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Okay most of the replies I see in here claim here that 150k is a luxurious living are assuming a lot. First and foremost, most these 150k game dev jobs are near

Okay most of the replies I see in here claim here that 150k is a luxurious living are assuming a lot. First and foremost, most these 150k game dev jobs are near big cities, the remote ones at least pre covid never paid that much. Second, yes after taxes your take home pay per month is ~8k, and a little more if you have dependents. But here's a couple of things to put into perspective: 1. It's not a lot of money if that's your household income and you have kids. Buying a house is nearly impossible with that salary and the average rent for a two bedroom apartment goes 3.5k which also includes a significant commute. Houses are even more expensive to rent. You can definitely get cheaper deals, there's no shortage of shitty housing in California. There's also rent control deals if you never moved out of a house for a decade. 2. A decent employer sponsored health insurance costs about 350 a month for the family. 3. Car payments and insurance on an average are about 400 per month. 4. you put about 500 per month to 401k if you want any decent future savings. 5. Utilities (Internet, water, electricity, gas) comes to about 300 per month 6. That leaves you about 3000 for groceries, gas, medical expenses, school related expenses, recreation, clothing, and bunch of other expenses for say a family of 3-4. That's not a lot of money tbh if you want to save anything at all. Sure 150k is a great salary if you're fresh out of college and share an apartment with other people. But 150k isn't a starting game dev salary. And it isn't a remote part of CA salary either. This is a salary paid in big cities that are too freakin expensive to stay in. PS: most of these estimates are conservative, it can easily exceed the cost. For eg, we only have one internet service provider in our area. And if you want the worst plan with bad speed and data caps, you still shell out 80$/month after they finish adding all the bs fees.

the_only_law 6y ago
How do people who aren’t a software developer, doctor, or in a high paying financial sector get buy in CA metros. From what I’ve seen, even other highly technical engineering fields rarely make it to $150k
- darth_avocado 6y ago
  The short answer is, it's tough to do it on a single income that's 150k as a family. The lower you are the tougher it gets. There is a reason why even the lowest of the city employees get paid six figure salaries, a plumber charges you $250 and driving lessons are $60/hour. For example, in the city of San Fracisco, to qualify as "low income household", the limit is almost $120k for a family of 4 or $82k for a single person.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > There is a reason why even the lowest of the city employees get paid six figure salaries Er, they don't. The median, not lowest, pay for employees of the City and County of San Francisco is barely into six figures. [0] The lowest pay categories (calculated by annualizing the biweekly max,so this is probably a slight overestimate) pay $36,114/yr, which is far short of 6 figures. [1] [0] https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2019/san-francisco/summary/ https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2019/san-francisc... [1] https://sfdhr.org/sites/default/files/documents/Classification-and-Compensation/Hourly-Rates-of-Pay-by-Classification-and-Step-FY20-21.xlsx https://sfdhr.org/sites/default/files/documents/Classificati...
    - darth_avocado 6y ago
      Okay, maybe lowest was not the best word to be used. What I meant was a lot of the city employees get paid six figure salary. And that's because it's expensive to live here. Comparing game dev salaries from the bay area to UK kind of misses that point. Sure those numbers exist, because the city has to have pay scales for every job category, but I think the more important thing to ask is what percentage of the workers are actually low paid employees. I couldn't find a report that would easily displays that info, but here's a news item from a couple years back where 75% of the bay area city employees were earning 6 figures. [0] Another question you want to ask is what positions exist in that excel spreadsheet, do people even take those jobs full time and what percentage of people do sit in that spectrum? For example here's another story that reports a starting wage of almost 50k for a Janitor. Of course there's going to be a few jobs that exist in lower end of the spectrum, but that still doesn't take away from the fact that it's expensive to live here and therefore, you shouldn't compare high salaries in the bay with others elsewhere one to one. [1] [0]https://www.dailyrepublic.com/all-dr-news/solano-news/fairfield/75-percent-of-bay-area-city-workers-get-100000-or-more-in-total-compensation/ https://www.dailyrepublic.com/all-dr-news/solano-news/fairfi... [1]https://sfist.com/2016/08/29/san_franciscos_city_worker_salaries/ https://sfist.com/2016/08/29/san_franciscos_city_worker_sala...
dragonwriter 6y ago
> It's not a lot of money if that's your household income and you have kids. Its about 50% above median family income in California for a family of four, and most of those families of four aren’t getting by with just a single worker. > That leaves you about 3000 for groceries, gas, medical expenses, school related expenses, recreation, clothing, and bunch of other expenses for say a family of 3-4. That's not a lot of money tbh if you want to save anything at all. Yeah, it is. I mean, its not “eat out every day” money, but its quite comfortable. > Sure 150k is a great salary if you're fresh out of college and share an apartment with other people 150K is almost the median household income of households headed by a Ph.D. holder (not the single personal income of someone who just graduated with a Ph.D., but the median of all households headed by a Ph.D. holder.) > And it isn't a remote part of CA salary either. This is a salary paid in big cities that are too freakin expensive to stay in. Then don’t stay in the big city; Sure, SF the Bay Area core cities are quite expensive, but you can drop to a much lower CoL within a reasonable commute distance, either within the 9-county Bay Area or adjacent, such as southwestern Solano County; that’s how plenty of people with families get by making far less than gamedev salaries working outside tech in core Bay Area cities.
- darth_avocado 6y ago
  >Its about 50% above median family income in California for a family of four You're missing a key point, that this thread is about game dev salaries and most of them tend to be in major cities (and require you to go in). Sure you can central California and work on a farm, but that's irrelevant. >Yeah, it is. I mean, its not “eat out every day” money, but its quite comfortable. It depends on where you are and for most game devs, I wouldn't consider it "quite comfortable". >150K is almost the median household income of households headed by a Ph.D. holder Sure, but they'd still won't have it easy if it's a family of 4. >but you can drop to a much lower CoL within a reasonable commute distance, either within the 9-county Bay Area or adjacent, such as southwestern Solano County I used to work for Ubisoft in San Francisco and let me tell you there isn't a single county within "reasonable" commute that is cheaper to live in. My commute was one and half hours each way and was still paying $2200 for a single bedroom apartment (two bedroom was unaffordable). There's no denying there's people in California who make way less and live far from the big cities. But there's a reason why the limit to be considered "low income" is $120000 in San Francisco for a family of 4 (and similar in other big cities where game studios have offices).

the_only_law 6y ago

How do people who aren’t a software developer, doctor, or in a high paying financial sector get buy in CA metros. From what I’ve seen, even other highly technical engineering fields rarely make it to $150k

darth_avocado 6y ago
The short answer is, it's tough to do it on a single income that's 150k as a family. The lower you are the tougher it gets. There is a reason why even the lowest of the city employees get paid six figure salaries, a plumber charges you $250 and driving lessons are $60/hour. For example, in the city of San Fracisco, to qualify as "low income household", the limit is almost $120k for a family of 4 or $82k for a single person.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > There is a reason why even the lowest of the city employees get paid six figure salaries Er, they don't. The median, not lowest, pay for employees of the City and County of San Francisco is barely into six figures. [0] The lowest pay categories (calculated by annualizing the biweekly max,so this is probably a slight overestimate) pay $36,114/yr, which is far short of 6 figures. [1] [0] https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2019/san-francisco/summary/ https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2019/san-francisc... [1] https://sfdhr.org/sites/default/files/documents/Classification-and-Compensation/Hourly-Rates-of-Pay-by-Classification-and-Step-FY20-21.xlsx https://sfdhr.org/sites/default/files/documents/Classificati...
  - darth_avocado 6y ago
    Okay, maybe lowest was not the best word to be used. What I meant was a lot of the city employees get paid six figure salary. And that's because it's expensive to live here. Comparing game dev salaries from the bay area to UK kind of misses that point. Sure those numbers exist, because the city has to have pay scales for every job category, but I think the more important thing to ask is what percentage of the workers are actually low paid employees. I couldn't find a report that would easily displays that info, but here's a news item from a couple years back where 75% of the bay area city employees were earning 6 figures. [0] Another question you want to ask is what positions exist in that excel spreadsheet, do people even take those jobs full time and what percentage of people do sit in that spectrum? For example here's another story that reports a starting wage of almost 50k for a Janitor. Of course there's going to be a few jobs that exist in lower end of the spectrum, but that still doesn't take away from the fact that it's expensive to live here and therefore, you shouldn't compare high salaries in the bay with others elsewhere one to one. [1] [0]https://www.dailyrepublic.com/all-dr-news/solano-news/fairfield/75-percent-of-bay-area-city-workers-get-100000-or-more-in-total-compensation/ https://www.dailyrepublic.com/all-dr-news/solano-news/fairfi... [1]https://sfist.com/2016/08/29/san_franciscos_city_worker_salaries/ https://sfist.com/2016/08/29/san_franciscos_city_worker_sala...

dragonwriter 6y ago

> It's not a lot of money if that's your household income and you have kids. Its about 50% above median family income in California for a family of four, and most of those families of four aren’t getting by with just a single worker. > That leaves you about 3000 for groceries, gas, medical expenses, school related expenses, recreation, clothing, and bunch of other expenses for say a family of 3-4. That's not a lot of money tbh if you want to save anything at all. Yeah, it is. I mean, its not “eat out every day” money, but its quite comfortable. > Sure 150k is a great salary if you're fresh out of college and share an apartment with other people 150K is almost the median household income of households headed by a Ph.D. holder (not the single personal income of someone who just graduated with a Ph.D., but the median of all households headed by a Ph.D. holder.) > And it isn't a remote part of CA salary either. This is a salary paid in big cities that are too freakin expensive to stay in. Then don’t stay in the big city; Sure, SF the Bay Area core cities are quite expensive, but you can drop to a much lower CoL within a reasonable commute distance, either within the 9-county Bay Area or adjacent, such as southwestern Solano County; that’s how plenty of people with families get by making far less than gamedev salaries working outside tech in core Bay Area cities.

darth_avocado 6y ago
>Its about 50% above median family income in California for a family of four You're missing a key point, that this thread is about game dev salaries and most of them tend to be in major cities (and require you to go in). Sure you can central California and work on a farm, but that's irrelevant. >Yeah, it is. I mean, its not “eat out every day” money, but its quite comfortable. It depends on where you are and for most game devs, I wouldn't consider it "quite comfortable". >150K is almost the median household income of households headed by a Ph.D. holder Sure, but they'd still won't have it easy if it's a family of 4. >but you can drop to a much lower CoL within a reasonable commute distance, either within the 9-county Bay Area or adjacent, such as southwestern Solano County I used to work for Ubisoft in San Francisco and let me tell you there isn't a single county within "reasonable" commute that is cheaper to live in. My commute was one and half hours each way and was still paying $2200 for a single bedroom apartment (two bedroom was unaffordable). There's no denying there's people in California who make way less and live far from the big cities. But there's a reason why the limit to be considered "low income" is $120000 in San Francisco for a family of 4 (and similar in other big cities where game studios have offices).