (not as a pejorative, but when compared to the BigCo's I've worked at since) and paid far less; while each time I switched jobs I felt like I had to _search_ to find the next, whereas in Seattle, I couldn't throw a stone without hitting a mid-to-large tech co. (I'd be lying if I said COL didn't hurt, but the amount one can put away with a good paycheck is _substantial_) This ended up being a bit of a ramble, but it's one (perhaps relevant) transplant's perception.
- indescions_2018 8y ago
  Baltimore suburbs are part of the whole aerospace / defense corridor: NSA, SAIC, Ft Meade, NASA Goddard, and a whole lot more ;)
  - sndean 8y ago
    > NSA, SAIC, Ft Meade, NASA Goddard Being in Washington DC and knowing I can drive to half of those places in 30 mins, I wonder which metropolitan area definition the numbers in the article are using. Does (NSA, SAIC, Ft Meade, NASA Goddard) really pay that much more than (Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrup Grumman)? Edit: Adjusted for cost of living, Baltimore > DC makes more sense.
- rcatcher 8y ago
  Agreed, the number of tech jobs in Baltimore according to StackOverflow, indeed.com and whoishiring.io is very low.
- leetcrew 8y ago
  they don't state how they do this ranking very explicitly, but it seems to be some combination of number of jobs, median pay, and local cost of living. there aren't a ton of software jobs within the city, but there are many software companies paying DC salaries within a 30-60 minute commute to the southwest. the cost of living in baltimore is also quite low, but many of the neighborhoods probably fall short of what your typical SWE would be willing to tolerate.
zeperoni 8y ago
It's interesting to see Phoenix so high up. Living there now, and there does seem to be a lot of Software Engineer jobs. But I'm not sure how it's handling the newer programmers. I spoke with 7 companies yesterday that asked if I would relocate to San Fransisco for entry level or internship opportunities. (Obviously this data does not take that into account)
Areading314 8y ago
I think many people would still rather make $55k in SF than $91k in detroit, even if these numbers weren't completely bogus
- xienze 8y ago
  > I think many people would still rather make $55k in SF than $91k in detroit And where exactly are you going to live for $55K in the Bay Area? At least in Detroit you don't have to commute that far to live somewhere that's quite nice, and even own a house.
- reificator 8y ago
  You're joking right? A quick googling shows the median price of a home in Detroit as $35k. I don't care how bad you are at budgeting, with $91k/y in Detroit you could buy two homes. I don't have to google San Francisco to tell you that you'd be lucky to afford to rent with three roommates on $55k in San Francisco. I get where you're coming from in terms of crime and such, but cost of living is a major part of choosing where to live and on that front there's no question.
  - rcatcher 8y ago
    You probably wouldn't want to live in a neighborhood where a house costs $35k. I used to live in Philadelphia, the median house price was around $100k, but it was skewed by neighborhoods with high crime rates.
    - reificator 8y ago
      I've lived in much worse growing up, I assure you. The point is that the bay area housing market is on one extreme and Detroit's is on the other.
      - thereare5lights 8y ago
        Would you raise kids in that same environment if given the option?
GameOfTrolls 8y ago
Not San Diego
tj-teej 8y ago
The "Opportunity index" is "determined by dividing the number of job openings listed on ZipRecruiter by the number of active job seekers in that area" This leads to Baltimore being #1 and San Francisco 17th. I think this is overly simplistic and not representative of "opportunity", I used to live near Baltimore, I wouldn't say it has more opportunity for Software Engineers than SF.
- hrasyid 8y ago
  "Finally, it combined the real adjusted salary data with the opportunity data, giving double weight to the opportunity data." How do you decide how to combine "adjusted salary data" and "opportunity data"? They aren't even in the same unit. I find that this is often the problem with these city rankings (not only this one, but also "quality of life" or "most expensive city" rankings). There is no universal way to weigh these factors, and your result highly depends on the particular weightages you assign, often arbitrarily.
fortythirteen 8y ago
Anyone with industry knowledge can look at those median salary numbers and instantly tell that the data set is faulty.
- frockington 8y ago
  They're cost of living adjusted, so 100k in SF is going to be 30k in other places
  - Redoubts 8y ago
    Sure but every city is under 100K, which makes me agree that something is seriously off -- adjustment or no.
  - fortythirteen 8y ago
    And they're still way off. The only reason Detroit's number is so high is because they're counting the $1k condemned houses for sale, all over the city, that nobody wants to move into.
- JakeWesorick 8y ago
  "adjusted that according to cost of living data"
- asdsa5325 8y ago
  They are adjusted by cost of living...
- ThirdFoundation 8y ago
  Do cost of living calculators take into account the more static pricing of non-necessities? For example, maybe an apartment in the Bay Area costs, say, 300% what it costs in a major mid-western city. Groceries are 150% more expensive and other necessities are equally as expensive. (All numbers made up for the sake of example) After you pay for the things you need though, you move on to things you want. Investments in stocks and bonds still cost the same no matter where you live. Flights actually are often cheaper from major, HCOL cities. Mobile phones cost the same online no matter where you live. So basically I don't know if the cost of living calculators properly scale with the incomes that SWE provides in certain markets (specifically the PNW). Does this make sense? I'd be interested if anyone had more information about this.
tptacek 8y ago
This is bad. If your metric for best city for software engineers excludes from its top 10 not only SFBA but Seattle, New York, Austin, and Atlanta, your whole piece better be a prolonged and detailed explanation of how you concluded that metric was valid. I love Chicago and think we benefit in a lot of ways from running a tech company (mostly) from here, but there is no way Chicago is a better place to be a software engineer, careerwise, than SFBA.
- chomp 8y ago
  I mean, "Best City" as described by the article is a really loaded term because it means a bunch of different things to different people. Some people like to optimize for net income. Others might want to optimize for like-minded folks, support networks, and peer collaboration. Still others might want more health oriented amenities and pleasant weather. I think you're right though; by excluding these software engineer-dense cities, I think the article is missing the point of what might be the "best city" for a software engineer. After all, if they aren't even in the top 10, why are people even there? :) Anecdote: at my current job in Houston, I know I earn a significant amount more than my counterpart in Austin, and I get a way less cost of living also. I also know that Austin has way more opportunities than Houston does, so I'm screwed if I ever want to leave this job. My personal situation matches the chart in the article.
  - tptacek 8y ago
    I think this list would look a lot different if the jobs it considered were scoped down to software companies, and excluded the line-of-business development jobs that characterize most of the openings on cities outside the big tech centers.
- acchow 8y ago
  They're looking at "median". If you're a "median" engineer, I would not recommend SFBA.
  - Roritharr 8y ago
    That's a really interesting point. I often fantasize about leaving "my" city of Frankfurt/Germany, but I always wonder if anywhere else is actually better for ME, wherever on the bell curve I might be. Before I was 30 I became CTO of a great company here, i really wonder if I had made such a career anywhere else if I'd moved to somewhere with a more vibrant tech-scene where my specific skill combination isn't as relatively uncommon as it is here. Same with my lifestyle situation of being the working Dad in a one-income household. Doesn't matter that i'd be making a killing in SFBA if living with a family simply costs so much more there.
Alex3917 8y ago
If you were only earning the median salary, why on earth would you pay the median amount for an apartment? A much better metric would be where is the best place to live, assuming you're making significantly more than the median salary and living in an apartment with below average monthly rent.
- s73v3r_ 8y ago
  You might not be able to find something below median.
liquidise 8y ago
The "Median Salary" figures are surprising to me for a number of reasons. To isolate Denver specifically (where i live, work and hire routinely) i do not know a single developer who is making < 70/yr. Perhaps this figure is brought down from the sheer quantity of code school (Galvanize, Turing, General Assembly) grads we have in the city, but even then i find it hard to believe 50% of the se's in Denver are making south of $67/yr. Edit: I'm dumb. The median salaries are adjusted for cost of living of the city.
- JakeWesorick 8y ago
  "adjusted that according to cost of living data"
  - liquidise 8y ago
    Just noticed that. makes considerably more sense.
- Joof 8y ago
  Any guesses on that? I'm making a decent bit into 6 figures if benefits like stock is accounted for with one year of industry existence.
indescions_2018 8y ago
San Antonio is interesting. Have only visited. Enjoyed touristy bars on the Riverwalk. But its less than an hour from Austin. And I'm guessing even more affordable.
- saryant 8y ago
  (I'm sure @mgirdley will show up here in a moment) I used to live and work in San Antonio. Five years ago it was beginning to show signs of a tech scene. Geekdom had been around for a couple of years and acted as the hub of the community. TechStars had a program there (though no more). I left four years ago for Boulder so I've been watching it grow at a distance. From what I see, deal flow has picked up and Houston Street in downtown has turned into the epicenter, anchored by Geekdom on one end and Codeup on the other. It's a great place to live and I'm constantly tempted to move back, though I expect that I'd need to find remote work to maintain the pay I currently make up here in Colorado. Excellent food and low cost of living in a city that's rapidly growing up.
- pm90 8y ago
  I would not recommend San Antonio, except if you've decided to work remotely (and can find remote gigs). Yes its definitely more affordable but you're very limited in the job opportunities to those in defense/IT kind of work. Rackspace was the big exception, but its not doing all that well recently. If you had to move to a new city, definitely go for Austin, even with the overpriced real estate. The opportunity-gap more than enough makes up for the difference, and Austin is booming.
SubiculumCode 8y ago
Work remotely, live in Budapest like a King.
- badpun 8y ago
  Kings don't have to work.
  - jxub 8y ago
    Username relevant ;)
  - smsm42 8y ago
    Good or at least decent kings have to work quite a lot. Or at least had to when being a king meant something. You still have to rule the kingdom, and watch you back so your lords and your relatives do not depose you. Of course, you can give up and just relax, but this can end up bad for you and the state...
m-i-l 8y ago
These are just cities in the USA. Suggest the title be adjusted accordingly to reflect that.
orand 8y ago
The HN title and first sentence in the article are potentially misleading. It's not just about maximizing salary, it's also about cost of living and "opportunity", as described later in the article. Perhaps the HN title should be updated to the title of the original article: "What's the Best City for Software Engineers?"
- asdsa5325 8y ago
  I originally had the title as: "What's the Best City for Software Engineers?" (Adjusted Salary & Opportunity) But it was changed by a moderator for some reason...
shmerl 8y ago
That doesn't seem to take in account cost of living.
scarmig 8y ago
The link doesn't even try to answer what it claims it tries to answer. If you're trying to maximize your income as a software engineer, you move to SF. If you're trying to maximize your standard of living as a software engineer, you move to Seattle. Adjustments for "opportunity index" only obfuscates that.
- Fej 8y ago
  Why Seattle? When I think Seattle I instantly think Amazon, which isn't particularly well-regarded around here from a work-life balance perspective. The sheer number of Amazon employees would lower the average, correct?
  - scarmig 8y ago
    1) I'm also including cities like Redmond and Kirkland with Seattle. 2) Amazon's not a bad place to work: it only is thought so because of comparisons with other big companies. And even its negative aspects are as much team dependent as they are company dependent. 3) In general, working at a big tech company in Seattle will give you a small haircut in income while offering a far lower cost of living than SF/SV.
- kbob 8y ago
  To maximize income net of living expenses, you should live in your car under the Googleplex. (And work upstairs.)
walshemj 8y ago
I am not sure a scraper job site is a good source of data those sort of sites don't tend to have very good inventory.
superzadeh 8y ago
Ha, that's an easy one! Just go to Berlin :)
smsm42 8y ago
Hmm, I'm not sure I want to move to Baltimore or Detroit even if they have tons of "help wanted" ads published. Especially after reading something like this: https://www.baltimorebrew.com/2015/08/07/baltimore-surges-past-detroit-in-number-of-homicides-in-2015/ https://www.baltimorebrew.com/2015/08/07/baltimore-surges-pa... Of course, it's from 2015, but has much changed in 3 years?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
chespinoza 8y ago
clickbait
ajuc 8y ago
Live in Eastern Europe, work for American or Western European customer.
sunstone 8y ago
A lot of people would rather maximize their retained earnings rather than their income. No point in working like a dog so that your landlord can lie on the beach in Maui all year.
triplee 8y ago
The best to maximize income? One of those places in middle America or Alaska that pay people to live and work there. Work remotely on something boring so that you can spend the rest of your time investing your savings. Live in a small part of your house and rent the rest out to people if you can find tenants. I mean, if we're JUST talking about maximizing income here and not anything else, this is the way to go.

62 points by asdsa5325 8y ago

The adjustment they make on income is opaque. It's hard to judge what those values actually represent. I can't believe that the median salary in San Francisco before adjustment is anywhere near $55k.

throwaway_bmore 8y ago

Skeptical to see baltimore so highly ranked

chomp 8y ago
Why? There are a TON of government jobs there.
- throwaway_bmore 8y ago
  In the city?
- existencebox 8y ago
  I left Baltimore for Seattle, having left a position that included govt funded research, and with many friends in related positions. The ease of finding, stability, and pay of jobs all seem DRASTICALLY better in Seattle than Baltimore. This is a very subjective comparison, because I was a much more junior dev back then, but even when going for internships/starter jobs, I had far more opportunities in CA/WA/CO than on the east coast (excepting NY, of course). Now, don't take this to mean there isn't a tech job ecosystem, I was able to keep a gainful chain of good employers, but as said, they were by and large much smaller, less stable (not as a pejorative, but when compared to the BigCo's I've worked at since) and paid far less; while each time I switched jobs I felt like I had to _search_ to find the next, whereas in Seattle, I couldn't throw a stone without hitting a mid-to-large tech co. (I'd be lying if I said COL didn't hurt, but the amount one can put away with a good paycheck is _substantial_) This ended up being a bit of a ramble, but it's one (perhaps relevant) transplant's perception.
indescions_2018 8y ago
Baltimore suburbs are part of the whole aerospace / defense corridor: NSA, SAIC, Ft Meade, NASA Goddard, and a whole lot more ;)
- sndean 8y ago
  > NSA, SAIC, Ft Meade, NASA Goddard Being in Washington DC and knowing I can drive to half of those places in 30 mins, I wonder which metropolitan area definition the numbers in the article are using. Does (NSA, SAIC, Ft Meade, NASA Goddard) really pay that much more than (Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrup Grumman)? Edit: Adjusted for cost of living, Baltimore > DC makes more sense.
rcatcher 8y ago
Agreed, the number of tech jobs in Baltimore according to StackOverflow, indeed.com and whoishiring.io is very low.
leetcrew 8y ago
they don't state how they do this ranking very explicitly, but it seems to be some combination of number of jobs, median pay, and local cost of living. there aren't a ton of software jobs within the city, but there are many software companies paying DC salaries within a 30-60 minute commute to the southwest. the cost of living in baltimore is also quite low, but many of the neighborhoods probably fall short of what your typical SWE would be willing to tolerate.

zeperoni 8y ago

It's interesting to see Phoenix so high up. Living there now, and there does seem to be a lot of Software Engineer jobs. But I'm not sure how it's handling the newer programmers. I spoke with 7 companies yesterday that asked if I would relocate to San Fransisco for entry level or internship opportunities. (Obviously this data does not take that into account)

Areading314 8y ago

I think many people would still rather make $55k in SF than $91k in detroit, even if these numbers weren't completely bogus

xienze 8y ago
> I think many people would still rather make $55k in SF than $91k in detroit And where exactly are you going to live for $55K in the Bay Area? At least in Detroit you don't have to commute that far to live somewhere that's quite nice, and even own a house.
reificator 8y ago
You're joking right? A quick googling shows the median price of a home in Detroit as $35k. I don't care how bad you are at budgeting, with $91k/y in Detroit you could buy two homes. I don't have to google San Francisco to tell you that you'd be lucky to afford to rent with three roommates on $55k in San Francisco. I get where you're coming from in terms of crime and such, but cost of living is a major part of choosing where to live and on that front there's no question.
- rcatcher 8y ago
  You probably wouldn't want to live in a neighborhood where a house costs $35k. I used to live in Philadelphia, the median house price was around $100k, but it was skewed by neighborhoods with high crime rates.
  - reificator 8y ago
    I've lived in much worse growing up, I assure you. The point is that the bay area housing market is on one extreme and Detroit's is on the other.
    - thereare5lights 8y ago
      Would you raise kids in that same environment if given the option?

GameOfTrolls 8y ago

Not San Diego

tj-teej 8y ago

The "Opportunity index" is "determined by dividing the number of job openings listed on ZipRecruiter by the number of active job seekers in that area" This leads to Baltimore being #1 and San Francisco 17th. I think this is overly simplistic and not representative of "opportunity", I used to live near Baltimore, I wouldn't say it has more opportunity for Software Engineers than SF.

hrasyid 8y ago
"Finally, it combined the real adjusted salary data with the opportunity data, giving double weight to the opportunity data." How do you decide how to combine "adjusted salary data" and "opportunity data"? They aren't even in the same unit. I find that this is often the problem with these city rankings (not only this one, but also "quality of life" or "most expensive city" rankings). There is no universal way to weigh these factors, and your result highly depends on the particular weightages you assign, often arbitrarily.

fortythirteen 8y ago

Anyone with industry knowledge can look at those median salary numbers and instantly tell that the data set is faulty.

frockington 8y ago
They're cost of living adjusted, so 100k in SF is going to be 30k in other places
- Redoubts 8y ago
  Sure but every city is under 100K, which makes me agree that something is seriously off -- adjustment or no.
- fortythirteen 8y ago
  And they're still way off. The only reason Detroit's number is so high is because they're counting the $1k condemned houses for sale, all over the city, that nobody wants to move into.
JakeWesorick 8y ago
"adjusted that according to cost of living data"
asdsa5325 8y ago
They are adjusted by cost of living...
ThirdFoundation 8y ago
Do cost of living calculators take into account the more static pricing of non-necessities? For example, maybe an apartment in the Bay Area costs, say, 300% what it costs in a major mid-western city. Groceries are 150% more expensive and other necessities are equally as expensive. (All numbers made up for the sake of example) After you pay for the things you need though, you move on to things you want. Investments in stocks and bonds still cost the same no matter where you live. Flights actually are often cheaper from major, HCOL cities. Mobile phones cost the same online no matter where you live. So basically I don't know if the cost of living calculators properly scale with the incomes that SWE provides in certain markets (specifically the PNW). Does this make sense? I'd be interested if anyone had more information about this.

tptacek 8y ago

This is bad. If your metric for best city for software engineers excludes from its top 10 not only SFBA but Seattle, New York, Austin, and Atlanta, your whole piece better be a prolonged and detailed explanation of how you concluded that metric was valid. I love Chicago and think we benefit in a lot of ways from running a tech company (mostly) from here, but there is no way Chicago is a better place to be a software engineer, careerwise, than SFBA.

chomp 8y ago
I mean, "Best City" as described by the article is a really loaded term because it means a bunch of different things to different people. Some people like to optimize for net income. Others might want to optimize for like-minded folks, support networks, and peer collaboration. Still others might want more health oriented amenities and pleasant weather. I think you're right though; by excluding these software engineer-dense cities, I think the article is missing the point of what might be the "best city" for a software engineer. After all, if they aren't even in the top 10, why are people even there? :) Anecdote: at my current job in Houston, I know I earn a significant amount more than my counterpart in Austin, and I get a way less cost of living also. I also know that Austin has way more opportunities than Houston does, so I'm screwed if I ever want to leave this job. My personal situation matches the chart in the article.
- tptacek 8y ago
  I think this list would look a lot different if the jobs it considered were scoped down to software companies, and excluded the line-of-business development jobs that characterize most of the openings on cities outside the big tech centers.
acchow 8y ago
They're looking at "median". If you're a "median" engineer, I would not recommend SFBA.
- Roritharr 8y ago
  That's a really interesting point. I often fantasize about leaving "my" city of Frankfurt/Germany, but I always wonder if anywhere else is actually better for ME, wherever on the bell curve I might be. Before I was 30 I became CTO of a great company here, i really wonder if I had made such a career anywhere else if I'd moved to somewhere with a more vibrant tech-scene where my specific skill combination isn't as relatively uncommon as it is here. Same with my lifestyle situation of being the working Dad in a one-income household. Doesn't matter that i'd be making a killing in SFBA if living with a family simply costs so much more there.

Alex3917 8y ago

If you were only earning the median salary, why on earth would you pay the median amount for an apartment? A much better metric would be where is the best place to live, assuming you're making significantly more than the median salary and living in an apartment with below average monthly rent.

s73v3r_ 8y ago
You might not be able to find something below median.

liquidise 8y ago

The "Median Salary" figures are surprising to me for a number of reasons. To isolate Denver specifically (where i live, work and hire routinely) i do not know a single developer who is making < 70/yr. Perhaps this figure is brought down from the sheer quantity of code school (Galvanize, Turing, General Assembly) grads we have in the city, but even then i find it hard to believe 50% of the se's in Denver are making south of $67/yr. Edit: I'm dumb. The median salaries are adjusted for cost of living of the city.

JakeWesorick 8y ago
"adjusted that according to cost of living data"
- liquidise 8y ago
  Just noticed that. makes considerably more sense.
Joof 8y ago
Any guesses on that? I'm making a decent bit into 6 figures if benefits like stock is accounted for with one year of industry existence.

indescions_2018 8y ago

San Antonio is interesting. Have only visited. Enjoyed touristy bars on the Riverwalk. But its less than an hour from Austin. And I'm guessing even more affordable.

saryant 8y ago
(I'm sure @mgirdley will show up here in a moment) I used to live and work in San Antonio. Five years ago it was beginning to show signs of a tech scene. Geekdom had been around for a couple of years and acted as the hub of the community. TechStars had a program there (though no more). I left four years ago for Boulder so I've been watching it grow at a distance. From what I see, deal flow has picked up and Houston Street in downtown has turned into the epicenter, anchored by Geekdom on one end and Codeup on the other. It's a great place to live and I'm constantly tempted to move back, though I expect that I'd need to find remote work to maintain the pay I currently make up here in Colorado. Excellent food and low cost of living in a city that's rapidly growing up.
pm90 8y ago
I would not recommend San Antonio, except if you've decided to work remotely (and can find remote gigs). Yes its definitely more affordable but you're very limited in the job opportunities to those in defense/IT kind of work. Rackspace was the big exception, but its not doing all that well recently. If you had to move to a new city, definitely go for Austin, even with the overpriced real estate. The opportunity-gap more than enough makes up for the difference, and Austin is booming.

SubiculumCode 8y ago

Work remotely, live in Budapest like a King.

badpun 8y ago
Kings don't have to work.
- jxub 8y ago
  Username relevant ;)
- smsm42 8y ago
  Good or at least decent kings have to work quite a lot. Or at least had to when being a king meant something. You still have to rule the kingdom, and watch you back so your lords and your relatives do not depose you. Of course, you can give up and just relax, but this can end up bad for you and the state...

m-i-l 8y ago

These are just cities in the USA. Suggest the title be adjusted accordingly to reflect that.

orand 8y ago

The HN title and first sentence in the article are potentially misleading. It's not just about maximizing salary, it's also about cost of living and "opportunity", as described later in the article. Perhaps the HN title should be updated to the title of the original article: "What's the Best City for Software Engineers?"

asdsa5325 8y ago
I originally had the title as: "What's the Best City for Software Engineers?" (Adjusted Salary & Opportunity) But it was changed by a moderator for some reason...

shmerl 8y ago

That doesn't seem to take in account cost of living.

scarmig 8y ago

The link doesn't even try to answer what it claims it tries to answer. If you're trying to maximize your income as a software engineer, you move to SF. If you're trying to maximize your standard of living as a software engineer, you move to Seattle. Adjustments for "opportunity index" only obfuscates that.

Fej 8y ago
Why Seattle? When I think Seattle I instantly think Amazon, which isn't particularly well-regarded around here from a work-life balance perspective. The sheer number of Amazon employees would lower the average, correct?
- scarmig 8y ago
  1) I'm also including cities like Redmond and Kirkland with Seattle. 2) Amazon's not a bad place to work: it only is thought so because of comparisons with other big companies. And even its negative aspects are as much team dependent as they are company dependent. 3) In general, working at a big tech company in Seattle will give you a small haircut in income while offering a far lower cost of living than SF/SV.
kbob 8y ago
To maximize income net of living expenses, you should live in your car under the Googleplex. (And work upstairs.)

walshemj 8y ago

I am not sure a scraper job site is a good source of data those sort of sites don't tend to have very good inventory.

superzadeh 8y ago

Ha, that's an easy one! Just go to Berlin :)

smsm42 8y ago

Hmm, I'm not sure I want to move to Baltimore or Detroit even if they have tons of "help wanted" ads published. Especially after reading something like this: https://www.baltimorebrew.com/2015/08/07/baltimore-surges-past-detroit-in-number-of-homicides-in-2015/ https://www.baltimorebrew.com/2015/08/07/baltimore-surges-pa... Of course, it's from 2015, but has much changed in 3 years?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

chespinoza 8y ago

clickbait

ajuc 8y ago

Live in Eastern Europe, work for American or Western European customer.

sunstone 8y ago

A lot of people would rather maximize their retained earnings rather than their income. No point in working like a dog so that your landlord can lie on the beach in Maui all year.

triplee 8y ago

The best to maximize income? One of those places in middle America or Alaska that pay people to live and work there. Work remotely on something boring so that you can spend the rest of your time investing your savings. Live in a small part of your house and rent the rest out to people if you can find tenants. I mean, if we're JUST talking about maximizing income here and not anything else, this is the way to go.