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In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”

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Re: In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”

#341

Post by BadassFractal »

Danihan wrote: post #102
BadassFractal wrote: post #22

Let's set aside cost of living in the Bay for a second. Here's a completely taboo subject. At what point do we hold people accountable for their reproductive choices? You want to have 2, 4, 6 children in the most expensive slice of land in the US? Great, but please bear in mind that choice comes with real financial consequences to your lifestyle and you should not expect the state to bail you out of it.

Yes, all the smartest, most capable people should stop having kids. Considering intelligence is something like 85% hereditary, that will work out excellently!

The smartest and most capable people will not be making 100k in the Bay area with a family of 4.

Re: In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”

#342

Post by Veelox »

tunesmith wrote: post #338
stmfreak wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sort of "critical thinking" arrogance is what keeps people from sharing their different opinions and perspectives from your pompous ass.

Not sure why critical thinking is in quotes - critical thinking is a real thing. It's connecting conclusions with premises that lead to those conclusions, so that if someone else started with those premises, they'd also arrive at the same conclusions. It's not a different opinion or perspective, and it's not pompous - it's by definition something that can be shared across all opinions and perspectives.

> if someone else started with those premises, they'd also arrive at the same conclusions

I like your definition of critical thinking, it also allows me to highlight why I agree with sideband. In the bay area there tends to be less acceptance for differing premises.

I am a conservative Christian and certain premises I bring to the conversation automatically make me "hateful" or "bigoted". While I have seen this most prominently in the religious/moral realm I see it in politics as well.

In the bay area there is a right set of premises and a wrong set. If you start with the wrong set it is acceptable to wholly reject the conclusions without engaging critically with why the premises are wrong.

Re: In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”

#343

Post by sigstoat »

leesalminen wrote: post #275
sigstoat wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's probably worse, in a sense. you can't build up in boulder because there are height restrictions on buildings.

Color me a NIMBYist, but I love the height restriction. It gives me amazing views from my little apartment. Edit to add: An image from my balcony [0]. [0] https://storage.googleapis.com/lee-salminen-fileshare/IMG_24...

hmm, i can tell exactly what building you're in.

and it makes you one of the new people who've crowded in and made my grocery store obnoxiously busy. :(

Re: In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”

#344

Post by BadassFractal »

Spooky23 wrote: post #77
BadassFractal wrote: post #22

Let's set aside cost of living in the Bay for a second. Here's a completely taboo subject. At what point do we hold people accountable for their reproductive choices? You want to have 2, 4, 6 children in the most expensive slice of land in the US? Great, but please bear in mind that choice comes with real financial consequences to your lifestyle and you should not expect the state to bail you out of it.

A professional worker should be able to support a reasonable sized family without living in a slum or being a millionaire. I'm not sure what "holding people accountable" means to you. What it means to the Valley is that these companies have basically colonized the region and created an environment where you need to be single or dink. They like that because it means it's easier to make you work more without a family.…

There are many places in the US where you can live, it doesn't have to be Silicon Valley.

Nobody owes you a house and a comfortable lifestyle with a large family in the Bay Area without you providing enough value to the market to live in the most expensive place in the country.

There are many other states in the US where you could live, and many other places even in CA that you could move to. If you want to live comfortably right in the eye of the storm, that's your personal choice and the market won't bend over backwards for you.

Re: In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”

#345

Post by BadassFractal »

duderific wrote: post #247
throwthisawayt wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Bay Area is the most expensive place in the US for no real reason except for regulation. It's kinda like everyone cheering for Uber and Lyft because medallion rules in SF prevented ever having enough cabs. There's no real reason and that's the problem. Also maybe they had those kids in the 1990s when things were a bit more affordable ? The Bay Area wasn't always the most expensive place in the US

> The Bay Area is the most expensive place in the US for no real reason except for regulation. Isn't it more about supply and demand? There are many people here making big salaries at the tech companies, so there is not a shortage of people who can pony up $1-1.5M for a 1200 sq. ft. house. If the demand wasn't there, the prices would come down to meet it.

Exactly. Singles and DINKs moving in, chasing the gold rush, willing to pay whatever it takes to be part of the action. The market adjusts itself accordingly. Nothing new here.

Re: In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”

#346

Post by 086421357909764 »

ajmurmann wrote: post #280
kmonsen wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not an expert, but from my experience this is not true. If you do well in Bay Area (lets say ~500k total comp) it will be hard to match that in another area even including cost of living.

How do you get to that level of compensation? Are you just referring to "luck" with stock or cash salary? If it's not stock what skills pay that much?

It's also a very small subset of people that get those style offers. Every CS student I talk to thinks they're going to make the google prime salary, when the reality is they're not likely to make the cut as an average developer let alone the "silicon valley rock star". It's really a dis-service to the reality for most entry level and young developers. Additionally these crazy bootcamps aren't helping with their take a 12 week class get a job at google stories.

Re: In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”

#347

Post by Veelox »

geebee wrote: post #194
lisper wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once upon a time a family of four would live in a 1200 square foot house and own one car and one television, would rarely travel, rarely go out to eat. That kind of life style can still be sustained even in the Bay area on $100k/yr.

You know, maybe not. Even in the excelsior, a 1200sf ft house that is liveable (not remodeled highly, just liveable) will run you $900k. It can go up from there easily. It's possible , I suppose... You'd need to be a one income family at 100k, because there's no way you could cover that and child care. But yeah, a stay at home spouse and a working spouse who brought in 100k might be able to make it work south of 280.…

Even with your edit I would like to chime in that I got a condo in San Jose that is 3 bed, 2 bath for <500k. It isn't fancy but it is home.

Re: In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”

#348

Post by [deleted] »

juliangoldsmith wrote: post #318
ryanSrich wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. There's definitely a culture tax in the NW. I can freely enjoy the virtues of legal cannabis, frequent the best coffee shops in the world, and hike the glacial peaks all in the same day. To me that's worth the cost.

In Charlotte, I'm 2 hours away from the Appalachian mountains, and can easily get good coffee. I wouldn't consider legal marijuana worth $100k a year, personally.

[deleted]

Re: In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”

#349

Post by tzs »

xweb wrote: post #89
ryanSrich wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just remember that you'll want to select a city that has a decent economy and tech scene in the event that you lose your job and need to take a location dictated position. So long as you and your partner are both making 6 figures you should be able to afford any of the following cities: - Seattle - Portland - Austin - Denver

I would strike Seattle from this list. Just over the last couple of years, home prices are up 50% or more. It's not SF/SV prices but it's 80-90% there...unfortunately. It is, however, easier to build in Washington, so hopefully this will be a bubble and not a permanent trend.

I'd leave Seattle on the list.

In SF/SV, the high housing prices extend far enough out from SF to cover almost everything that is in reasonable commute distance. Same for Palo Alto, Sunnyvale, and San Jose.

In Seattle, prices are high or getting there in Seattle, Redmond, and Bellevue, but there is still reasonable housing between Seattle and Tacoma, and across the Sound over in Kitsap county. If you can get a work schedule that lets you miss the heavy commute hours it should be reasonably possible to get affordable housing without too bad a commute.

Re: In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”

#350

Post by davidjnelson »

kmonsen wrote: post #223
phkahler wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> That sounds great, but one of the common rebuttals is that the job market (remote or otherwise) may be more challenging outside of the Bay Area. It amazes me how many people in tech can't do simple math. Hint: The Detroit area job market is on fire, but you will pass it over if your idea of compensation doesn't take into account cost of living. I'm sure there are several other cities that can say the same.

I'm not an expert, but from my experience this is not true. If you do well in Bay Area (lets say ~500k total comp) it will be hard to match that in another area even including cost of living.

I know senior engineers making more than that because of 1 year pre ipo equity, but my understanding is senior engineers at google and facebook are more in the 300k-400k range with base/bonus/rsu. I am also curious how common it is to get to 500k total comp, and how one would go about that. It sounds like an outlier, unless you are an executive.
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