"drone programming in Clojure" this...hahaha
Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?
51–60 of 524 posts
Re: Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, this is absolutely true. Your car, clothing, computers and gadgets, and most of your groceries will be a lower percentage of your discretionary income in the Bay Area than in most other places. Your housing and gasoline will cost more, and maybe your car insurance. However, the caveat is that housing is so expensive here that it's difficult to save up for a down payment on any kind of housing on a single enginee…
It takes about 2 years to save up $100K on a typical Bay Area engineer's salary, if you're fiscally prudent. Figure that $150K/year after taxes is about $110K/year, and live on $60K/year. That's eminently doable even in the Bay Area. The problem is that $100K is a very low estimate for a down payment in the Bay Area these days. Most people I know are getting parental help to put down $500K down, because with housing…
> It takes about 2 years to save up $100K on a typical Bay Area engineer's salary, if you're fiscally prudent.
I'm not sure what you think an average salary is. If you think an average engineer can save $50k cash per year out of his/her net income, you're way above the average I had in mind.
Let's assume an average salary of $120k per year gross. That's about $6k per month net for a single person who takes the standard deduction, assuming no 401k contributions. That's a net income of $72k per year. If that engineer saves $50k, that leaves only $12k for everything else. Saving $100k in two years on that salary, which I think is pretty close to the average, is just not doable.
EDIT: Should have been $22k left over, not $12k. Still not enough to live on considering the cost of rent.
Re: Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?
#53It looks like the salary differential of $33k listed in the article is gross earnings. After taxes this would just barely cover the rent differential of $1.5k/mo ($18k/year). Note that this is the best case scenario according to their estimates. What troubles me is the use of median rent to compare housing costs. As rent increases, renters are likely to downsize offsetting some of the rent increase. I'd be willing to…
A peculiarity of "median" is neither my income nor lifestyle are median. I'm currently thousands of miles from SV and earn and live at the 90th to 95th percentile depending on who's fuzzy math and crazy definitions you trust. So its interesting to know median expenses for something like coffee or restaurant food, but I'd never live in a median real estate so whats the standard of living like at the 95th percentile assuming I'd get a raise? Its pretty good for me and my family where I live...
Median would be relevant if you were talking about moving to CA to sell car insurance to tech people.
Re: Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?
#54I do not understand the obsession the software industry has for locality. Wouldn't it make sense for people to work anywhere? Haven't Bay Area companies heard of something called the Internet? If you have to have people in the office to make sure they're working, you already have a fundamental hiring problem.
Having people in the office supports communication at much higher frequency and much lower latency than any video-conferencing method, not to mention that video-conferencing is uncomfortable and sometimes hard to hear. It's also vastly easier to simply walk over and look at a coworker's screen rather than trying to screen-share, and it doesn't require you to stop anything you're doing. Additionally the sense of camaraderie supports motivation and helps to assuage the crushing boredom of what is for most of us a profession of financial convenience after we failed at our actual dreams.
Re: Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?
#55It looks like the salary differential of $33k listed in the article is gross earnings. After taxes this would just barely cover the rent differential of $1.5k/mo ($18k/year). Note that this is the best case scenario according to their estimates. What troubles me is the use of median rent to compare housing costs. As rent increases, renters are likely to downsize offsetting some of the rent increase. I'd be willing to…
How would a renter effectively downsize if the entire market is increasing? Is this the typical reaction from those who can afford it?
2bdrm to 1brm, 1bdrm to studio, studio to van.
Re: Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?
#56The smartest thing would be to start in Bay Area, and then transfer to Seattle at the same pay rate.
Because Seattle companies don't understand cost of living?
Re: Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?
#57I do not understand the obsession the software industry has for locality. Wouldn't it make sense for people to work anywhere? Haven't Bay Area companies heard of something called the Internet? If you have to have people in the office to make sure they're working, you already have a fundamental hiring problem.
I want to work with my team in person. That has nothing to do "making sure they're working". It's just easier, for me, and presumably many others, to be able to collaborate in person. Maybe there's a future where seamless video conferencing, Beam robots, and better text communication could replace in-person conversation, coffee and lunch chats, and other office-place experiences. I've tried, and I don't think we're t…
But that provides a better incentive for remote teams. I agree that teams work better in person, but when you have separate teams, working on only tangentially related things, it makes sense to separate them out.
Obviously for small startups this doesn't make sense. But mid to late stage, opening a satellite office for development somewhere else seems like a no brainer. I assume I'm missing something though.
Re: Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?
#58It looks like the salary differential of $33k listed in the article is gross earnings. After taxes this would just barely cover the rent differential of $1.5k/mo ($18k/year). Note that this is the best case scenario according to their estimates. What troubles me is the use of median rent to compare housing costs. As rent increases, renters are likely to downsize offsetting some of the rent increase. I'd be willing to…
EDIT I incorrectly multiplied the tax rate to the salary difference, and said that this was a 5$ difference. This is totally wrong (as multiple people point out below). I'll leave my original embarrassing comment as a cation to not write stupid things :) == I just added in a mention of the tax difference. But the numbers are 13.3% in CA vs 0% in WA. That's significant, for sure. But 13% tax on $33k is about $5k. I do…
Thanks for adding the note on the tax difference! That doesn't address my point though.
If the salary difference of $33k is the difference between gross salary, that $33k is going to be taxed at the marginal tax rate. My guess at a marginal tax rate would be ~40%. Accordingly, that $33k becomes closer to $20k after tax.
Edit: to clarify, consider a Seattle salary of $100k and a Bay Area salary of $133k. The take-home salary for each location would be:
Seattle : $100k*(1-0.4) = $60k
Bay Area: $130k*(1-0.4) = $78k
Re: Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?
#59Headline follows Betteridge's Law.
Re: Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?
#60It looks like the salary differential of $33k listed in the article is gross earnings. After taxes this would just barely cover the rent differential of $1.5k/mo ($18k/year). Note that this is the best case scenario according to their estimates. What troubles me is the use of median rent to compare housing costs. As rent increases, renters are likely to downsize offsetting some of the rent increase. I'd be willing to…
How would a renter effectively downsize if the entire market is increasing? Is this the typical reaction from those who can afford it?
Compromise on neighbourhood. If you're in SF instead of living in the nice areas, go to Tenderloin, Hunter's Point, etc. You can find great deals in those areas.