The article actually mentions kids. When talking about working in the bay area with technology people from the bay area I really get the impression that nobody there ever has children and everybody is sterilized. I don't think I have ever heard anybody talk about the bay area being great unless they were childless.
Outside of the bay area I can actually afford to have children and a house without being a millionaire. Yeah, I know, its weird. I have enough money left over (even though I have kids and a large house) that my wife isn't forced into labor to prevent immediate financial ruin.
I simply cannot imagine (I mean those words very literally) the horrid state of affairs of making six figures and still being on the verge of poverty.
Having just moved from SF to a smaller market with a 'lower cost of living' I can tell you DO NOT DO IT
The value you lose from your current and future network alone is so devastating that any NerdWallet estimate of your costs is total BS. Lookup how much networks are worth to lifetime earnings
Now your job sucks? Good luck getting a new one you like. Either move back or find something that 'works'
Lastly, your coworkers will be from a smaller pond and instead of learning with the most experienced, you'll atropying your progress as you argue for basic things with people who've never worked in a big pond.
There's a reason people go to hollywood for movies and SF for tech. A bunch of them actually.
I live outside the Bay Area and I get interview offers for good real jobs about 3-4 times a month even though I am not looking. If I were looking for a new job it would be 12-15 recruiters contacting me per month.
What I have observed from listening to recruiters and hiring managers in the bay area is that they are desperate for any talent they can get, which is great if you are a junior or if you simply suck. As a senior developer the work looks for you (like the zombies in World War Z) regardless of the metro.
The problem with being a senior though is whether your teammates operate on your level or whether they are juniors. The problem with being a senior on a newb team is like being a 50 year old man marrying an 18 year old girl. Beauty and first impressions diminish quickly and you are left chasing busy work for immature bullshit.
Normally I wouldn't expect consider Chicago a "smaller market" but for software it is.
Moved from SF to Chicago about 18 months ago after working in the Bay Area for 17 years. I can't speak for other cities but Chicago is fine from both a network and comp standpoint. The profile of the type of work that's done here is different, sure, but nothing wrong with that. Depending on your point of view, it could be considered refreshing.
On top of that, comp is moving upward here. I'm not sure the trigger but recruiter reach outs started jumping here (like for a couple a week to 10+ a week) about a year ago and I'm seeing a definite upward trend in salary numbers.
Now, this is Chicago, so there is still a lot of dev shops that aren't modernized but there were a lot of shops in the Bay Area I wouldn't touch either for varying reasons. I don't regret moving away from the Bay Area other than the roads suck here due to having real seasons.
Not my experience. I work in the midwest and my co-workers are creating technology that is used by people all around the world, and competing well against tech coming out of the coasts. I love working with them. Sorry your experience has been bad.
I don't know where you moved, but this is pretty condescending.
The idea that there are just a bunch of small-pond professionals in places like Austin/Atlanta/Raleigh is just...not accurate. A ton of the folks I've worked with actually lived in the Bay until they decided they wanted to start a family and moved to a place where that is possible.
I respectfully disagree. Just update your resume on Dice, Monster etc. and you will have recruiters calling 2 - 3 times a day. Now you may not get the specific job in the specific industry you are partial too but you can definitely get a good job. I have no where close to SF experience or probably their top of the mountain skill-sets but I have no problem getting job interviews if I want them. My network pretty much consists of me and whatever nameless recruiters call me.
The last time I wanted a new job I just updated my resume on Monster and had 3 interviews a week later and started a great new job two weeks after that.
Sorry you had a negative experience from your move, hope things turn around for you.
While the network bit is valid, it implies that networking in smaller areas can't still have the same impact in cost adjusted terms, meaning that while your lifetime earnings may be 20% lower, if you're living in an area with 20% lower cost of living its a wash.
When combined with a generally snooty attitude about "small pond" people, it seems like you simultaneously feel that you're going to be the smartest guy in the room and yet aren't smart enough to see the MASSIVE potential benefit of that in a smaller pond. If you have even rudimentary soft skills you could end up a VP of a Raleigh or ATL based company while possibly never even making it out of middle management in SF.
People in the 'smaller ponds' don't really care about your prestige, we care about your character, which you have shown none. We live in these areas because we can about our families, the people around us and our communities not working on the latest tech in SF to reach some arbitrary goal.
As a counterpoint, I live in flyover country, have a nice house and a job I love, where I work on interesting problems. Whether or not I can compete with Stanford whiz kids is irrelevant, because they never come here.
Have not been there, but I suspect this is very true. Couple that with the authors assumption that those in the flyover area will ever get a raise (he makes the comparison of the person in atlanta eventually making 40k more a year). I live in a flyover area, have 25 years of experience, and have never seen a real raise, much less "oh, in 15 years I will be making 40k more". I would move to a tech center in a heartbeat, just for the networking.
There's also a reason people go to south Atlanta for movies and a dozen different, lesser hub cities for tech.
Movie people from Hollywood don't go to Atlanta. Tech people from SV/NYC don't go to other cities. But there are significant incentives for people from everywhere else to consider different aggregator communities as their base when they are planning out their careers.
I don't have a SV or NYC network to lose. The proposition of moving doesn't automatically give me one. All it gives me is a pay raise, which is more than eaten by higher costs of living.
SV might be the place to go for networking, if you want to do a startup or work in one of the FAANGs or FAANG wannabes, but the idea that SV is the only place where people know what they are doing is completely laughable self-congratulating bunk. Actually, I've never seen a place with more cargo-culting than SV.
But of course it is the only place to be if you want to "change the world" with the next Earth-shattering break-through like Theranos or Juicero.
As you pointed out, the cost of living is low, but there are some serious trade offs to consider.
For example:
* There's usually only a few large employers in town, and switching jobs is a very diplomatic and drawn out affair
* Buying a house is cheap, but good luck selling it.
* Your salary is lower which is fine due to living costs, but your equity grants will also be lower. This is a big deal.
* Talent learns from talent, and the pace of life in many lower COL is "this is just a job I get paid for" compared to "this is something I will do for life". Learning opportunities are slim.
Very fascinating insight. As someone who moved from SF to Santa Monica, I can say that if I only stayed in LA, this would absolutely be the case. You lose quite a bit of network value, which definitely impacts (1) fundraising, (2) hiring, and (3) overall work opportunities.
Improving network for people in non-geographically dense areas seems like a problem waiting for a solution.
I’m doing well in a small Midwest “pond” (150k population) and I agree with you. I will say that there are great opportunities in the Midwest if you are an above-average developer, communicate well and understand another domain like equipment manufacturing or logistics. Opportunities are available to me because I developed a combination of skills that stands out. But, in exchange I have to work hard to keep up with the software industry because no one is going to set up any new workflow, language or tool for me. I could go for a month without being challenged on what I know. That’s a risky situation to be in, long term. And yes, if I desired to move back into specializing in back-room software development, I’d be disadvantaged here.
> Hypothetical scenario: a reputable tech firm in SF or NYC offers $125,000 in salary to a mid-level
That’s not even what a fresh college grad would make in total compensation at Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, etc, let alone “mid level”.
A senior engineer at one of those companies would make several times that in total compensation.
P.S. The biggest common mistake I see in salary comparisons is the omission of scheduled stock grants, which sometimes can comprise even the majority of one’s compensation.
First off, $125k is the entry level wage in NYC and SF. That's what you pay fresh grads out of college. The author massively understates the wage gap between the core job areas and peripheral cities. Any recruiter offering a senior hire $125k to relocate is working on the behalf of complete idiots.
Secondly, distributed teams are nonsense, from an economic point of view.
Why on earth would I pay someone in a "flyover state" $80k when I can get very similar talent for half as much in Argentina? If I'm willing to compromise on time zones, I can pay even less in Eastern Europe or South Asia.
The only reason that your bloated American wage is justified is communication. Good English skills can be purchased in any market in the world, for much less than what Americans demand. Being on site, in the damn office, is how you earn that money.
> Good English skills can be purchased in any market in the world, for much less than what Americans demand.
Is this true? My experience differs; even hiring semi-technical roles where the most important factor was "high-level English competency" I've had really disappointing results. It gets better if you're willing to deal with less than that, but that's a pretty rough compromise for a lot of highly collaborative roles.
Strong technical skills are easier to source, but strong technical skills without good communication is tough to square.
> First off, $125k is the entry level wage in NYC and SF.
It's the entry-level wage at top-tier tech companies, and a few second-tier who can compete with them at the junior levels (like Bloomberg). It is not what the average new grad should be expecting.
The numbers really are crazy wrong. My total comp as a new grad in SF tech industry was $170k, in 1998. A “senior software engineer” at Google, which is the median grade of engineers at that company, makes around $500k/yr in total comp.
A reality that doesn't seem to get discussed much is that non-FAANG companies in Bay Area don't actually pay that much. If your option is Austin post-IPO or Google, then okay. If your option is Austin post-IPO or Series A Startup in SF, then it's not that straightforward of an equation. It seems pretty common for funded startups in SF to pay something like 140-160k for mid-level engineers. You can easily find 120k salaries in Austin and Raleigh and it goes a hell of a lot further.
I was talking to someone who builds a product for recruiters recently. Apparently, common knowledge among recruiters these days is that you can't get anyone with experience to move to SF anymore (they are still able to attract young talent right out of university).
It breaks my heart the way this city is squandering its potential with backwards-looking policies that make it impractically expensive for basically everyone, tech employee or no.
Like a mass media news story, these anecdotes are written to appeal to the demo in question, namely engineers not in the Bay Area or NY, to make them feel better about their choices.
This blog post also has the side effect of being framed in a naive way that also has people who do live in NY or the Bay Area discuss the sheer ridiculousness of it, which is why it's already got 51 comments in less than hour.
People move to the Bay Area because of the idea of opportunity. Maybe a friend's startup makes a billion dollars and you get to do your own after, or maybe it goes bust and there are 100s of other jobs that are more interesting and make more than you would in NC, Austin or other small metros. I'm not a billionaire, but I have found MUCH better work and opportunities, and if I choose I can move to a lower cost of living area and buy a house in cash and start my family there.
Put another way, would you rather spend the first 5 years with your kid at home, or would you rather worry about slaving away to a bank for $100K hoping you aren't laid off in a downturn? Being smart with your money even with expensive housing can go a long way.
It's fundamentally _odd_ to me that people are looking at rental costs.
The working class worry about making rent.
A senior professional (in any field) cares about building a secure life, buying property, raising a family, saving for retirement.
For a whole bunch of people it's the entire reason they put all of that effort into their craft in the first place (otherwise they'd move out into the country and work on OSS all day).
You're going to struggle to hire competent, rested, mature, well rounded individuals if you expect them to rent tiny flats downtown and have that be their life.
I don't have a visa anyway, but that's part of the reason I haven't bothered looking in to moving to SF.
It seems to be built around the idea that you spend your youth grinding in a rented flat, with rental furniture, using rental cars, buying every meal outside, so that in your 40's you might be able to move out and live a decent life with some modicum of security.
Baffling. Like, what are you going to do socially? You think you'll just "be rich" somewhere else and live in your house with all the other SF migrants?
I think you misunderstand that several workers out here rent because they can amass capital with their jobs in a more liquid format than buying a house. A house is a middle class investment opportunity, several people out here are making enough to focus more on flexibility and liquidity.
>A senior professional (in any field) cares about building a secure life, buying property, raising a family, saving for retirement.
You're not going to afford to buy real-estate in San Francisco on a salary. Full stop. You don't buy multi-million-dollar houses when the company might go pear-shaped and leave you without a paycheck, even if your paycheck is in the six figures.
> It's fundamentally _odd_ to me that people are looking at rental costs.
I think it was good that he focused on rent instead of for-sale price. The sale price includes other factors (property taxes, interest rates, expectation of rent increases) that do not affect the cost of living, and many authors get confused when they complain about rising prices while ignoring rents; see https://www.idiosyncraticwhisk.com/2017/10/housing-part-264-... for further explanation
> It's fundamentally _odd_ to me that people are looking at rental costs.
The median housing price in SF is $1.6M. There is no choice but to rent, or perhaps suffer an absolutely terrible commute.
(And since someone inevitably quips that the entire Bay Area makes $300k+: the $125k in the article is a bit low; the median tech salary is ~$135k. Some lucky souls pulling down massive stock benefits at a FAANG might be making enough total, but those of us not at a FAANG are not so lucky.)
Interesting perspective. From your profile it seems you live in London and maybe born there. The social life in the states (especially cities) is vastly different than European cultures.
It would be helpful to us who are accustomed to American social life to learn about what you perceive your social life tied into your work life to be like.
> It seems to be built around the idea that you spend your youth grinding in a rented flat, with rental furniture, using rental cars, buying every meal outside, so that in your 40's you might be able to move out and live a decent life with some modicum of security.
Not everyone wants to live in a tacky huge McMansion that they can fill up with trinkets and garbage they don't use. See? I can make snarky judgemental comments about your lifestyle choices too.
But seriously, not all "competent, rested (???), mature, well-rounded" individuals think living in an rental apartment in a vibrant, walkable neighborhood is the rank indignity you seem to believe it is. They're perfectly happy living in small spaces and spending their money on travel, hobbies, food, and saving for retirement instead.
> A senior professional (in any field) cares about building a secure life, buying property, raising a family, saving for retirement.
Sure, the capitalist-economy middle class is defined by having substantial property investments as well as labor income, but there's no reason that has to be in one's primary residence. There are pros and cons of tying up capital in an owner-occupied residence.
No vehicle = massive reduction in options for impromptu leisure activities (unless you factor in costs for rentals or trains / planes, which in my experience was non-negligible). Unless all you plan to do is reachable by public transit. Which gets old after a few years. (Plus let’s be honest, anyone on that kind of salary takes a good deal of cabs / Lyft rides.)
That and, factor in a yard large enough for me to have BBQs and store my sailboat and then we’ll talk.
I feel like the author here is a bit naive of the salaries out here. They seem to think directors and VPs make 125k when a large firm would be offering 1-2m total comp in the Bay Area for those positions. More than enough to live very well even I’m SF. A junior engineer is offered the 125k quoted for comparison in the article.
I don't understand why people don't just pay more, and hire fewer people. It's easy to see a senior engineer that outputs 2-3x as much as a junior engineer, but you don't see them being comped like that.
If you're a company without a great culture, or other issues, it may still impede your hiring, but just comp people fairly to start with -- plenty of medium sized companies are doing this, and are thriving.
The amount of recruiter spam being sent to people in fly-over country (or anywhere outside the handful of major hubs by companies within those hubs) is based on the fact that there is almost no cost to sending those messages, and if one in 10,000 pays off the ROI is still probably fantastic for the recruiting firm.
This article is mostly about COL differences and why people may not choose to move, but the premise about the reasons for the volume of recruiting spam is flawed. It's not because "recruiting is hard" (though it is) so much as it can be explained by "sending spam is easy and free".
One thing the author didn't even mention was the disparity of purchasable real estate between places like Austin and SF. Having a middle class salary in Austin will likely enable you to purchase a decent home near the city. A middle class salary in the Bay Area will maybe get you enough or a downpayment on a condo in 8 years.
Moving to SF/NY makes sense if you're an ambitious, hard-working extrovert who knows how to sell and take advantage of those networks.
For ambitious introverts like myself, remote consulting/contracting feels like the best option.
A childhood buddy of mine moved to SF last year and got a job at a big corp downtown. He manages to save around $3,000/month as a senior developer with a ~$200k salary. No children, living with a partner who works as a teacher, and they're both quite frugal.
I work as a remote contractor from a small European town and am able to consistently save way more than that. I was saving more than that even in the past while working as a sub-contractor through platforms like Toptal.
How big of a salary would one need in order to save > $100k/year in SF (Single, small rental apartment, no car, average middle-class lifestyle)?
The claim is that the numbers do not add up for tech workers ro make Bay Area attractive. 125k salary is used as a mid level comp to do cost of living calculations.
The numbers for 125k indeed do not add up. However mid-level in Bay Area is 200k+ and Senior is 300k+. Not sure where 125k comes from.
Finding people with skills expexted for Bay Area’s mid level (forget about Director or VP) is a massive challenge.
The article doesn't mention this, but it will be alot easier to max out a 401k and build that retirement fund making those larger coastal salaries. Ultimately it seems hard to argue in general that one would come out ahead financially and career-wise living outside one of those tech hubs.
However, as 'they' say money isn't everything, so it could be worth the trade off to a particular individual or family to make less and live elsewhere.
The problem with an analysis like this is that people have a strong preference about the environment they live in. I know a lot of people that would never consider moving out of a major city. I have similarly established a clear guide for any future job moves:
Can I afford 6 acres within a 10 minute commute from work?
That narrows down my options quickly, and makes my current job, which I really enjoy, seem extravagant.
From the article: Recruiter spam is nothing new, but the idea of doing nationwide candidate searches for non-executives strikes me as awfully weird.
Allow me to offer an alternative view, this is entirely speculative.
Director level and above people are paid quite well in the Bay Area, after stock compensation it can get to to close to half a million dollars per year. Folks outside the 'bubble' as it were, might still be amenable to $150K to $200K for a salary. Thinking "wow that is double what I'm currently making, its a huge jump for me!" and its half of what other directors make.
So maybe they are trying to get senior management "on the cheap" and cut their payroll costs, they know that locally sourced candidates won't go for what they want to offer so they try to entice people from lower paid locales. If it works they get a director and still have enough left over to hire another engineer right?
There are L4 SWEs (so ~5yrs of experience) at Google that make upwards of $400k (including mild stock appreciation ofcourse). Directors (L8s and above) are easily clearing $1M with the right competing offers.
FWIW, I've been telling recruiters for years now that I'd be willing to knock $20K off my salary for an office with a door that closes. Everyone always treats it like a joke.
[+] [-] austincheney|7 years ago|reply
Outside of the bay area I can actually afford to have children and a house without being a millionaire. Yeah, I know, its weird. I have enough money left over (even though I have kids and a large house) that my wife isn't forced into labor to prevent immediate financial ruin.
I simply cannot imagine (I mean those words very literally) the horrid state of affairs of making six figures and still being on the verge of poverty.
[+] [-] funfunfun|7 years ago|reply
The value you lose from your current and future network alone is so devastating that any NerdWallet estimate of your costs is total BS. Lookup how much networks are worth to lifetime earnings
Now your job sucks? Good luck getting a new one you like. Either move back or find something that 'works'
Lastly, your coworkers will be from a smaller pond and instead of learning with the most experienced, you'll atropying your progress as you argue for basic things with people who've never worked in a big pond.
There's a reason people go to hollywood for movies and SF for tech. A bunch of them actually.
[+] [-] austincheney|7 years ago|reply
What I have observed from listening to recruiters and hiring managers in the bay area is that they are desperate for any talent they can get, which is great if you are a junior or if you simply suck. As a senior developer the work looks for you (like the zombies in World War Z) regardless of the metro.
The problem with being a senior though is whether your teammates operate on your level or whether they are juniors. The problem with being a senior on a newb team is like being a 50 year old man marrying an 18 year old girl. Beauty and first impressions diminish quickly and you are left chasing busy work for immature bullshit.
[+] [-] SystemOut|7 years ago|reply
Moved from SF to Chicago about 18 months ago after working in the Bay Area for 17 years. I can't speak for other cities but Chicago is fine from both a network and comp standpoint. The profile of the type of work that's done here is different, sure, but nothing wrong with that. Depending on your point of view, it could be considered refreshing.
On top of that, comp is moving upward here. I'm not sure the trigger but recruiter reach outs started jumping here (like for a couple a week to 10+ a week) about a year ago and I'm seeing a definite upward trend in salary numbers.
Now, this is Chicago, so there is still a lot of dev shops that aren't modernized but there were a lot of shops in the Bay Area I wouldn't touch either for varying reasons. I don't regret moving away from the Bay Area other than the roads suck here due to having real seasons.
[+] [-] yesimahuman|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] d357r0y3r|7 years ago|reply
The idea that there are just a bunch of small-pond professionals in places like Austin/Atlanta/Raleigh is just...not accurate. A ton of the folks I've worked with actually lived in the Bay until they decided they wanted to start a family and moved to a place where that is possible.
[+] [-] wonderwonder|7 years ago|reply
The last time I wanted a new job I just updated my resume on Monster and had 3 interviews a week later and started a great new job two weeks after that.
Sorry you had a negative experience from your move, hope things turn around for you.
[+] [-] orestes910|7 years ago|reply
When combined with a generally snooty attitude about "small pond" people, it seems like you simultaneously feel that you're going to be the smartest guy in the room and yet aren't smart enough to see the MASSIVE potential benefit of that in a smaller pond. If you have even rudimentary soft skills you could end up a VP of a Raleigh or ATL based company while possibly never even making it out of middle management in SF.
[+] [-] jriot|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sevensor|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jahaja|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] readingnews|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] logfromblammo|7 years ago|reply
Movie people from Hollywood don't go to Atlanta. Tech people from SV/NYC don't go to other cities. But there are significant incentives for people from everywhere else to consider different aggregator communities as their base when they are planning out their careers.
I don't have a SV or NYC network to lose. The proposition of moving doesn't automatically give me one. All it gives me is a pay raise, which is more than eaten by higher costs of living.
[+] [-] pm24601|7 years ago|reply
I have a hard time recommending that someone who is trying to have a family live here. If they are single, and willing to have roommates - sure.
I am hoping that the California High-Speed Rail project opens up housing arrangements that change the equation.
A 2.4 hour round trip commute to Fresno doesn't sound bad if it is on a train. (https://www.hsr.ca.gov/Newsroom/Multimedia/maps.html)
What is also interesting is that Facebook is willingly paying for reactivating the Dumbarton rail bridge. ( https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Fast-growing-Fa... )
[+] [-] Fins|7 years ago|reply
But of course it is the only place to be if you want to "change the world" with the next Earth-shattering break-through like Theranos or Juicero.
[+] [-] jorblumesea|7 years ago|reply
For example:
* There's usually only a few large employers in town, and switching jobs is a very diplomatic and drawn out affair
* Buying a house is cheap, but good luck selling it.
* Your salary is lower which is fine due to living costs, but your equity grants will also be lower. This is a big deal.
* Talent learns from talent, and the pace of life in many lower COL is "this is just a job I get paid for" compared to "this is something I will do for life". Learning opportunities are slim.
It works for some, but buyer beware.
[+] [-] ajiang|7 years ago|reply
Improving network for people in non-geographically dense areas seems like a problem waiting for a solution.
[+] [-] 1123581321|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pooppaint|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] electrograv|7 years ago|reply
That’s not even what a fresh college grad would make in total compensation at Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, etc, let alone “mid level”.
A senior engineer at one of those companies would make several times that in total compensation.
P.S. The biggest common mistake I see in salary comparisons is the omission of scheduled stock grants, which sometimes can comprise even the majority of one’s compensation.
[+] [-] hapless|7 years ago|reply
Secondly, distributed teams are nonsense, from an economic point of view.
Why on earth would I pay someone in a "flyover state" $80k when I can get very similar talent for half as much in Argentina? If I'm willing to compromise on time zones, I can pay even less in Eastern Europe or South Asia.
The only reason that your bloated American wage is justified is communication. Good English skills can be purchased in any market in the world, for much less than what Americans demand. Being on site, in the damn office, is how you earn that money.
[+] [-] eropple|7 years ago|reply
Is this true? My experience differs; even hiring semi-technical roles where the most important factor was "high-level English competency" I've had really disappointing results. It gets better if you're willing to deal with less than that, but that's a pretty rough compromise for a lot of highly collaborative roles.
Strong technical skills are easier to source, but strong technical skills without good communication is tough to square.
[+] [-] vonmoltke|7 years ago|reply
It's the entry-level wage at top-tier tech companies, and a few second-tier who can compete with them at the junior levels (like Bloomberg). It is not what the average new grad should be expecting.
[+] [-] romed|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] d357r0y3r|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kcorbitt|7 years ago|reply
It breaks my heart the way this city is squandering its potential with backwards-looking policies that make it impractically expensive for basically everyone, tech employee or no.
[+] [-] base698|7 years ago|reply
This blog post also has the side effect of being framed in a naive way that also has people who do live in NY or the Bay Area discuss the sheer ridiculousness of it, which is why it's already got 51 comments in less than hour.
People move to the Bay Area because of the idea of opportunity. Maybe a friend's startup makes a billion dollars and you get to do your own after, or maybe it goes bust and there are 100s of other jobs that are more interesting and make more than you would in NC, Austin or other small metros. I'm not a billionaire, but I have found MUCH better work and opportunities, and if I choose I can move to a lower cost of living area and buy a house in cash and start my family there.
Put another way, would you rather spend the first 5 years with your kid at home, or would you rather worry about slaving away to a bank for $100K hoping you aren't laid off in a downturn? Being smart with your money even with expensive housing can go a long way.
[+] [-] esotericn|7 years ago|reply
The working class worry about making rent.
A senior professional (in any field) cares about building a secure life, buying property, raising a family, saving for retirement.
For a whole bunch of people it's the entire reason they put all of that effort into their craft in the first place (otherwise they'd move out into the country and work on OSS all day).
You're going to struggle to hire competent, rested, mature, well rounded individuals if you expect them to rent tiny flats downtown and have that be their life.
I don't have a visa anyway, but that's part of the reason I haven't bothered looking in to moving to SF.
It seems to be built around the idea that you spend your youth grinding in a rented flat, with rental furniture, using rental cars, buying every meal outside, so that in your 40's you might be able to move out and live a decent life with some modicum of security.
Baffling. Like, what are you going to do socially? You think you'll just "be rich" somewhere else and live in your house with all the other SF migrants?
[+] [-] tsunamifury|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eli_gottlieb|7 years ago|reply
You're not going to afford to buy real-estate in San Francisco on a salary. Full stop. You don't buy multi-million-dollar houses when the company might go pear-shaped and leave you without a paycheck, even if your paycheck is in the six figures.
[+] [-] yonran|7 years ago|reply
I think it was good that he focused on rent instead of for-sale price. The sale price includes other factors (property taxes, interest rates, expectation of rent increases) that do not affect the cost of living, and many authors get confused when they complain about rising prices while ignoring rents; see https://www.idiosyncraticwhisk.com/2017/10/housing-part-264-... for further explanation
[+] [-] deathanatos|7 years ago|reply
The median housing price in SF is $1.6M. There is no choice but to rent, or perhaps suffer an absolutely terrible commute.
(And since someone inevitably quips that the entire Bay Area makes $300k+: the $125k in the article is a bit low; the median tech salary is ~$135k. Some lucky souls pulling down massive stock benefits at a FAANG might be making enough total, but those of us not at a FAANG are not so lucky.)
[+] [-] AchieveLife|7 years ago|reply
It would be helpful to us who are accustomed to American social life to learn about what you perceive your social life tied into your work life to be like.
[+] [-] esoterica|7 years ago|reply
Not everyone wants to live in a tacky huge McMansion that they can fill up with trinkets and garbage they don't use. See? I can make snarky judgemental comments about your lifestyle choices too.
But seriously, not all "competent, rested (???), mature, well-rounded" individuals think living in an rental apartment in a vibrant, walkable neighborhood is the rank indignity you seem to believe it is. They're perfectly happy living in small spaces and spending their money on travel, hobbies, food, and saving for retirement instead.
[+] [-] dragonwriter|7 years ago|reply
Sure, the capitalist-economy middle class is defined by having substantial property investments as well as labor income, but there's no reason that has to be in one's primary residence. There are pros and cons of tying up capital in an owner-occupied residence.
[+] [-] patagonia|7 years ago|reply
That and, factor in a yard large enough for me to have BBQs and store my sailboat and then we’ll talk.
[+] [-] Balgair|7 years ago|reply
It's not that you can't take a bus with kiddos, it's the emergencies, especially in a place like SF with less than 'efficient' mass transit.
Your kid puked in class today? Gonna need a car to come pick them up.
Your kid broke an arm at the park? Gonna need a car to go to Urgent Care.
Your kid has a science fair project due tomorrow that they just told you about? Gonna need a car to go pick up supplies.
[+] [-] pas|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tsunamifury|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sargun|7 years ago|reply
If you're a company without a great culture, or other issues, it may still impede your hiring, but just comp people fairly to start with -- plenty of medium sized companies are doing this, and are thriving.
[+] [-] fecak|7 years ago|reply
This article is mostly about COL differences and why people may not choose to move, but the premise about the reasons for the volume of recruiting spam is flawed. It's not because "recruiting is hard" (though it is) so much as it can be explained by "sending spam is easy and free".
[+] [-] kylestlb|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oldboyFX|7 years ago|reply
For ambitious introverts like myself, remote consulting/contracting feels like the best option.
A childhood buddy of mine moved to SF last year and got a job at a big corp downtown. He manages to save around $3,000/month as a senior developer with a ~$200k salary. No children, living with a partner who works as a teacher, and they're both quite frugal.
I work as a remote contractor from a small European town and am able to consistently save way more than that. I was saving more than that even in the past while working as a sub-contractor through platforms like Toptal.
How big of a salary would one need in order to save > $100k/year in SF (Single, small rental apartment, no car, average middle-class lifestyle)?
[+] [-] gbustomtv5|7 years ago|reply
The numbers for 125k indeed do not add up. However mid-level in Bay Area is 200k+ and Senior is 300k+. Not sure where 125k comes from.
Finding people with skills expexted for Bay Area’s mid level (forget about Director or VP) is a massive challenge.
[+] [-] jupiter90000|7 years ago|reply
However, as 'they' say money isn't everything, so it could be worth the trade off to a particular individual or family to make less and live elsewhere.
[+] [-] chrisBob|7 years ago|reply
Can I afford 6 acres within a 10 minute commute from work?
That narrows down my options quickly, and makes my current job, which I really enjoy, seem extravagant.
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|7 years ago|reply
Allow me to offer an alternative view, this is entirely speculative.
Director level and above people are paid quite well in the Bay Area, after stock compensation it can get to to close to half a million dollars per year. Folks outside the 'bubble' as it were, might still be amenable to $150K to $200K for a salary. Thinking "wow that is double what I'm currently making, its a huge jump for me!" and its half of what other directors make.
So maybe they are trying to get senior management "on the cheap" and cut their payroll costs, they know that locally sourced candidates won't go for what they want to offer so they try to entice people from lower paid locales. If it works they get a director and still have enough left over to hire another engineer right?
[+] [-] fizwhiz|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] carapace|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
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