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Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?

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Re: Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?

#161

Post by caseysoftware »

nostrademons wrote: post #34
twblalock wrote: post #14

Earlier 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…

I agree with your premise but I suspect your numbers are a bit off.

Regardless, whether it's 2 years or 3 years, to do the lifestyle you're suggesting takes and incredible amount of willpower to be willing to sacrifice and prioritize. It's passing up that cell phone upgrade. It's cutting discretionary spending to zero. It's passing on happy hour and bringing lunch every day.

While feasible, it's hard.. but suffering for two years to benefit for a decade. Quite possibly worth it.

Re: Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?

#162

Post by rconti »

joshlittle wrote: post #116

I always feel like these articles are one sided - jobs and money. Those things make life easier but ultimately are not the things that make life worth living. This article hits on none of the reasons I moved here after several prior extended stays in the City. For what I want out of life, it absolutely made sense for me to move here - even with only $2K in cash, no job, and no place to live at first. I came here for…

Well, their entire goal was to determine whether or not it was affordable/made financial sense.. But as a fellow bay area resident, I can't disagree with you on quality of life.

Holy crap, direct flights are critical. My family lives in San Diego now, and they have to multi-hop to go ANYWHERE. What a bloody nightmare. I fly nonstop out of SFO or SJC any time I travel. Last time I needed to take a connection, last week, was a total nightmare. Flight into Chicago delayed due to equipment problems, would have missed connecting flight, rebooked through Houston, THAT flight was delayed due to other issues, missed my connecting flight, spent hours waiting for rebooking and luggage and hotel vouchers. Just enough time to take a shuttle to the hotel, grab a crappy post-10-pm meal at the motel diner, sleep 6h, get up before daylight to catch ANOTHER flight, which finally got me there. You can tell I'm still not over the miserable experience of having to fly somewhere without a major hub.

Re: Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?

#163

Post by gregatragenet3 »

Go to the bay area, spend a few years becoming ridiculously skilled and invaluable to your organization. Then tell employer you'll be moving to X and telecommuting. X being somewhere with a lower cost of living, and someplace you love (nice beaches, near family, etc).

Re: Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?

#164

Post by samuraig »

wolfgke wrote: post #109
Kluny wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Investors diversify their portfolios by investing in a number of startups and also in more reliable investments like well-established companies. You can't treat a job that way - there's no way to diversify the hours of day into several different companies with different risk levels. What the author describes is gambling. You bet all your resources (time, in this case) on one horse and hope it pays off big. That's not…

> Investors diversify their portfolios by investing in a number of startups and also in more reliable investments like well-established companies. You can't treat a job that way - there's no way to diversify the hours of day into several different companies with different risk levels. It is definitively possible to diversify: Just do an agreement with other programmers to put all (or, say, 50%) your incomes into a co…

That would totally NOT end up in court when one of the programmers hits the Startup Lottery and everybody wants a piece of their stock options.

Re: Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?

#165

Post by closeparen »

amelius wrote: post #91
harterrt wrote: post #32

It 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…

Best is to move there in an RV :)

Where do you imagine you're going to park it? It's 2 hour parking in resdidential areas unless you have a resident permit (not that there'd be any available), no overnight parking in commercial areas.

A paid parking space will run you the price of a 1-bedroom in a sane region.

Re: Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?

#166

Post by mikelevins »

tom_b wrote: post #66

Interesting that Bay Area hackers make more than local hackers when they relocate outside the Bay Area. FTA: A 2015 report by Hired found that when engineers from the Bay Area relocate to other areas, they out-earn engineers on the local market. Experience in the Bay Area seems to advance careers. Engineers moving from San Francisco to Seattle make an average of $9,000 more than others who get offers in Seattle. This…

I can offer only anecdotal evidence; take it for what it's worth (not much, I know).

I lived and worked in the Bay Area for a little over fifteen years, almost two thirds of it at Apple, and almost a third of it at a successful startup called Reactivity.

I left in 2006 because of some catastrophic health events, and have lived and worked in Arkansas since recovering my ability to work.

When I'm working, I find it pretty easy to command higher-than-average pay for this area. Of course, I fairly often work remotely for people still in the Bay Area, or in Boston or Denver, and naturally they're going to tend to offer me more than Arkansas companies would. But I can also command a pretty good premium in Arkansas.

I don't know how much you can take from my example. I'm an old-fart developer now, with a long resume that has a bunch of famous names on it. People who are impressed by those things will naturally tend to offer more money to get them. I've seen some employers in this area become visibly more enthusiastic because of some of the people I've known and worked with, or that I can offer as references. My assessment is that some of that enthusiasm has been respect by association.

On the other hand, there may be some real quality differences in engineering culture, and some fraction of the premium may reflect that. Some of the markets I've worked in outside Silicon Valley have significantly different standards and practices, and the differences are not often for the better. In some cases they've verged on infuriating or clown-car laughable. Maybe some fraction of the premium is employers paying for people they expect to know better, and maybe they're not entirely wrong.

Re: Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?

#168

Post by eitally »

bradlys wrote: post #119
nostrademons wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Sorry, I live here. I have an average salary for my experience. I can barely save $20k/yr. My rent+util is about $2000/month. I live in a very /cheap/ 1-bedroom with creaky carpet floors, no insulation, and near train tracks that's far outside SF. (Belmont) Altogether I spend close to $4000/month if I don't do anything special. /Everything/ is more expensive in this region. Food is expensive for no apparent reason ot…

Cook your own food, shop at cheaper places. Big fan of http://www.imperfectproduce.com/

You don't have to spend $6/lb of butter, but if you buy it at Whole Foods (or similar), you do.

Re: Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?

#169

Post by rconti »

bcheung wrote: post #81

One thing the article is missing and not factoring in is home ownership. It can be a tremendous form of "compensation" as well provided you can weather out any downturns (10 years will probably be sufficient). With high salaries you have high tax brackets. Probably 40-50% total marginal tax rate with state, federal, and all the misc taxes. Being able to subtract your mortgage interest and the fact that your "rent" is…

Well, they mentioned home purchase prices, but they also think the Seattle Metro area has average $400k houses which anyone living there would laugh at. Somehow I think "metro area" in Seattle has longer commute times than "metro area" in SJ or SF. There's just no way the average in Seattle metro (with equivalent commute) is half.
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