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Show HN: I built a tool to rank cities based on purchasing power for SWEs
Show HN: I built a tool to calculate real tech salaries across cities (after tax & COL)
As a software engineer obsessed with data-driven decisions, I wanted to quantify how much better/worse other cities would be compared to my current home in Berlin. While sites like Glassdoor and levels.fyi tell you how much you can earn, they don't show what you actually keep after taxes and living costs.
So I built Tech City Index - a tool that compares cities based on actual purchasing power for software engineers, combining:
* Real-time salary data from levels.fyi
* Cost of living data from Numbeo
* Local tax calculations at median tech income (thanks, GPT-4o)
* Weather data (naturally)
Some surprising findings:
1. Seattle and Austin top the list (ahead of SF) due to:
* Similar tech salaries to SF
* No state income tax (vs California's 13.3%)
* Significantly lower housing costs
2. The top rankings are unsurprisingly dominated by the US, which is still by far the best place for a SWE to be. Even an engineer working in the middle of nowhere (no disrespect, Kansas City) has 42% more purchasing power than their London counterpart, thanks to:
* Access to US-only remote jobs
* 32% lower cost of living
* Lower tax rates
3. Western Europe significantly underperforms both US and Middle East markets. A Milan-based SWE:
* Earns 54% less than in Abu Dhabi
* Pays 38% in taxes (vs 0% in UAE)
* Faces 11% higher living costs
The tool includes a "salary converter" - input your current compensation and family size (e.g., number of kids needing childcare), and it calculates the equivalent salary needed in any target city to maintain your standard of living.
Try it out: https://www.techcities.app https://www.techcities.app
Built with Cursor and Next.js
Feedback welcome!
- rmason 2y agoSurprised that you haven't included Detroit. Detroit metro is top 5 for number of software engineers in America and I don't think that definition includes Ann Arbor. Grant you they won't win on the weather score but cost of living is low.
- mohamed3on 2y agoYou're right, just added it and it debuts at #6!
- scosman 2y agoSuper fun. You should build a mode that tells me how long I need to work in SF to retire in other cities :)
- mikadoo 2y agoFound the data quite interesting and insightful as I have lived in different cities at this point. Only user experience point I would mention is selecting the base city. Might make more sense to make it adjustable on the city's detail page since the home page doesn't get adjusted when I change it (despite the base city banner on SF, yes I did see it)
- rmccue 2y agoIt would be great to have a reverse sort; if I’m sorting by cost of living, I’d like the cheapest first.
- mohamed3on 2y agoand now it's added!
- jpalawaga 2y agoThere’s something very funny to me about SFs weather score being as high as it is. While I’d say it is certainly mild, I’d stop short of declaring it definitively better. Maybe it’s the northerner in me who actually prefers seasons and doesn’t mind a bit of snow.
- mohamed3on 2y agoTrying to give a weather score to 115 cities will always lead to a few arguments :D The weather score is supposed to a guide to what 'most people' would prefer. SF has plenty of sunshine and mild temps year-round, which many consider much better than, say, somewhere in UAE or Finland.
- hansvm 2y agoI'd love a version of this tool that takes into account the data not being directly linearizable. E.g.: Suppose your plan is to suck it up in tech for 5yrs and retire. You want to know the place to live to maximize return-adjusted post-tax profits (remote or otherwise) for 5yrs. E.g., Suppose you are comfortable with low square footage and prefer to grow your own food. Low salaries and high rent aren't as big of an obstacle as they might appear when you look at average/median/... measurements. E.g., Suppose you know you want 4+ bedrooms for your burgeoning family and are still only on the cusp of junior/senior in capabilities (and are willing to move in a 3-10 years as necessary to optimize whatever metric we're looking at). Austin/Atlanta will start to look extremely attractive compared to the west coast
- PeterWhittaker 2y agoThe weather thing is interesting: Ottawa, e.g., gets 3/10. I've lived in the area since 1990 and, other than a week or two in the summer and a similar span in the winter, love the weather here. Sure, not for everyone, but perhaps the page needs to allow the user to enter their preferred weather.
- jmye 2y agoYeah, it seems to weight slight cold as a massive negative. There’s no chance for me that Detroit and Denver should be similar in weather scores, or that Seattle scores significantly higher than either unless you’re really excited about no sun and lots of drizzle. I say that in support of your point - fully acknowledge that for some folks, one cold week would score far worse than even the extreme heat in the Middle East.
- shermozle 2y agoWTF is this Weather Score? Sydney has the same score as SF. Have you ever been to SF? Cold, damp and grey. In June. Weather in Sydney is GLORIOUS. Mild and short winters and summers where you can wear shorts and t-shirts from September to March.
- mohamed3on 2y agoIn the end it's subjective, but SF gets 24% more sunshine year-round, and 42% less rain, so they balance each other out. Can't go wrong with either IMO!
- tharmas 2y agoHealth Insurance costs? Taxes are lower in the USA but taxes in many European countries give you Health insurance. However, I recall someone factoring this in comparing Canadian salaries vs California salaries and the California salaries still came out on top.