There are so many large tech companies in the Bay Area that all include stock-based compensation as a meaningful portion of your salary.
Everybody on HN fixates on startup employment in the bay area. Sure, there are plenty of "starving" engineers here working for $90k at a startup. But that's a choice. Every large tech company you can think of, and many you can't, have been hiring here non-stop for years. Within a 2 blocks of where I write this is Yelp, Salesforce and Zillow/Trulia. These are not even the large tech companies.
This place is not meant for everybody, but it really has not been hard to get ahead here if you're an engineer aiming to make money.
Everybody on HN fixates on startup employment in the bay area. Sure, there are plenty of "starving" engineers here working for $90k at a startup. But that's a choice. Every large tech company you can think of, and many you can't, have been hiring here non-stop for years. Within a 2 blocks of where I write this is Yelp, Salesforce and Zillow/Trulia. These are not even the large tech companies.
This place is not meant for everybody, but it really has not been hard to get ahead here if you're an engineer aiming to make money.