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I think these folks are often very different than FAANG crew tbh. That’s why I say - why bother comparing. It’s not the same even remotely. People I work with

I think these folks are often very different than FAANG crew tbh. That’s why I say - why bother comparing. It’s not the same even remotely. People I work with at FAANG-etc tend to be top 10 school, upper class upbringing, want to go even higher, etc. It’s different. It’s what you’d expect from doctors. I think different types of personalities are attracted to SV than to rest of the country. We’ve built the stereotype around the Midwest developer than the SV one though. The SV ones are just so different in background and ambition.

scarface74 4y ago
As someone who can sort of see things from both sides, I have opinions… I graduated from a small unknown college in the south in 1996. I moved to the major metropolitan area where I still live after graduating and by 2000, I was making around $70K. For reference, my rent was $600 a month and the 2700 square foot brand new build I bought in the burbs in 2002 was $175K. Life happened and by the time salaries for SV started getting crazy around 2012-2014, I was 40 years old, remarried and I had a wife and two teenage (step)sons in another 3000+ square foot house in the burbs that we had built in the good school system. I was the dark matter developer who was quite comfortable. By 2017, I saw the writing on the wall, I knew I was going to plateau soon locally and my youngest was graduating in 2020. I knew I didn’t want to be a 46 year old software engineer at a large company. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I was going to be content bumbing around smaller companies as “the adult in the room”. I just happen to fall into a remote role in cloud consulting (cloud enterprise application development and deployment) at BigTech (yes full time with the same compensation structure as SDEs). I have former coworkers my age that did the same calculus. They had no interest in working in software development at a large company. They already had the life they wanted. https://bemorewithless.com/the-story-of-the-mexican-fisherman/ https://bemorewithless.com/the-story-of-the-mexican-fisherma...
DeathArrow 4y ago
You get SV compensation and have to pay SV prices for everything. Not sure the level of living is better than getting non-SV payment while paying non-SV prices.
- twblalock 4y ago
  > Not sure the level of living is better than getting non-SV payment while paying non-SV prices. SV prices apply to housing. Everything else you buy -- cars, computers, phones, clothing, food, etc. costs about the same everywhere. A Honda Civic or Tesla Model S, or an iPhone, or anything you see on Amazon, costs about the same in California and anywhere else in the country. On an SV engineering salary, you end up in a situation where your housing is expensive but almost everything else feels very cheap. And you end up putting more money in savings, even after paying for housing, than most people could ever do. Early retirement is definitely achievable too.
  - bradlys 4y ago
    Correct. People are also completely missing the entire point of what I'm saying too. SV attracts a different kind of person. Your colleagues, neighbors, and peers are just wildly different than what you'd find in a midwestern governmental position. Again - it's like comparing doctors to electricians. They are a very different set of people. If you don't care about those things then fine - but for those of us who want to be surrounded by those who are similar to us... Living in SV is kinda the only option.

scarface74 4y ago

As someone who can sort of see things from both sides, I have opinions… I graduated from a small unknown college in the south in 1996. I moved to the major metropolitan area where I still live after graduating and by 2000, I was making around $70K. For reference, my rent was $600 a month and the 2700 square foot brand new build I bought in the burbs in 2002 was $175K. Life happened and by the time salaries for SV started getting crazy around 2012-2014, I was 40 years old, remarried and I had a wife and two teenage (step)sons in another 3000+ square foot house in the burbs that we had built in the good school system. I was the dark matter developer who was quite comfortable. By 2017, I saw the writing on the wall, I knew I was going to plateau soon locally and my youngest was graduating in 2020. I knew I didn’t want to be a 46 year old software engineer at a large company. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I was going to be content bumbing around smaller companies as “the adult in the room”. I just happen to fall into a remote role in cloud consulting (cloud enterprise application development and deployment) at BigTech (yes full time with the same compensation structure as SDEs). I have former coworkers my age that did the same calculus. They had no interest in working in software development at a large company. They already had the life they wanted. https://bemorewithless.com/the-story-of-the-mexican-fisherman/ https://bemorewithless.com/the-story-of-the-mexican-fisherma...

DeathArrow 4y ago

You get SV compensation and have to pay SV prices for everything. Not sure the level of living is better than getting non-SV payment while paying non-SV prices.

twblalock 4y ago
> Not sure the level of living is better than getting non-SV payment while paying non-SV prices. SV prices apply to housing. Everything else you buy -- cars, computers, phones, clothing, food, etc. costs about the same everywhere. A Honda Civic or Tesla Model S, or an iPhone, or anything you see on Amazon, costs about the same in California and anywhere else in the country. On an SV engineering salary, you end up in a situation where your housing is expensive but almost everything else feels very cheap. And you end up putting more money in savings, even after paying for housing, than most people could ever do. Early retirement is definitely achievable too.
- bradlys 4y ago
  Correct. People are also completely missing the entire point of what I'm saying too. SV attracts a different kind of person. Your colleagues, neighbors, and peers are just wildly different than what you'd find in a midwestern governmental position. Again - it's like comparing doctors to electricians. They are a very different set of people. If you don't care about those things then fine - but for those of us who want to be surrounded by those who are similar to us... Living in SV is kinda the only option.