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When you factor in cost of living, you'd be making far more in Austin: https://hired.com/blog/candidates/where-engineer-salaries-pay-highest-standard-living/ ht

When you factor in cost of living, you'd be making far more in Austin: https://hired.com/blog/candidates/where-engineer-salaries-pay-highest-standard-living/ https://hired.com/blog/candidates/where-engineer-salaries-pa...

aphextron 8y ago
>When you factor in cost of living, you'd be making far more in Austin I was stationed at Fort Hood in Killeen, TX another lifetime ago as an army infantry recruit in the late 2000's. I know all about living in central Texas as a person of color. Unfortunately red states have become a complete no go zone for me to even consider living in 2018.
- throwaway080383 8y ago
  Exactly why I've never seriously considered Texas. I'm white, but I still don't want neighbors who fly the confederate flag.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - uncoder0 8y ago
    From VA, Live in Austin for nearly a decade... have never seen a confederate flag on a house in TX... VA on the other hand..
    - stevenwoo 8y ago
      I grew up and lived in Texas for 25 years in urban and rural areas. The confederate flag flies on cars, houses, college dorms/fraternity houses, inside of people's houses, moreso in rural but still everywhere in some measure. East Texas was probably the worst in terms of overt racism so it would be easy to miss unless the outdoor recreational opportunities there or driving to New Orleans was on your agenda.
      - tropo 8y ago
        If you come from a northern culture, you may misinterpret things in the south. Here, to give you the proper cultural perspective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8hPo6mYnks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8hPo6mYnks
        santoriv 8y ago
        I grew up in the South and presently live in the South and I think that this video is popular precisely because the sentiments expressed are contrary to the views of almost everyone in the African American community. My stepfather is a 71 year old African American gentleman from New Orleans. He knows - and all of his friends and family know - that if you see the confederate flag up in front of a house or business, it means "Don't come here unless you want trouble". Now of course this doesn't apply to every instance where the flag is flown - many people view it as a symbol of Southern Heritage. But it is completely ignorant to think that there aren't lots of people who fly it as a symbol of racial supremacy. And historically it has meant much worse than that. My high school, Southside High School, in Fort Smith, AR was founded in 1963 - six years after the Little Rock Nine. The mascot was Johnny Rebel, a confederate soldier. During football games, we played Dixie as our fight song and before the 90's, waved the confederate flag at football games. In fact, the interior courtyard of the school was once one giant confederate flag. The practical (intended!) effect of all this was that for African American students living within our gerrymandered school district, the vast majority of them chose to go out-of-district to the other poorer high school. Through our mascot and the flag the local government had achieved de facto segregation without legal segregation, thus avoiding a showdown with the 101st Airborne. Anyway, I don't know why I wrote this since probably no one will read it but I get really upset when I see something that smacks of Holocaust denial that applies to my native culture.
        stevenwoo 8y ago
        That guy's statement is clear that he purposely ignored the first ten words of my comment so even though we are supposed to give everyone the benefit of a doubt, the most charitable interpretation I can give is that they were just waiting for the opportunity to bait someone with that troll comment. It's like saying that one African American guy at all the Trump rallies who is obviously mentally unbalanced shows that African Americans support Trump.
  - nunya213 8y ago
    This is total nonsense. If you live in a trailer park that may be an issue but it would also be an issue at trailer parks in California.
  - whataretensors 8y ago
    Nah, I grew up in Texas. It's a counterculture thing, most people consider it trashy to fly the confederate flag.
- driverdan 8y ago
  Give me a break. Visit any of the major cities in TX. Racism isn't any more of a problem than other major US cities.
  - knuththetruth 8y ago
    Immediately dismissing people’s experience of racism is no small part of why people feel this way.
    - aaron-lebo 8y ago
      The problem is, people can make claims of racism, but you can't counter them or say they are exaggerated, so people think you live in some podunk racist state that's 100 years out of date and for the vast majority of people it's just not true. Killeen is a military town in the middle of nowhere. It has a weird population. But the sibling comment that talks about people hanging Confederate flags isn't representative. California has nutters and boonies too. San Antonio, Dallas, Houston, and Austin are the fastest growing cities in the nation. TX has a larger minority population than it does other. If it was such a racist backwater I think my friends would say something about it, but I too get the impression that the level of racism is about the same as any other major city. I don't mean to demean their experiences, but I also don't believe it's representative of a state that in 20 years is going to be as important as CA if it isn't already in various areas. If you were transported to a neighborhood in any of those cities, you'd have a hard time figuring out you weren't in NY< CA, or any other major state/city. When people write off entire states because of politics, that's missing a lot of nuance. If you want to do that, you can also ignore Atlanta, at your own fault, which has as compelling a minority cultural boom as anywhere in the country. Someone needs to tell Don Glover to get the hell out of there. It's just as offensive to natives of various places to hear their home stereotyped as it is for races to hear their race stereotyped.
      - knuththetruth 8y ago
        >It's just as offensive to natives of various places to hear their home stereotyped as it is for races to hear their race stereotyped. This is such an insane false equivalence, especially given Texas’ history of institutionalized racism, I don’t even know where to begin.
derefr 8y ago
That assumes that all money is valued relative to cost of living. But, I think, for a lot of people, a lot of their spending is nonlocal (e.g. internet shopping) or at least on price-standardized goods, and so is not tied to cost-of-living. Let's say that in SV, you'd be making 400k, and—after spending on cost-of-living—keeping 10% as "pocket money." Well, that's 40k. Now let's say that in Austin, you'd be making 100k, and keeping 30% as pocket money. That's 30k. 40k buys more iPhones (or whatever else you might want) than 30k. 40k is also more money to send back home to your family in India or wherever, than 30k is. It's smaller in relative terms, but what does that matter when it's still larger in absolute terms? (Certainly, there's a lifestyle where spending on priced-to-cost-of-living goods can expand to consume all available salary. For example, if your goal in life is to throw extravagant parties with delicious food, then that food is going to cost less in Austin, so–even with 10k less in the budget—you can afford to throw more parties, and invite more people. But I feel like HN types are the least likely to have this kind of spending profile.)
- driverdan 8y ago
  > Let's say that in SV, you'd be making 400k No you won't.
  - akhilcacharya 8y ago
    This is a very typical TC for T5/E5 at Google/FB. And of course Netflix and the like.
    - otalp 8y ago
      That's literally a few hundred people, not the norm
      - akhilcacharya 8y ago
        Closer to a few thousand, and even if, so?
        8y ago
Redoubts 8y ago
Looking at my finances, I doubt it.
encoderer 8y ago
1) You'd have to live in Texas. 2) Unparalleled liquidity and depth to the job market for engineering in SFBA. There is a universe of jobs here that pay engineers better than the $140k quoted by Hired.
DannyBee 8y ago
This depends on a lot including level, etc. For most people, i actually expect the best game to play would be to acquire a large amount of bay-area level equity compensation, then move for the same company to somewhere else and ride it out :)
adrr 8y ago
Texas has its own list of issues including enforceable non-competes and employer claiming ownership of projects you do in your spare time. Don't move to Texas if you have aspirations of starting your company.
- smsm42 8y ago
  > employer claiming ownership of projects you do in your spare time This sounds quite insane - especially if you contribute to any of the open source projects. Any cases you could quote?

aphextron 8y ago

>When you factor in cost of living, you'd be making far more in Austin I was stationed at Fort Hood in Killeen, TX another lifetime ago as an army infantry recruit in the late 2000's. I know all about living in central Texas as a person of color. Unfortunately red states have become a complete no go zone for me to even consider living in 2018.

throwaway080383 8y ago
Exactly why I've never seriously considered Texas. I'm white, but I still don't want neighbors who fly the confederate flag.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- uncoder0 8y ago
  From VA, Live in Austin for nearly a decade... have never seen a confederate flag on a house in TX... VA on the other hand..
  - stevenwoo 8y ago
    I grew up and lived in Texas for 25 years in urban and rural areas. The confederate flag flies on cars, houses, college dorms/fraternity houses, inside of people's houses, moreso in rural but still everywhere in some measure. East Texas was probably the worst in terms of overt racism so it would be easy to miss unless the outdoor recreational opportunities there or driving to New Orleans was on your agenda.
    - tropo 8y ago
      If you come from a northern culture, you may misinterpret things in the south. Here, to give you the proper cultural perspective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8hPo6mYnks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8hPo6mYnks
      - santoriv 8y ago
        I grew up in the South and presently live in the South and I think that this video is popular precisely because the sentiments expressed are contrary to the views of almost everyone in the African American community. My stepfather is a 71 year old African American gentleman from New Orleans. He knows - and all of his friends and family know - that if you see the confederate flag up in front of a house or business, it means "Don't come here unless you want trouble". Now of course this doesn't apply to every instance where the flag is flown - many people view it as a symbol of Southern Heritage. But it is completely ignorant to think that there aren't lots of people who fly it as a symbol of racial supremacy. And historically it has meant much worse than that. My high school, Southside High School, in Fort Smith, AR was founded in 1963 - six years after the Little Rock Nine. The mascot was Johnny Rebel, a confederate soldier. During football games, we played Dixie as our fight song and before the 90's, waved the confederate flag at football games. In fact, the interior courtyard of the school was once one giant confederate flag. The practical (intended!) effect of all this was that for African American students living within our gerrymandered school district, the vast majority of them chose to go out-of-district to the other poorer high school. Through our mascot and the flag the local government had achieved de facto segregation without legal segregation, thus avoiding a showdown with the 101st Airborne. Anyway, I don't know why I wrote this since probably no one will read it but I get really upset when I see something that smacks of Holocaust denial that applies to my native culture.
        stevenwoo 8y ago
        That guy's statement is clear that he purposely ignored the first ten words of my comment so even though we are supposed to give everyone the benefit of a doubt, the most charitable interpretation I can give is that they were just waiting for the opportunity to bait someone with that troll comment. It's like saying that one African American guy at all the Trump rallies who is obviously mentally unbalanced shows that African Americans support Trump.
- nunya213 8y ago
  This is total nonsense. If you live in a trailer park that may be an issue but it would also be an issue at trailer parks in California.
- whataretensors 8y ago
  Nah, I grew up in Texas. It's a counterculture thing, most people consider it trashy to fly the confederate flag.
driverdan 8y ago
Give me a break. Visit any of the major cities in TX. Racism isn't any more of a problem than other major US cities.
- knuththetruth 8y ago
  Immediately dismissing people’s experience of racism is no small part of why people feel this way.
  - aaron-lebo 8y ago
    The problem is, people can make claims of racism, but you can't counter them or say they are exaggerated, so people think you live in some podunk racist state that's 100 years out of date and for the vast majority of people it's just not true. Killeen is a military town in the middle of nowhere. It has a weird population. But the sibling comment that talks about people hanging Confederate flags isn't representative. California has nutters and boonies too. San Antonio, Dallas, Houston, and Austin are the fastest growing cities in the nation. TX has a larger minority population than it does other. If it was such a racist backwater I think my friends would say something about it, but I too get the impression that the level of racism is about the same as any other major city. I don't mean to demean their experiences, but I also don't believe it's representative of a state that in 20 years is going to be as important as CA if it isn't already in various areas. If you were transported to a neighborhood in any of those cities, you'd have a hard time figuring out you weren't in NY< CA, or any other major state/city. When people write off entire states because of politics, that's missing a lot of nuance. If you want to do that, you can also ignore Atlanta, at your own fault, which has as compelling a minority cultural boom as anywhere in the country. Someone needs to tell Don Glover to get the hell out of there. It's just as offensive to natives of various places to hear their home stereotyped as it is for races to hear their race stereotyped.
    - knuththetruth 8y ago
      >It's just as offensive to natives of various places to hear their home stereotyped as it is for races to hear their race stereotyped. This is such an insane false equivalence, especially given Texas’ history of institutionalized racism, I don’t even know where to begin.

derefr 8y ago

That assumes that all money is valued relative to cost of living. But, I think, for a lot of people, a lot of their spending is nonlocal (e.g. internet shopping) or at least on price-standardized goods, and so is not tied to cost-of-living. Let's say that in SV, you'd be making 400k, and—after spending on cost-of-living—keeping 10% as "pocket money." Well, that's 40k. Now let's say that in Austin, you'd be making 100k, and keeping 30% as pocket money. That's 30k. 40k buys more iPhones (or whatever else you might want) than 30k. 40k is also more money to send back home to your family in India or wherever, than 30k is. It's smaller in relative terms, but what does that matter when it's still larger in absolute terms? (Certainly, there's a lifestyle where spending on priced-to-cost-of-living goods can expand to consume all available salary. For example, if your goal in life is to throw extravagant parties with delicious food, then that food is going to cost less in Austin, so–even with 10k less in the budget—you can afford to throw more parties, and invite more people. But I feel like HN types are the least likely to have this kind of spending profile.)

driverdan 8y ago
> Let's say that in SV, you'd be making 400k No you won't.
- akhilcacharya 8y ago
  This is a very typical TC for T5/E5 at Google/FB. And of course Netflix and the like.
  - otalp 8y ago
    That's literally a few hundred people, not the norm
    - akhilcacharya 8y ago
      Closer to a few thousand, and even if, so?
      - 8y ago

Redoubts 8y ago

Looking at my finances, I doubt it.

encoderer 8y ago

1) You'd have to live in Texas. 2) Unparalleled liquidity and depth to the job market for engineering in SFBA. There is a universe of jobs here that pay engineers better than the $140k quoted by Hired.

DannyBee 8y ago

This depends on a lot including level, etc. For most people, i actually expect the best game to play would be to acquire a large amount of bay-area level equity compensation, then move for the same company to somewhere else and ride it out :)

adrr 8y ago

Texas has its own list of issues including enforceable non-competes and employer claiming ownership of projects you do in your spare time. Don't move to Texas if you have aspirations of starting your company.

smsm42 8y ago
> employer claiming ownership of projects you do in your spare time This sounds quite insane - especially if you contribute to any of the open source projects. Any cases you could quote?