7 ms·

>Engineers at startups make $100k+, sometimes much more. I don't think people are being asked to subject themselves to unreasonable financial strain. Is $100k

by latj 12y ago

>Engineers at startups make $100k+, sometimes much more. I don't think people are being asked to subject themselves to unreasonable financial strain. Is $100k enough for a person to live without roommates within 20-30 minutes commute from said startup? Eat healthy food? Pay student loans? Have health insurance and build savings? I'm not from the Bay Area- this is a serious question.

eachro 12y ago
You probably won't be able to afford living without roommates. But the rest, is certainly feasible on a 100k+ salary.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
sama 12y ago
Yes, though not if you live the lifestyle many engineers at startups choose to :)
suyash 12y ago
Please don't side track this thread with salary discussion in bay area. There are plenty of HN threads where this has been talked extensively.
- jpmcglone 12y ago
  Hey, "AMA" does mean "Ask Me Anything"
praneshp 12y ago
Everything except the student loans, yes. If you have student loans you'd need to get a roommate (or two). Source: I live in the Bay area, and got a job at bigco but a salary similar to 100k. Almost no education loans (under 5k), but about 40k of loans for parents back home. I paid it back in a year and a little bit more.
jpmcglone 12y ago
I was making $100k and was able to find a small apartment in SF AND save about $2k a month (granted, I've finished paying my student loans). Not needing a car, and the ability to walk / scooter / public transport everywhere for relatively cheap, is a huge money saver! My half of the rent each month, as of today in SF, is $1300 ($2600 for the whole apartment in SoMa), but you need to take into account the money I'm not spending maintaining a car (which can be costly in the city, especially w/ parking). As for health insurance, you'll more than likely find a job that offers that. I had great health insurance, the company had some neat perks like a gym membership, free lunch and dinner at the offices, and permission to work from home pretty frequently. I think if you are anticipating $100k a year in SF, you'll do fine!
- freyr 12y ago
  So you get a small, shared apartment, dinners at work, no car, and $2k/month left to save. Honestly, that's not bad, but I'm guessing you're young. Consider you're slightly older and thinking of starting a family. Will your income cover: extra food and clothing for a child? day care or maternity leave? saving for college? saving for retirement? a larger apartment for your growing family? a down payment on a house or car? car payments or a mortgage? investment income? Is your company paying for your dinner because they expect you to work at night? $100k in SF is a reasonable amount of money. But as your expenses begin to grow, you may wonder when your earnings will grow in proportion. Unfortunately, while many industries value their workers more as they grow in experience, the SV software industry has taken a unique stance that experience is actually a liability. Perhaps because the SV software industry runs on the notion of maybe-someday compensation, which is a palatable proposition mainly to the young and naïve.
  - pbreit 12y ago
    At that point you'll have dual income so even easier.
  - jpmcglone 12y ago
    Great points. And for the record, I guess I'm young. I'm single with no dependents. :P
ryanSrich 12y ago
It'd be cutting it close...but if you have no other debts I don't see why not. I suspect the biggest thing holding people back is that they have student loans and/or are not being offered $100k. You can get a decent studio in the bay area for $2500 or so. If you don't have pets and you bike/pt everywhere then $100k is plenty.
trefn 12y ago
I have lived very comfortably in Oakland for the last year on a ~100K salary. 30 min commute door to door, eat out a lot, travel, etc. With a quite nice 1bed apartment with a view.
myblake 12y ago
You can't do all these without roommates in San francisco (unless you have rent control pre 2011 or so) or Silicon Valley without roommates, but with roommates its manageable to a degree. Keep in mind "start up" can mean pretty radically different sizes with pretty radical mixes of base salary vs equity, later stage, bigger start ups (maybe more aptly, post product market fit, fast growing, privately held technology companies) can pay experienced engineers closer to $150k+ a year which even in an expensive area is a good amount of money. Even pretty small start ups tend to offer decent health care these days.
physcab 12y ago
Apartments in SF now are $1800 / studio - $2200 / 1br. so... $100k: - $30k taxes - $24k rent - $12k food and misc ------------- $34k $34k is about what you have to play with for investing, transportation, entertainment, fitness, saving, student loans, other debt
- stevewilhelm 12y ago
  Anyone working at a startup should be maxing out their retirement plan contributions: $18,000 for a 401k, $5,500 for an IRA. They are a hedge against startup failure.
  - withdavidli 12y ago
    Thought process on this? If a person needs to dip into their retirement plan because a start up fails then they would be penalized, if that's the situation it's better to just keep it in cash.
    - dustcoin 12y ago
      The contributions to a Roth IRA (but not the investment returns) can be withdrawn with no tax penalty, so there isn't much reason not to max it out if possible. Employees should always contribute to a their 401k at least up to the company match, as it is essentially free money.
      - astrange 12y ago
        If you're getting paid at SV salary levels, it's entirely possible you're making too much to be allowed to contribute to a Roth IRA. Some IRA companies will let you do put it into a traditional IRA then do a Roth conversion, but then again some will make you mail them a notarized form every time you want to do that.
- getsat 12y ago
  1br is around $3,000 now: https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-san-francisco-rent-trends https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-san-francisco-ren... 100k = 25% marginal tax rate for Fed, but effective rate of 17.3% + 6.8% State tax rate = 24.13% = $24130 (assuming you are single) $100k: - $24.1k taxes - $36k rent - $12k food and misc ------------- $27.9k So you basically have $2,325 left over after expenses each month to play with.
tedsanders 12y ago
I'm a Stanford graduate student. I earn about $30k per year, or $2,500 per month. Rent is about $1,000 per month. Food is about $200 per month. Taxes are about $300 month. So my three primary costs are $1,500 per month, leaving $1,000 per month in savings and discretionary spending. I'm flabbergasted that people think $100k is not enough money to live. It's way, way above the median wage here.

by latj 12y ago

eachro 12y ago

You probably won't be able to afford living without roommates. But the rest, is certainly feasible on a 100k+ salary.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

sama 12y ago

Yes, though not if you live the lifestyle many engineers at startups choose to :)

suyash 12y ago

Please don't side track this thread with salary discussion in bay area. There are plenty of HN threads where this has been talked extensively.

jpmcglone 12y ago
Hey, "AMA" does mean "Ask Me Anything"

praneshp 12y ago

Everything except the student loans, yes. If you have student loans you'd need to get a roommate (or two). Source: I live in the Bay area, and got a job at bigco but a salary similar to 100k. Almost no education loans (under 5k), but about 40k of loans for parents back home. I paid it back in a year and a little bit more.

jpmcglone 12y ago

I was making $100k and was able to find a small apartment in SF AND save about $2k a month (granted, I've finished paying my student loans). Not needing a car, and the ability to walk / scooter / public transport everywhere for relatively cheap, is a huge money saver! My half of the rent each month, as of today in SF, is $1300 ($2600 for the whole apartment in SoMa), but you need to take into account the money I'm not spending maintaining a car (which can be costly in the city, especially w/ parking). As for health insurance, you'll more than likely find a job that offers that. I had great health insurance, the company had some neat perks like a gym membership, free lunch and dinner at the offices, and permission to work from home pretty frequently. I think if you are anticipating $100k a year in SF, you'll do fine!

freyr 12y ago
So you get a small, shared apartment, dinners at work, no car, and $2k/month left to save. Honestly, that's not bad, but I'm guessing you're young. Consider you're slightly older and thinking of starting a family. Will your income cover: extra food and clothing for a child? day care or maternity leave? saving for college? saving for retirement? a larger apartment for your growing family? a down payment on a house or car? car payments or a mortgage? investment income? Is your company paying for your dinner because they expect you to work at night? $100k in SF is a reasonable amount of money. But as your expenses begin to grow, you may wonder when your earnings will grow in proportion. Unfortunately, while many industries value their workers more as they grow in experience, the SV software industry has taken a unique stance that experience is actually a liability. Perhaps because the SV software industry runs on the notion of maybe-someday compensation, which is a palatable proposition mainly to the young and naïve.
- pbreit 12y ago
  At that point you'll have dual income so even easier.
- jpmcglone 12y ago
  Great points. And for the record, I guess I'm young. I'm single with no dependents. :P

ryanSrich 12y ago

It'd be cutting it close...but if you have no other debts I don't see why not. I suspect the biggest thing holding people back is that they have student loans and/or are not being offered $100k. You can get a decent studio in the bay area for $2500 or so. If you don't have pets and you bike/pt everywhere then $100k is plenty.

trefn 12y ago

I have lived very comfortably in Oakland for the last year on a ~100K salary. 30 min commute door to door, eat out a lot, travel, etc. With a quite nice 1bed apartment with a view.

myblake 12y ago

You can't do all these without roommates in San francisco (unless you have rent control pre 2011 or so) or Silicon Valley without roommates, but with roommates its manageable to a degree. Keep in mind "start up" can mean pretty radically different sizes with pretty radical mixes of base salary vs equity, later stage, bigger start ups (maybe more aptly, post product market fit, fast growing, privately held technology companies) can pay experienced engineers closer to $150k+ a year which even in an expensive area is a good amount of money. Even pretty small start ups tend to offer decent health care these days.

physcab 12y ago

Apartments in SF now are $1800 / studio - $2200 / 1br. so... $100k: - $30k taxes - $24k rent - $12k food and misc ------------- $34k $34k is about what you have to play with for investing, transportation, entertainment, fitness, saving, student loans, other debt

stevewilhelm 12y ago
Anyone working at a startup should be maxing out their retirement plan contributions: $18,000 for a 401k, $5,500 for an IRA. They are a hedge against startup failure.
- withdavidli 12y ago
  Thought process on this? If a person needs to dip into their retirement plan because a start up fails then they would be penalized, if that's the situation it's better to just keep it in cash.
  - dustcoin 12y ago
    The contributions to a Roth IRA (but not the investment returns) can be withdrawn with no tax penalty, so there isn't much reason not to max it out if possible. Employees should always contribute to a their 401k at least up to the company match, as it is essentially free money.
    - astrange 12y ago
      If you're getting paid at SV salary levels, it's entirely possible you're making too much to be allowed to contribute to a Roth IRA. Some IRA companies will let you do put it into a traditional IRA then do a Roth conversion, but then again some will make you mail them a notarized form every time you want to do that.
getsat 12y ago
1br is around $3,000 now: https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-san-francisco-rent-trends https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-san-francisco-ren... 100k = 25% marginal tax rate for Fed, but effective rate of 17.3% + 6.8% State tax rate = 24.13% = $24130 (assuming you are single) $100k: - $24.1k taxes - $36k rent - $12k food and misc ------------- $27.9k So you basically have $2,325 left over after expenses each month to play with.

tedsanders 12y ago

I'm a Stanford graduate student. I earn about $30k per year, or $2,500 per month. Rent is about $1,000 per month. Food is about $200 per month. Taxes are about $300 month. So my three primary costs are $1,500 per month, leaving $1,000 per month in savings and discretionary spending. I'm flabbergasted that people think $100k is not enough money to live. It's way, way above the median wage here.