Before 2010, once you take into account cost of living, the compensation difference between moving to the west coast and living in almost any other major city

Before 2010, once you take into account cost of living, the compensation difference between moving to the west coast and living in almost any other major city as a software developer, wasn’t worth it. After around 2012 as the economy was coming out of the recession, VC money started flowing and computers (smart phones) got more ubiquitous, BigTech compensation really started diverging from being a regular old enterprise corp dev even after taking cost of living into account. I’m not complaining. I make a comfortable living working for $BigTech doing the same type of enterprise architect work I did three years ago just by knowing “cloud” and having soft skills.