131–140 of 302 posts
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Average rent in NYC - $3,375 Average rent in SF - $3,558 I don't know your situation but NYC is basically in the same boat (just with a better rail system).
Bay Area is a far more pleasant environment to live in than North Atlantic
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>Then maybe everyone creating textual output for a living wouldn't have to transport their physical body to an office. Remote work hasn't taken off on a large scale because massively successful multi-billion dollar companies like Google/Facebook/Amazon/Apple/SpaceX were not built with remote workers . You get (relatively) minor companies touting it such as Automattic and Basecamp. Those smaller businesses haven't ach…
They were also built in a time where "Super Commutes" weren't necessary.
It's only might be necessary if you want a large, single family house.
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I make ~175k/year cash, and I'm able to put away about 60k/year in savings. If you add in the equity I'm receiving (currently illiquid, but company is one of the mega-corns), I'm able to save an additional 60-100k/year on top of savings from salary. I live a decent life, 2 annual international trips, own a car, lease a ski house with friends in the winter, if you make over 120k, life in the bay area is quite nice.
You're putting $5k away every month when your take home pay is ~$8k a month? I assume you must live a VERY spartan life in the Bay. Basically pay your rent (which must be shared or very cheap for the Bay) and utilities and not do much else... I mean the average Bay area rent is more than the difference between your take home and your savings... edit: I'm using ADP's calculator, don't know why SmartAsset is different…
https://smartasset.com/taxes/california-tax-calculator#RZ3V1...
Sharing an apartment isn't "spartan", it's "normal"
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What's interesting is that I routinely see comments little different from this one. Just as routinely, companies choose to pay whole multiles times as much for engineers in-person instead of remote. Is it possible that we're missing something in this? And that there might be more to this than companies being unwilling to try remote workers? I know my own experiences with working remotely and having remote colleagues…
> Is it possible that we're missing something in this? And that there might be more to this than companies being unwilling to try remote workers? If open-plan offices are any hint, it's that actual knowledge worker productivity (let alone well-being) is pretty low on the list of things managers look for. > I know my own experiences with working remotely and having remote colleagues have upon occasion been other than…
Alternatively, leadership has decided the price of lower density seating is not worth the increased productivity. Realizing there was no expectation of working at 100% significantly improved my well-being.
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Much more than other places in the US. I keep seeing this type of comment, do the math, 2-3X salary increase, rent 2X increase, but rent is only ~25% of your salary, cost of things around ~25% higher. You are much better of in Silicon Valley as a techy in general.
Now factor in the fact that you spend 15 hours a week driving - not working, jogging, cooking, singing, or making friends. Factor in the gas and maintenance for your car and the medical costs to you for your sedentary time and to society for your exhaust.
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I've been a fully remote developer for 4 1/2 years. My employer has no physical office. I live in a pleasant medium-sized town, I bought a house for less than a Bay-area toolshed, and I can commute myself downstairs to make a sandwich. If every worker were remote, can you even imagine how hard you'd have to work to justify a physical office to the CFO and potential hires?
I've been remote for 5 years. I know about all the benefits, but I'm always curious how others are dealing with the drawbacks. I've written about it a few times here on HN: - Social isolation How do you ensure that your social brain is exercised? If I don't make a conscious & deliberate point of it, I can go an entire day without leaving the house, sometimes multiple days. Working from home can mean 8 solid hours of…
I go play with my friends and family after work, sometimes also at lunchtime.
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I know I chose to move out here because it was the best career move I could make. Having a FANG company on my resume plus the ridiculous salary and equity while I'm here would be foolish to pass up.
the ridiculous salary and equity while I'm here would be foolish to pass up So - how much of the "ridiculous" salary is left after subtracting living costs and taxes, actually?
*Caveat: I'm unmarried and don't have kids. I don't own a house yet. I think that might change the equation a bit.
Part of me is still trying to understand why the housing shortage in the Bay Area is so severe. I understand NIMBYism from the homeowner's perspective, but there are a lot of renters in the SF Bay. SF is 63% renters, and should be able to outnumber NIMBY homeowners easily to have a lot more dense housing built. Alameda County is in 2nd place at 47% renters [1], so only a small percentage of homeowners need convincing…
75% of SF rental units are rent controlled.
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the ridiculous salary and equity while I'm here would be foolish to pass up So - how much of the "ridiculous" salary is left after subtracting living costs and taxes, actually?
Average FANG salary is $200k with roughly another $200k in equity each year spread out over 4 years. So that's roughly $400k per year in total comp. Conservatively 40% of that is going to taxes, so take home is closer to $240,000. While $240,000 is a nice salary it's not even close to what you'd need to afford a house in SV. And that's just housing. All in all it feels like a bad deal.
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Very few places on the planet are as temperate and offer so many options to escape into nature as the Bay Area. I agree that something has to change, but trying to convince people that the only answer is to move away is a non-starter for the majority of the population, especially those who want to live here.
The weather is nice, but nature is not really all that close. Sure, there's worse places. But growing up there I thought we had it good on the nature front, while really it was just the koolaid.