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2017 State of Global Tech Salaries

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Re: 2017 State of Global Tech Salaries

#221

Post by WildUtah »

ghaff wrote: post #212
akiselev wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Appropriate username :) I spent most of my time in Eden and Ogden so I don't know anything about SLC's urban design beyond my impression of the sprawl from brief visits. Personally, I think terrible urban design is the norm in the US (in no small part to suburban sprawl) and SF/Bay Area are easily some of the worst offenders in my limited experience. I can't really think of any well designed cities in California beca…

Although, interestingly, the SLC design predates cars: http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/plat-of-zion/

If Brigham Young could foresee how cars would abuse the design, he would have laid out Salt Lake City like Paris or maybe like Kyoto.

Alas, President Young had long since exhausted his outrageously lavish budget of divine providence just getting to Utah.

Re: 2017 State of Global Tech Salaries

#223

Post by WildUtah »

akiselev wrote: post #209
WildUtah wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outside SF proper, the SV urban design is as bad as in Utah.

Appropriate username :) I spent most of my time in Eden and Ogden so I don't know anything about SLC's urban design beyond my impression of the sprawl from brief visits. Personally, I think terrible urban design is the norm in the US (in no small part to suburban sprawl) and SF/Bay Area are easily some of the worst offenders in my limited experience. I can't really think of any well designed cities in California beca…

Yes, terrible urban design and bad infrastructure and bad policy is pervasive in the USA.

You can just look at neighboring Mexico with 1/6th the per capita income and correspondingly lower public budgets where transportation, urban maintenance, and quality of city life are routinely better. And not just relatively better: Mexican cities (outside the shady border region) are nicer than American cities to live in. If you could put a typical neighborhood from Puebla or Guadalajara or León or Mexico City into Dallas or Los Angeles or San Jose or Atlanta, it would be the best, nicest neighborhood in the city.

And that's not even bringing up the great cities of Europe at all. Because that would be completely unfair.

It's like the health care system: Even a great country does some things horribly wrong and suffers for it.

Re: 2017 State of Global Tech Salaries

#224

Post by davidjnelson »

Epenthesis wrote: post #171
CiPHPerCoder wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We live in a 680 sq ft one-bedroom apartment in an older development ($2200/mo). Whoa, that's almost double the estimated mortgage for the 5 bedroom houses with an acre of land my family has been looking at purchasing. I'll never move to the SF Bay Area. I encourage others not to, either. Get the companies there to open up to remote employees instead.

I mean, this is the fundamental crux of these CoL discussions: How much does the quality of your residence matter to you? People try and mechanically translate equivalent lifestyles from place to place, but that's probably not the best way of analyzing things. Yes, if you choose to have a midwestern lifestyle in SF, it will be ludicrously expensive. However, you don't have to. If instead, you're able to replace the u…

It's not about size or fanciness. Urban areas and housing have significant air, water, and noise pollution.

Re: 2017 State of Global Tech Salaries

#225

Post by danielpatrick »

bluGill wrote: post #201
Stasis5001 wrote: post #48

Every article on salaries seems to really screw up two things. One is, salary is only a portion of total compensation. Which do they mean here? If you don't look at equity packages, my intuition is you're going to think SF sucks, since I think more companies there use stock incentives. I'm not sure anybody has good data on equity packages/total comp, and at the very least, it's not trivial even if you have that data,…

It is invalid to consider stocks, bonus, and other incentives in your calculations. Companies take them away all the time. You have salary, and that is it. Fringe benefits (insurance, 401k match...) is a useful thing to get and part of the picture, but the company can change them to your negative when they feel like it. stocks and bonus are nice, but you dare not count on them until after you get them. People who do…

Elaborate?

Re: 2017 State of Global Tech Salaries

#226

Post by deathanatos »

kcorbitt wrote: post #190
WhitneyLand wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a tough argument to make that SF beats SLC in net savings. You should try living with your family in a house with a backyard, it's quite enjoyable and could be pretty cheap over time if you see any appreciation. Secondly there are a lot more taxes on a lot more things in SF, are you factoring that in? Also I'd bet you are worth more than 105k in SLC if you looked around longer. I love SF and it's great to live…

While we'll probably end up in a house with a yard eventually, I don't feel a pressing need for that lifestyle at the moment. I am factoring in taxes and cost of living. The difference doesn't make up for the $55k wage gap. It's possible that I could have done better than $105k if I had looked harder, but based on how much my friends in that area make I doubt it. My salary in the Bay Area also has a lot more headroom…

> While we'll probably end up in a house with a yard eventually

How, might I ask? Assuming $1.5M for a townhouse or a house in the Bay Area, Google's mortgage calculator says ~7k monthly in payments. At $160k and 25% tax, you're left w/ 10k/mo; you'd be spending 70% of your income on housing, not counting maintenance. You'd need to make a significant downpayment (which even then, IDK if it helps, since I've seen housing easily range to more than $2M+, and I feel like I'm lowballing it (ha!) at $1.5M) or have your partner also pull a decent income, no?

(I've never bought a house, so please, feel free to inform me, b/c from where I'm standing, it's incredibly daunting.)

Re: 2017 State of Global Tech Salaries

#227

Post by elastic_church »

kcorbitt wrote: post #37

This analysis may be reasonable as far as it goes, but it can still make financial sense for someone to live and work in the Bay Area. I recently took a new job near San Francisco paying ~$160k. Living cheaply, our actual consumption for my family of 3 is about ~50k a year. (Yes, this is possible -- and life can still be enjoyable if you like spending time in nature/other inexpensive activities.) After taxes, that le…

> ...our actual consumption for my family of 3..

> I don't plan on living in the Bay Area long-term...

Just my initial observations. I think these are incongruent

Re: 2017 State of Global Tech Salaries

#228

Post by elastic_church »

Stasis5001 wrote: post #48

Every article on salaries seems to really screw up two things. One is, salary is only a portion of total compensation. Which do they mean here? If you don't look at equity packages, my intuition is you're going to think SF sucks, since I think more companies there use stock incentives. I'm not sure anybody has good data on equity packages/total comp, and at the very least, it's not trivial even if you have that data,…

I actually like private company RSUs and the lack of data around them.

I can get super amazing offers from Microsoft of Google who will throw RSUs at me based on the assumption I actually had such great offers from the last company, even if it is private.

The secret is to tell them that there's a huge secondary market and lots of liquidity. There, the secret's out, they have no way of verifying, and the secondary market for private tech company shares is a huge and growing and fragmented area.

So at first they'll try to low ball you because you weren't with a "unicorn IPO". But then you reveal all the liquidity you have and thats that

Re: 2017 State of Global Tech Salaries

#229

Post by Woofles »

davidjnelson wrote: post #224
Epenthesis wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, this is the fundamental crux of these CoL discussions: How much does the quality of your residence matter to you? People try and mechanically translate equivalent lifestyles from place to place, but that's probably not the best way of analyzing things. Yes, if you choose to have a midwestern lifestyle in SF, it will be ludicrously expensive. However, you don't have to. If instead, you're able to replace the u…

It's not about size or fanciness. Urban areas and housing have significant air, water, and noise pollution.

Right, and what the poster above you was saying is that people will sacrifice in that regard (or they simply don't care) to gain the benefits of living in an urban area like the culture, food, close proximity to bars and nightlife, etc.

This isn't a black and white issue and it always disheartens me when people are so quick to trash the Bay Area.

Re: 2017 State of Global Tech Salaries

#230

Post by surfmike »

kcorbitt wrote: post #37

This analysis may be reasonable as far as it goes, but it can still make financial sense for someone to live and work in the Bay Area. I recently took a new job near San Francisco paying ~$160k. Living cheaply, our actual consumption for my family of 3 is about ~50k a year. (Yes, this is possible -- and life can still be enjoyable if you like spending time in nature/other inexpensive activities.) After taxes, that le…

How much are your housing costs? Except for people who got in with rent control, I see very few apartments that cost less than $2500, and that's for a single bedroom.
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