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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”

#351
post #326

And this is why tech jobs are going to continue to lead the charge to being mostly remote workers. Major tech hubs are crazy expensive, and the jobs are pretty amenable to remote work. At some point, there's going to be another inflection point where a lot of people making comfortable upper middle-class incomes move out to, well, anywhere. Basically, someone's going to do the math, and recognize that remote workers a…

I think it's investors holding up the movement at this point. I usually see most tech guys are mentally prepared for this shift, but finance guys are strongly opposed.

Well, there are a lot of complicating factors in the US when a remote worker moves out of state.

Health care seems to be a big one. Few HR departments are frequently equipped to provide another kind of health-care package, and health care expensive, heavily subsidized by many tech companies, negotiated because of bulk sales, etc.

Depending on the business, the company might actually be subject to massive sales taxes as well if they employ someone out of state. Some states, like CA, have enacted rather byzantine sales tax laws, such that if you were, say, a company in Idaho, and someone wanted to move to CA, you'd all of a sudden have a "presence" in the state and be subject to more taxes.

These are just off the top of my head. So basically, unless the CEO wants it prioritized, I suspect the "finance guys" are actually just identifying real costs. So I wouldn't expect remote work to just jump wholesale nationwide without some real infrastructure in place. In any case, the silicon valley area sure seems to have some pretty stark incentives for prioritizing remote work. I'd expect the issues with remote work to be ironed out faster then say, a massive wage raise or controlled real estate costs.

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

#352
post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yes, I'm far from a conservative Christian but I appreciate that while some premises are fact, other premises are simply "values" ("should/ought" statements) that can vary from person to person. People can reason accurately towards different conclusions from those values. People should be able to debate/disagree respectfully about differing values, assuming there's a basic level of humanity in those values.

Of course, people can reason incorrectly, too. I think there's a set of people that disagree with the values, but there's another set of people that object to conclusions that appear inconsistent when compared to the premises/values they purportedly rest upon.

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

#353
post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what were you doing/where were you working that you were pulling in 250k?

Is 250k considered unusual in the bay area for a BigCo for someone for someone 3-5 years out of college? If that's the case, choosing to living in SF is even crazier than I thought.

As someone in the bay area working for a BigCo, I expect to be making making ~250k with 5 years of experience due to internal info, see also https://danluu.com/startup-tradeoffs/

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

#354
post #326

And this is why tech jobs are going to continue to lead the charge to being mostly remote workers. Major tech hubs are crazy expensive, and the jobs are pretty amenable to remote work. At some point, there's going to be another inflection point where a lot of people making comfortable upper middle-class incomes move out to, well, anywhere. Basically, someone's going to do the math, and recognize that remote workers a…

I think it's investors holding up the movement at this point. I usually see most tech guys are mentally prepared for this shift, but finance guys are strongly opposed.

Any thoughts on why?

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

#355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also moved from the the Bay Area to Oviedo, FL not long ago (fun fact about our little town: Brian Acton, co-founder of WhatsApp, grew up here). I agree with everything on your list, and I'll add one more item: 9) Greater thought diversity and tolerance for opposing viewpoints. When I lived in the Bay Area it seemed that too many people I interacted with were of similar backgrounds: very educated, high income and s…

With all due respect, I don't really buy that narrative. People often mistake critical thinking skills with close-mindedness. Just because someone uses thought and reason to reject an idea doesn't mean they are close-minded. Not all ideas deserve acceptance. I'm as open-minded as it gets, but if you tell me that vaccines cause autism then you will go down several notches in my book. (Ironically, there are many anti-v…

Everybody you don't agree with is "close-minded". It's the fact that they can't seem to see the sense in your own position that makes them seem like such benighted fools. But they look at you in the same way. Unless you can accept that _to those people_ opposition to vaccines or whatever _does_ make a kind of sense, then I suggest you're being equally close-minded. You may be right, but your mind is not open to the sense in other people's worldviews.

The division of our society into ideological camps that point fingers at each other and can't see the others as basically-sensible human beings drives me crazy.

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

#356

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?

Staff engineer at Google, most likely, but possibly Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft.

In any case, somebody who thinks this represents a significant slice of the Silicon Valley workforce is living in a bubble. For every engineer making >$500k, there are many thousands making <$200k, at the thousands of other tech companies in the Bay Area that aren't Google/Amazon/Facebook/Apple. While the $500k engineer has every incentive to stay in SV, that has no bearing on the vast majority of engineers.

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

#357
post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did the exact same thing this year. Moved to Oviedo, FL from SF: 1) no state income tax, 2) public schools in my neighborhood are equivalent to a private school in sf [i] 4) weather is great 8 months out of year, 5) beaches you can swim in, 6) rent is ~1/4 of what it was in SF, 7) cuban food, 8) as a resident, kids have year round disney passes [i] http://school-ratings.com/Florida/schools/Carillon_Elementar... WARNI…

1) And this shows: public services and family friendly recreation are basically non-existent by comparison with the Bay 2) Possibly a gem in the rough, but having family who teach in OCPS I'm skeptical 4) Quite subjective; I personally don't enjoy 100% humidity and 100 degree temperatures 8 months out of the year in which one is constantly assaulted by mosquitoes and "love bugs" 5) again, subjective, although it's ha…

>6) I doubt you're going to find a 1500 sq ft. 3 bedroom town home for $1k per month (1/4 of what I pay 20 miles south of SF), and you're leaving out other costs, hidden costs, including commute and items related to the lack of public services and much higher utilities costs; the cost of living is lower, but not 75% lower

Are we talking town homes for rent?

* 3 beds; 2.5 baths; 1,528 sqft; $1,000/mo

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/Crooked-Pine-Trl-Crestvie...

* 3 beds; 2 baths; 1,863 sqft; $900/mo

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1006-Villaway-W-Sebring-F...

...or maybe you'd like to rent a house:

* 3 beds; 2 baths; 1,821 sqft; $975/mo

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/5693-Highway-4-Baker-FL-3...

* 4 beds; 4 baths; 1,700 sqft; $975/mo

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/351-Pine-Ave-Cocoa-FL-329...

...or maybe buy a house:

* 3 beds; 2 baths; 1,564 sqft; EST. MORTGAGE $705/mo

https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/FL/fsba,fsbo,fore,new_...

* 3 beds; 2 baths; 1,661 sqft; $464/mo

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2579-Dogwood-Dr-Cottondal...

* 4 beds; 2 baths; 1,541 sqft; EST. MORTGAGE $261/mo

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/362-Palm-Ave-Cocoa-FL-329...

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

#358
post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tech industry in Central Florida has grown in recent years and seems to be quite strong at present with companies like Disney, Universal, Deloitte hiring lots of tech folks, and a small but growing startup scene. Salaries aren't going to be the same as the west coast though (obviously), and most of the senior developer roles I've seen cap out at around the $100k-ish mark. With the far cheaper cost of living thoug…

Don't forget the defense industry, a lot of my friends who graduated from UCF went to Boeing, Lockheed, and Homeland Security

Do they hire non-citizens?

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

#359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did the exact same thing this year. Moved to Oviedo, FL from SF: 1) no state income tax, 2) public schools in my neighborhood are equivalent to a private school in sf [i] 4) weather is great 8 months out of year, 5) beaches you can swim in, 6) rent is ~1/4 of what it was in SF, 7) cuban food, 8) as a resident, kids have year round disney passes [i] http://school-ratings.com/Florida/schools/Carillon_Elementar... WARNI…

I also moved from the the Bay Area to Oviedo, FL not long ago (fun fact about our little town: Brian Acton, co-founder of WhatsApp, grew up here). I agree with everything on your list, and I'll add one more item: 9) Greater thought diversity and tolerance for opposing viewpoints. When I lived in the Bay Area it seemed that too many people I interacted with were of similar backgrounds: very educated, high income and s…

Completely agreed here. My experience has been that people are very intolerant of thought diversity. They like all sorts of diversity, as long as you subscribe to the same politics and morality as they do.

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

#360
post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Yes, I'm far from a conservative Christian but I appreciate that while some premises are fact, other premises are simply "values" ("should/ought" statements) that can vary from person to person. People can reason accurately towards different conclusions from those values. People should be able to debate/disagree respectfully about differing values, assuming there's a basic level of humanity in those values. Of course…

> assuming there's a basic level of humanity in those values

I am not saying that you are this way, but I have had interactions that lead me to believe that reasoning allows some to wholly reject values I hold dear as "intolerant" without consideration, all in the name of tolerance. It comes across as comical in a tragic way.

On the flip side, I have had interactions where I was able have a disagreement and work backward to the differing values which we were able to agree to disagree on.

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