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Having had a fairly long tech career working in small, non-SF cities, even getting paid 70-80% of a Bay area salary, I can tell you that this allows you to live

Having had a fairly long tech career working in small, non-SF cities, even getting paid 70-80% of a Bay area salary, I can tell you that this allows you to live very, very well. Bay area salaries are much larger than most other jobs (tech or not) in small cities. I recall local tech companies offering 1/2 to 1/3 of what you would get paid for average (non-FAANG) work in the Bay. In most smaller cities in the US > $100k is still quite a lot for a household, let alone a single income. If take that income outside of even small towns to more rural areas, $100k can allow you to live very, very well. Sure eventually we'll see salaries reach an equilibrium, where local tech companies have to offer more and big tech companies will offer less. However, for the next few years, if you're coming from a Bay Area company, you can take a pretty major cut to TC and still live extremely well. You don't have to move to the middle of nowhere for this to be the case either.

ummonk 6y ago
Depends on how much you value housing size / quality. You can't get a big house in the Bay Area but if you opt for something smaller you get a lot more disposable income to spend on other luxuries.
- giantrobot 6y ago
  Uh...not really. Tiny piece of shit houses built in the 60s still go for a million plus in much of the SFBA. The problem is there's a real housing shortage so there's untenable minimum prices for houses. At a million dollars you need a fairly large household income to afford luxuries beyond your house. Even putting down 25% on the house with a good 30 year fixed rate loan you'd be looking at just under $4k a month for your mortgage. After utilities you're easily over $4k a month. If you scrimped you could maybe keep your other household costs under $500 a month (realistically you're looking at $1k). So you're looking at a take-home of $4.5-5k to just stay afloat. That's all for a shitty house that needs work, doesn't have great insulation, and doesn't have a lot of usable space. If you're 30 when you buy they place you only have to keep that income until you're 60 or hope that you build a ton of equity in the meantime and cash out. That's the minimum for most of the SFBA. There's plenty of places with even more outrageous prices for shitty houses. To buy a house for not completely outrageous prices you need to go pretty far afield with hour plus commutes. Treating yourself to ramen once a week is not a luxury.
  - joshuamorton 6y ago
    > After utilities you're easily over $4k a month. If you scrimped you could maybe keep your other household costs under $500 a month (realistically you're looking at $1k). So you're looking at a take-home of $4.5-5k to just stay afloat This is more than accessible to tech workers at public companies. A 150k income is going to be ~7k a month after taxes. Tier one employers pay significantly more than that to new grads, and pretty much everyone reputable in the bay pays more than that to experienced people. So yeah, single income can absolutely afford a home. Obviously someone with student loans can't do that as quickly, but otoh a dual income family could put $2M down in cash before they turn 30 given moderate success. (Or another way of looking at this is a moderately successful mid-20s SWE can bank 100k/yr after all expenses and retirement savings, without budgeting strictly. That's ridiculous)
    - giantrobot 6y ago
      Who is offering new grads $150k regularly? What new grad making $150k is going to qualify for a loan on a million dollar house? Where are they getting a down payment? Where are they saving up hundreds of thousands with $3-4K rents before other expenses? How the shit is a dual engineer income saving up $2m in cash by the time they're 30 even with no student loans? A SWE in their 20s banking $100k a year? Must be nice.
      - joshuamorton 6y ago
        > Who is offering new grads $150k regularly? Google, Amazon (and subsidiaries like Twitch), Microsoft (and subsidiaries like Github), Facebook, Linkedin, Stripe, Square, Lyft, Uber, Snap, Oracle, Apple, Dropbox, Box, Nvidia, Twitter, Slack, Salesforce, ByteDance and a slew of others. And I'm including only companies that pay out 150K in cash equivalents (cash + annual bonus + liquid stock) in that list. After a promotion, that list probably doubles in size. > What new grad making $150k is going to qualify for a loan on a million dollar house? I don't think I ever suggested this. What I did suggest is that someone who graduates at 22 or 23 (and, with the big caveat that they do so with little to no existing debt), gets a 150K starting comp, and has even a modest amount of career growth will be able to save a whole bunch of money in their late twenties. > A SWE in their 20s banking $100k a year? Must be nice. Like I said, its absolutely ridiculous.

ummonk 6y ago

Depends on how much you value housing size / quality. You can't get a big house in the Bay Area but if you opt for something smaller you get a lot more disposable income to spend on other luxuries.

giantrobot 6y ago
Uh...not really. Tiny piece of shit houses built in the 60s still go for a million plus in much of the SFBA. The problem is there's a real housing shortage so there's untenable minimum prices for houses. At a million dollars you need a fairly large household income to afford luxuries beyond your house. Even putting down 25% on the house with a good 30 year fixed rate loan you'd be looking at just under $4k a month for your mortgage. After utilities you're easily over $4k a month. If you scrimped you could maybe keep your other household costs under $500 a month (realistically you're looking at $1k). So you're looking at a take-home of $4.5-5k to just stay afloat. That's all for a shitty house that needs work, doesn't have great insulation, and doesn't have a lot of usable space. If you're 30 when you buy they place you only have to keep that income until you're 60 or hope that you build a ton of equity in the meantime and cash out. That's the minimum for most of the SFBA. There's plenty of places with even more outrageous prices for shitty houses. To buy a house for not completely outrageous prices you need to go pretty far afield with hour plus commutes. Treating yourself to ramen once a week is not a luxury.
- joshuamorton 6y ago
  > After utilities you're easily over $4k a month. If you scrimped you could maybe keep your other household costs under $500 a month (realistically you're looking at $1k). So you're looking at a take-home of $4.5-5k to just stay afloat This is more than accessible to tech workers at public companies. A 150k income is going to be ~7k a month after taxes. Tier one employers pay significantly more than that to new grads, and pretty much everyone reputable in the bay pays more than that to experienced people. So yeah, single income can absolutely afford a home. Obviously someone with student loans can't do that as quickly, but otoh a dual income family could put $2M down in cash before they turn 30 given moderate success. (Or another way of looking at this is a moderately successful mid-20s SWE can bank 100k/yr after all expenses and retirement savings, without budgeting strictly. That's ridiculous)
  - giantrobot 6y ago
    Who is offering new grads $150k regularly? What new grad making $150k is going to qualify for a loan on a million dollar house? Where are they getting a down payment? Where are they saving up hundreds of thousands with $3-4K rents before other expenses? How the shit is a dual engineer income saving up $2m in cash by the time they're 30 even with no student loans? A SWE in their 20s banking $100k a year? Must be nice.
    - joshuamorton 6y ago
      > Who is offering new grads $150k regularly? Google, Amazon (and subsidiaries like Twitch), Microsoft (and subsidiaries like Github), Facebook, Linkedin, Stripe, Square, Lyft, Uber, Snap, Oracle, Apple, Dropbox, Box, Nvidia, Twitter, Slack, Salesforce, ByteDance and a slew of others. And I'm including only companies that pay out 150K in cash equivalents (cash + annual bonus + liquid stock) in that list. After a promotion, that list probably doubles in size. > What new grad making $150k is going to qualify for a loan on a million dollar house? I don't think I ever suggested this. What I did suggest is that someone who graduates at 22 or 23 (and, with the big caveat that they do so with little to no existing debt), gets a 150K starting comp, and has even a modest amount of career growth will be able to save a whole bunch of money in their late twenties. > A SWE in their 20s banking $100k a year? Must be nice. Like I said, its absolutely ridiculous.