3 ms·

Personally, I would not move somewhere with half the cost of living if I'm getting half the pay. At higher incomes (ex: senior level FAANG engineers and up) you

by dbish 6y ago

Personally, I would not move somewhere with half the cost of living if I'm getting half the pay. At higher incomes (ex: senior level FAANG engineers and up) you don't spend a lot of your income (stock + salary), you save a good chunk of it (as long as you haven't had major lifestyle inflation issues, you should be saving a lot). This means that it's more important to find a balance between pay and cost of living where you can maximize saving. It's why I prefer Seattle to SF. SF pays a little more, but the cost of living greatly increases. Seattle is much more expensive then many other places you could live, but then I'd be saving a lot less due to pay drops. There is of course quality of life that has to be brought into the equation, which is more about personal preferences and what makes you happy, so I won't get into that part, but $1M on a house in one location vs. $300k for Atlanta is not the deal breaker at higher pay (btw, those are Seattle price ranges, $1M will not get you much of a house in the Bay Area from what I've seen).

disabled 6y ago
As somebody who is originally from Seattle, this comment is right on and hits the mark.
- oarabbus_ 6y ago
  Actually, I don't think this is true - especially for Seattle. Facebook pays the same payscale for Seattle as the Bay Area. Combined with no state income tax, lower property prices, and lower cost of living, you come out far ahead (financially) by being a Facebooker in Seattle instead of SF.
  - filoleg 6y ago
    From what I heard from friends at FB, it was either signing bonus or something else that was slightly less in Seattle than it was in SF. But overall, I am in full agreement with you. You will be able to save noticeably more as a FB engineer in Seattle as opposed to SF, while living around the same lifestyle level.
pbourke 6y ago
Is 50% of total comp realistic? I find it hard to believe that someone would be paid $250k in the Bay Area and work with someone at the same level in Boise getting paid $125k. I can buy $250k vs $200k or something similar.
- mikeyouse 6y ago
  That's the big question mark for remote -- There just aren't many jobs at an equivalent level of a $250k engineer in Boise. So often if you want to work as an engineer in Boise, you work for the airport or hospital or whoever has a 'real' business that needs software help -- and their pay scales are muuuch closer to $125k than $200k. Outside of engineering, I know a friend who did design for a web dev shop in the Midwest who 5x'ed his salary by moving to the Bay Area and joining Facebook.
  - oarabbus_ 6y ago
    Then all facebook needs to do is pay the programmer $150k in Boise if the premium market rate there is $125k, no? Facebook saves $100k, Boise Engineer gets a 20% increase to their salary. And $150k in Boise likely results in a higher quality of life than $250k around SF.
- dbish 6y ago
  Here's one datapoint from gitlab. Fullstack engineer using their comp calculator can drop 40% (moving from 1.0 to .6 location pay multiplier) moving from SF to a cheap area: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/total-rewards/compensation/compensation-calculator/calculator/ https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/total-rewards/compensation...
- UncleMeat 6y ago
  Cross countries and this happens. Pay in Canada is a lot lower than bay area pay at Google.
oarabbus_ 6y ago
But that isn't how it works, at least at any company I have seen that implements remote relocation (and I assume FB too). If you move to a place with a 50% COL as NYC or SF, you retain 70% or so of your salary. You still come out ahead. I think you've set up a strawman fallacy here. People come out ahead financially when relocating to lower COL, even with the downward salary adjustments.
- dbish 6y ago
  That can certainly work out then (depending on your expense to income ratio), all I'm saying is you need to do the math on what you can save based on the new income to compare saving rates rather then cost of living to pay ratio. I have compared offers from Seattle, NYC, SF, Pittsburgh, and Philly, for multiple big well-known tech companies. Pittsburgh and Philly were way cheaper cost of living, but pay was substantially lower as well so I would save more in other locations. SF paid the most, followed by NYC, followed by Seattle, but SF and NYC would have had reduced saving rates after looking at everything. Granted these were not all the same company (some were) so it's hard to do direct comparison and know what places like FB will do. I'd be interested in seeing more data as this occurs
zeroonetwothree 6y ago
Yeah, if I'm making high six figures at Facebook then saving $50k/yr on housing and food is trivial compared to any compensation cut.

by dbish 6y ago

disabled 6y ago

As somebody who is originally from Seattle, this comment is right on and hits the mark.

oarabbus_ 6y ago
Actually, I don't think this is true - especially for Seattle. Facebook pays the same payscale for Seattle as the Bay Area. Combined with no state income tax, lower property prices, and lower cost of living, you come out far ahead (financially) by being a Facebooker in Seattle instead of SF.
- filoleg 6y ago
  From what I heard from friends at FB, it was either signing bonus or something else that was slightly less in Seattle than it was in SF. But overall, I am in full agreement with you. You will be able to save noticeably more as a FB engineer in Seattle as opposed to SF, while living around the same lifestyle level.

pbourke 6y ago

Is 50% of total comp realistic? I find it hard to believe that someone would be paid $250k in the Bay Area and work with someone at the same level in Boise getting paid $125k. I can buy $250k vs $200k or something similar.

mikeyouse 6y ago
That's the big question mark for remote -- There just aren't many jobs at an equivalent level of a $250k engineer in Boise. So often if you want to work as an engineer in Boise, you work for the airport or hospital or whoever has a 'real' business that needs software help -- and their pay scales are muuuch closer to $125k than $200k. Outside of engineering, I know a friend who did design for a web dev shop in the Midwest who 5x'ed his salary by moving to the Bay Area and joining Facebook.
- oarabbus_ 6y ago
  Then all facebook needs to do is pay the programmer $150k in Boise if the premium market rate there is $125k, no? Facebook saves $100k, Boise Engineer gets a 20% increase to their salary. And $150k in Boise likely results in a higher quality of life than $250k around SF.
dbish 6y ago
Here's one datapoint from gitlab. Fullstack engineer using their comp calculator can drop 40% (moving from 1.0 to .6 location pay multiplier) moving from SF to a cheap area: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/total-rewards/compensation/compensation-calculator/calculator/ https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/total-rewards/compensation...
UncleMeat 6y ago
Cross countries and this happens. Pay in Canada is a lot lower than bay area pay at Google.

oarabbus_ 6y ago

But that isn't how it works, at least at any company I have seen that implements remote relocation (and I assume FB too). If you move to a place with a 50% COL as NYC or SF, you retain 70% or so of your salary. You still come out ahead. I think you've set up a strawman fallacy here. People come out ahead financially when relocating to lower COL, even with the downward salary adjustments.

dbish 6y ago
That can certainly work out then (depending on your expense to income ratio), all I'm saying is you need to do the math on what you can save based on the new income to compare saving rates rather then cost of living to pay ratio. I have compared offers from Seattle, NYC, SF, Pittsburgh, and Philly, for multiple big well-known tech companies. Pittsburgh and Philly were way cheaper cost of living, but pay was substantially lower as well so I would save more in other locations. SF paid the most, followed by NYC, followed by Seattle, but SF and NYC would have had reduced saving rates after looking at everything. Granted these were not all the same company (some were) so it's hard to do direct comparison and know what places like FB will do. I'd be interested in seeing more data as this occurs

zeroonetwothree 6y ago

Yeah, if I'm making high six figures at Facebook then saving $50k/yr on housing and food is trivial compared to any compensation cut.