Cities with High Salary to Cost of Living Ratios for Software Developers

Post by wpietri » Tue, Feb 24, 2015, 6:39 PM UTC

gfodor wrote: post #191

nilkn wrote: post #120

If more employers understood the value of distributed teams, this wouldn't even need to be an issue. You could live exactly where you wanted to live. Want a 700 sq ft studio in Manhattan for $3k/month? Great. Want a 2000 sq ft ranch home next to a river out in the country with your own garden? Done. Want to just save as much as you can, with a cheap apartment in a cheap town outside a cheap city? You got it. Maybe yo…

> If more employers understood the value of distributed teams, this wouldn't even need to be an issue. If something like this seems obvious to you, and obviously a lot of smart people are acting in the opposite way, maybe you should re-consider your assumptions. In reality, online communication tools currently are a poor proxy for in-person communication in many situations. Online tools do not pick up the array of no…

Post by s73v3r » Tue, Feb 24, 2015, 6:43 PM UTC

nugget wrote: post #35

SwellJoe wrote: post #19

I suspect the cost of living data for Austin trails reality by some significant margin. The sources don't indicate the age of the data, but even if it's only a couple of years old, it's going to be wrong by enough to be a factor. I have lived in Austin for a couple of years, and also lived here (and owned a house here) about 8 years ago. The cost of homes here has gone up tremendously since then. I was shopping for a…

Tremendously is relative. Austin and SV real estate prices are not close at all. High property taxes keep home prices lower across almost all of Texas. Austin prices are limited in their 'irrational exuberance' upside since there's no way to finance a property tax bill and existing homeowners start to suffer. California is the opposite with low tax rates and proposition 13 covering existing homeowners - perfect condi…

Post by s73v3r » Tue, Feb 24, 2015, 6:49 PM UTC

xacaxulu wrote: post #94

This is something a lot of us have instinctively felt for a long time, hence all job action in places like Austin, Denver, Raleigh, etc. And I've worked in SF, Denver and Raleigh, NC enough to know the differences. If I can make 6 figures in both SF and Raleigh, the cost of living and quality of life are insanely better in Raleigh. I own a condo, a car and have tons of discretionary income. For the same type of work…

Post by pm90 » Tue, Feb 24, 2015, 7:01 PM UTC

exelius wrote: post #133

SwellJoe wrote: post #19

I suspect the cost of living data for Austin trails reality by some significant margin. The sources don't indicate the age of the data, but even if it's only a couple of years old, it's going to be wrong by enough to be a factor. I have lived in Austin for a couple of years, and also lived here (and owned a house here) about 8 years ago. The cost of homes here has gone up tremendously since then. I was shopping for a…

This is true if you're speaking of downtown Austin. Most tech companies are in north Austin, which is decidedly less cool and more strip mall-ish. You can still get a huge house for $200k if you look in Round Rock or Cedar Park -- both of which are within a 15-20 minute commute of the Braker/Metric area where most of the low-cost office space that attracts startups is. It's not super sexy, but cheap housing still exi…

Post by ild » Tue, Feb 24, 2015, 7:05 PM UTC

s73v3r wrote: post #206

xacaxulu wrote: post #94

This is something a lot of us have instinctively felt for a long time, hence all job action in places like Austin, Denver, Raleigh, etc. And I've worked in SF, Denver and Raleigh, NC enough to know the differences. If I can make 6 figures in both SF and Raleigh, the cost of living and quality of life are insanely better in Raleigh. I own a condo, a car and have tons of discretionary income. For the same type of work…

"If I can make 6 figures in both SF and Raleigh, the cost of living and quality of life are insanely better in Raleigh." The keyword is "if". Employers in places that say they're lower cost of living are more reluctant to pay the high developer salaries that one gets elsewhere.