You may not be realizing that half or more of the compensation at the big SV tech companies is not salary.
Total compensation of $300k or more is pretty standard for the public companies. Check levels.fyi to see examples.
The benefits are also much better than I’ve seen elsewhere.
I moved to SF from Raleigh because even after cost of living I earn significantly more (ie. put a lot more in savings every year)
Housing here is definitely not as nice as other parts of the country, but if you work hard for a few years here you can leave and pay cash for a nice house in most of the rest of the country.
That’s why engineers keep putting up with the drawbacks and moving here.
And that’s only true at four or five companiess at the most....
Especially if you’re married, I know a lot of developers whose spouses income goes straight into savings, investments, etc. but it’s another example of HN Silicon valley thinking that software engineering starts and stops at four companies. Married dual income couples especially can make out like bandits in any of those cities.
I live in one of those cities and depending on how you classify me,I’m either somewhere above the median or well over the 75% percentile. Our nice big, new (comparatively) cheap house in the burbs is less than 20% of our take home pay. How much do you think we put aside in savings?
Because assortive mating is a thing - it’s statistically likely that two college educated people will end up getting married and I’m trying to keep this as generic as possible. If one was a software developer making $135K a year in one of those cities and the other was almost any college educated professional making $65K a year. The net of the lower paying spouse could pay off your nice house in the burbs in ten years or less.
I don’t know of any couple who is in that situation (and I know a few) who would think about moving to the west coast just for one spouse to make $300K when their combined income is already above $200K in a much less expensive area.
I get your point, but I think you’re overgeneralizing.
(1) the salary / equity combination I’m talking about is not just FAANG, it’s basically every large SF tech company. I don’t work for a FAANG but the deal is almost as good.
(2) I specifically moved with my wife and kids to SF to make it easier for my wife to stop working — she wanted to focus on the kids for a few years. One income here was worth more than double what I could earn in Raleigh and this is the first job I had in my career that offered comprehensive medical for the whole family, not just me.
We live in about the same amount of space as we had in Raleigh, it just costs more.
Lastly, while I would prefer to have a little more space for a less absurd mortgage, I’m not interested in living in any suburb. So when you compare housing in the central city of Raleigh (or Austin) versus SF, the comparison is less unfavorable.
So, sure, if I was willing to live in the suburbs I could have more house. But I’d rather deal with less space than is ideal than have to live in the burbs. No judgment intended, it’s just not the lifestyle I want, in the same way it sounds like city life isn’t the lifestyle you want.
I am always telling people that you reach a point where you have enough money to live the life you want. That point is different for everyone and it also depends on where you are in your life.
If I made twice as much money where I live now. It wouldn’t have an immediate effect on our life. Even now when I get a raise it just goes to “increasing my net worth”. It doesn’t really change too much of anything.
We could retire earlier. But my hobbies are computers and working out and traveling. I dont see myself fully retiring, maybe just doing consulting/contracting part of the year. As far as health insurance, my wife specifically took a job with the school board so we could get benefits whether I am consulting, contracting, or working salaried and we are guaranteed coverage for the rest of our life after she has been working ten years. I work with someone whose wife gave up her demanding job that she didn’t like to work in the school cafeteria for the same reasons.
Recruiters and consulting companies are baffled why I don’t accept an opportunity to be a high price consultant and I am sticking with this small company I work for when I could easily be making 25%-50% more. But living in a low cost of living area gives you that optionality.
Heck, there is a 50/50 chance I could get a job with Amazon working as an in house AWS consultant without moving (but with traveling). I’m just not interested in large companies. I worked at one at the time Fortune 10 (non tech) company for two years and I said never again.
I think the thing here is that cities are a better deal if you can command a top salary, and worse in most other situations. For example, talking about FANG, a senior position at Google (the lowest terminal level) comes with an average salary of $360k. Whereas someone who can get a senior position at Google is looking at your $135k (I get the feeling you're quite senior) or maybe a bit more in lower CoL areas. Even adding in a significant other that doesn't see a bump moving to the Bay, you're likely looking at 2x in the high CoL case.
On the other hand, if you can't get one of those top positions in the Bay you're probably looking at closer to $150k-$200k in a senior position, which makes a $100k or so low CoL position look awfully nice.
This gap widens as you go up the salary scale. I don't think I've ever seen even $300k in a low CoL area, whereas in the expensive areas 7 figures is possible (although quite rare).
How much would it cost to get a five bedroom, 3-1/2 bath newly built house in a top rated school system in Silicon Valley?
That’s easily affordable with one income, with a family making the median software developer wage. Any competent developer can pick up the phone, call a few local recruiters and have three or four offers in three weeks. Of course the pickings get slimmer the further to the right of the bell curve you go. But I do know developers who have been a lot more aggressive about their career a lot longer than I have and usually takes them two or three months to get jobs over the 80th percentile.
I picked $135K because that’s a pretty easy mark to hit if you have any negotiating skill, keep your eye on the market, and keep a warm network.
$160K+ is doable as an architect or an overpriced consultant working for a consulting company.
I've never lived in SV, so I'm probably the wrong person to answer that. But your real question seems to be "how can I live exactly the same life as now, but in an expensive city", which - sure, that's probably not possible. But neither can someone in a cheaper area live within half an hour of, say, a major international airport and several world-class museums, and within a 5 minute walk of a dozen high-quality restaurants. It's not really a function of cost or CoL or whatever; in both cases you're trying to find something that doesn't exist at any price in the given area.
Which is to say - the finances are only one part of it! Living in a large city is qualitatively different from living in a small city which is different from living in a rural area. If you have a strong preference, giving up the best financial situation to live the life you want is super reasonable. I know plenty of people who could live more comfortably in a cheaper area, but some people just want to be in a big city. I'm sure the reverse is true as well.
Well to give away where I live, it’s about an hour away by car from the world’s busiest airport, or less if I drive to the train station and then take the train directly to it - not exactly Small Town America.
None of the cities I listed are in what you would consider rural America. Yes we live in the burbs, but if living in the city were the lifestyle we wanted, we could buy a smaller condo for about the same price and I could still have access to the same job market.
