5 ms·

There are obvious exceptions to everything. But I’ve lived in Atlanta, Orlando, SF and Seattle. Moving to SF was a career multiplier. I instantly doubled my sa

by itake 2y ago

There are obvious exceptions to everything. But I’ve lived in Atlanta, Orlando, SF and Seattle. Moving to SF was a career multiplier. I instantly doubled my salary. Now, I’m earning 2-5x more than my peers (that were more senior than me) that chose to live in those cities. Walmart was started in Arkansas. Warren Buffet famously lives in Nebraska. But the Tier 1 cities create more wealth for more people than Tier 2 or 3 cities.

Arainach 2y ago
>Now, I’m earning 2-5x more than my peers (that were more senior than me) that chose to live in those cities. Salary or takehome? Sure, your net in SF will be higher than Orlando or London, but looking at resources such as levels.fyi, internal salary sharing sites at large companies, etc. the math for Seattle comp with no state income tax is pretty close to bay area minus tax.
- dilyevsky 2y ago
  Seattle has enforceable (and readily abused) non-compete and also virtually non-existent startup scene
  - Arainach 2y ago
    In practice, no, the non competes are never enforced, and if the goal is to brag about high compensation startups don't matter.
    - dilyevsky 2y ago
      Amazon has filed numerous lawsuits for this - it’s well documented. I think there’s some some sort of ban for non-competes on w2s under $120k now (which doesn’t really help tech workers), but otherwise you’re wrong. To your second point - there are always a bunch of well capitalized startups in the valley. Today it’s AI, before it was crypto, etc. These startups pay really really well when compared nationally. You dont have to get into 500k+ faang salaries to win against other locales On top of that there are many more private companies that also pay good base + offer liquidity events for employees. Again - orders of magnitude more than seattle, austin or even nyc
      - Arainach 2y ago
        Startup equity should be assumed to have a value of 0, which statistically it does. I've never seen one be competitive on actual hard currency compensation - even the hot ones. And that's before valuing your time per hour worked. I'd love to see examples of Amazon trying to enforce noncompetes at levels lower than VP, because I've never seen it. Folks move to direct competitors all the time - AWS to Azure or Oracle, etc.
        dilyevsky 2y ago
        > I'd love to see examples of Amazon trying to enforce noncompetes at levels lower than VP, because I've never seen it. Easy[0]. I also know a few cases where a 3rd company refused to extend an offer due to legal flagging it [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7975428 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7975428 > I've never seen one be competitive on actual hard currency compensation - even the hot ones OpenAI famously was pretty generous. It’s all public data now due to lawsuits
- itake 2y ago
  Take home. Salary seems to be 1.5-2x Orlando peers. I prefer Seattle over SF. In Seattle, I can own a car and have a safe place to park it.
spondylosaurus 2y ago
How much more are you spending (on non-avoidable cost of living stuff) now that you live in SF, though? If I hypothetically doubled my salary _and_ my expenses, that hardly seems worth it. Although NorCal is gorgeous.
- cma 2y ago
  If you already earn more than you spend, doubling both does seems like a no-brainer.
  - inglor_cz 2y ago
    Unless they demand twice the work from you.
- hot_gril 2y ago
  I would wager that you still end up with more disposable income in the end if you're single. I only decided SF or the rest of Bay Area wasn't financially worthwhile when I wanted to start a family.
- sodality2 2y ago
  > If I hypothetically doubled my salary _and_ my expenses, that hardly seems worth it. Although NorCal is gorgeous. All else being equal, the improvements in other non-financial areas (chances to grow social life, many more attractions, etc) should make up for it. The savings gap hopefully should widen as well (unless it's a deficit, in which case, cut expenses).
  - harrall 2y ago
    Altho I want to state the perhaps obvious that different big cities have very different subcultures. Portland vs. SF vs. Nashville vs. NYC. I would not limit yourself to just one specific big city.
- lesuorac 2y ago
  Pretty much if you ever double your salary you will come out ahead as everything else doesn't double. (And even if it does, your savings also doubled so you can retire to a lower cost of living and come out ahead). If you go from say 120k to 240k in salary your housing may go from say 1k (12k/year) to 3k (36k/year) but at the end of the year 120k-12k is 108k while 240k-36k is 204 which is a net gain of 96k! Of course you still need to eat and stuff but when you check out the "Regional Price Parity" [1] you'll see that nowhere do things actually become twice as expensive. So you're really getting a 2x boost in salary in exchange for a 1.3x increase in expenses. [1]: https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-par...
trzy 2y ago
Take-home pay is indeed higher in the bay but unless already had a family, that take-home pay is worthless in what is without a doubt the most socially dull major metro in the US.
- hot_gril 2y ago
  Sounds like an exaggeration, cause there must be plenty of worse places. But yeah Silicon Valley rubbed me the wrong way.
  - SoftTalker 2y ago
    Why is that? Monoculture I assume? Everyone works in tech so you never meet interesting people who work in completely different fields?
    - hot_gril 2y ago
      It's something else that I can't easily explain. I'm a remote SWE now, and I go to a local office I'm not assigned to. Just in that tech circle, I have way more friends at work here than I did in Silicon Valley, where I saw my team and department each day in-office. I was just as friendly and outgoing in both places, and similar place in my life (married). There are a lot of good things about living in Silicon Valley, so it's a bit annoying when people take all that for granted. I do miss being able to bike everywhere I needed in Mountain View. But I was happier after we left.
      - trzy 2y ago
        The problems are roughly: - Monoculture - Generally risk-averse and cliquish population whose primary concern is (understandably) survival and accumulating the money needed to live a normal middle class life and are drawn to the “peaceful” atmosphere of the region (a word you’ll hear especially frequently) - Terrible urban planning and poor density for socialization: sprawling suburbia, lifeless downtown cores, everyone is far away from each other and as a result of the grueling commutes, few are willing to spontaneously hang out after work It’s a toxic mix that leads to a social death spiral.

by itake 2y ago

Arainach 2y ago

>Now, I’m earning 2-5x more than my peers (that were more senior than me) that chose to live in those cities. Salary or takehome? Sure, your net in SF will be higher than Orlando or London, but looking at resources such as levels.fyi, internal salary sharing sites at large companies, etc. the math for Seattle comp with no state income tax is pretty close to bay area minus tax.

dilyevsky 2y ago
Seattle has enforceable (and readily abused) non-compete and also virtually non-existent startup scene
- Arainach 2y ago
  In practice, no, the non competes are never enforced, and if the goal is to brag about high compensation startups don't matter.
  - dilyevsky 2y ago
    Amazon has filed numerous lawsuits for this - it’s well documented. I think there’s some some sort of ban for non-competes on w2s under $120k now (which doesn’t really help tech workers), but otherwise you’re wrong. To your second point - there are always a bunch of well capitalized startups in the valley. Today it’s AI, before it was crypto, etc. These startups pay really really well when compared nationally. You dont have to get into 500k+ faang salaries to win against other locales On top of that there are many more private companies that also pay good base + offer liquidity events for employees. Again - orders of magnitude more than seattle, austin or even nyc
    - Arainach 2y ago
      Startup equity should be assumed to have a value of 0, which statistically it does. I've never seen one be competitive on actual hard currency compensation - even the hot ones. And that's before valuing your time per hour worked. I'd love to see examples of Amazon trying to enforce noncompetes at levels lower than VP, because I've never seen it. Folks move to direct competitors all the time - AWS to Azure or Oracle, etc.
      - dilyevsky 2y ago
        > I'd love to see examples of Amazon trying to enforce noncompetes at levels lower than VP, because I've never seen it. Easy[0]. I also know a few cases where a 3rd company refused to extend an offer due to legal flagging it [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7975428 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7975428 > I've never seen one be competitive on actual hard currency compensation - even the hot ones OpenAI famously was pretty generous. It’s all public data now due to lawsuits
itake 2y ago
Take home. Salary seems to be 1.5-2x Orlando peers. I prefer Seattle over SF. In Seattle, I can own a car and have a safe place to park it.

spondylosaurus 2y ago

How much more are you spending (on non-avoidable cost of living stuff) now that you live in SF, though? If I hypothetically doubled my salary _and_ my expenses, that hardly seems worth it. Although NorCal is gorgeous.

cma 2y ago
If you already earn more than you spend, doubling both does seems like a no-brainer.
- inglor_cz 2y ago
  Unless they demand twice the work from you.
hot_gril 2y ago
I would wager that you still end up with more disposable income in the end if you're single. I only decided SF or the rest of Bay Area wasn't financially worthwhile when I wanted to start a family.
sodality2 2y ago
> If I hypothetically doubled my salary _and_ my expenses, that hardly seems worth it. Although NorCal is gorgeous. All else being equal, the improvements in other non-financial areas (chances to grow social life, many more attractions, etc) should make up for it. The savings gap hopefully should widen as well (unless it's a deficit, in which case, cut expenses).
- harrall 2y ago
  Altho I want to state the perhaps obvious that different big cities have very different subcultures. Portland vs. SF vs. Nashville vs. NYC. I would not limit yourself to just one specific big city.
lesuorac 2y ago
Pretty much if you ever double your salary you will come out ahead as everything else doesn't double. (And even if it does, your savings also doubled so you can retire to a lower cost of living and come out ahead). If you go from say 120k to 240k in salary your housing may go from say 1k (12k/year) to 3k (36k/year) but at the end of the year 120k-12k is 108k while 240k-36k is 204 which is a net gain of 96k! Of course you still need to eat and stuff but when you check out the "Regional Price Parity" [1] you'll see that nowhere do things actually become twice as expensive. So you're really getting a 2x boost in salary in exchange for a 1.3x increase in expenses. [1]: https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-par...

trzy 2y ago

Take-home pay is indeed higher in the bay but unless already had a family, that take-home pay is worthless in what is without a doubt the most socially dull major metro in the US.

hot_gril 2y ago
Sounds like an exaggeration, cause there must be plenty of worse places. But yeah Silicon Valley rubbed me the wrong way.
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  Why is that? Monoculture I assume? Everyone works in tech so you never meet interesting people who work in completely different fields?
  - hot_gril 2y ago
    It's something else that I can't easily explain. I'm a remote SWE now, and I go to a local office I'm not assigned to. Just in that tech circle, I have way more friends at work here than I did in Silicon Valley, where I saw my team and department each day in-office. I was just as friendly and outgoing in both places, and similar place in my life (married). There are a lot of good things about living in Silicon Valley, so it's a bit annoying when people take all that for granted. I do miss being able to bike everywhere I needed in Mountain View. But I was happier after we left.
    - trzy 2y ago
      The problems are roughly: - Monoculture - Generally risk-averse and cliquish population whose primary concern is (understandably) survival and accumulating the money needed to live a normal middle class life and are drawn to the “peaceful” atmosphere of the region (a word you’ll hear especially frequently) - Terrible urban planning and poor density for socialization: sprawling suburbia, lifeless downtown cores, everyone is far away from each other and as a result of the grueling commutes, few are willing to spontaneously hang out after work It’s a toxic mix that leads to a social death spiral.