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I made 6 figures at my Facebook dream job – but couldn't afford the Bay Area

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Re: I made 6 figures at my Facebook dream job – but couldn't afford the Bay Area

#41

Post by bbctol »

timtadh wrote: post #21

I think the point is: his salary while not high by SF was high in nearly any other location in the US. In any other location, he and his family could live how they wanted. In any other location, have a $40,000 car instead of a $10,000 or less car is a perfectly reasonable. In any other location, eating out more than once a month would be perfectly reasonable. Having a expensive hobby racing cars is reasonable, just n…

But part of the reason he was paid so much was because he lived in the Bay Area; Facebook wouldn't pay nearly as high salaries if they were based in the Midwest. In "any other location," he still might not have been able to afford hobby racing, and it's weird to act entitled on the one hand and not acknowledge the other, as if the salary is deserved solely based on the work he's done, and the cost of living is a completely separate punishment.

Re: I made 6 figures at my Facebook dream job – but couldn't afford the Bay Area

#42

Post by ones_and_zeros »

I think there is something to be said about living beyond their means but, to me, a new car and home for my family is a fair middle class lifestyle. (You can quibble over the 40k price tag, but buying a 40k car and making it last doesn't have as much of a financial difference as a 30k car over the long term)

I think this article is speaking out against this narrative that techies are incredibly well paid while in reality we mostly work in over priced cities with awful commutes and have a government and industry openly trying to suppress wages.

Any time one of us says "hey, we aren't that well paid" there is always someone to say we should move further away from work, or downsize, or skip having a family, or stick to rice and beans and it's getting old.

Re: I made 6 figures at my Facebook dream job – but couldn't afford the Bay Area

#43

Post by pmiller2 »

cmiles74 wrote: post #25
pmiller2 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's not exaggerate. $100K/year in the Bay Area (as a single person) isn't living it up, but it's not "a near-poverty lifestyle." It's a "living in the East Bay with roommates, commuting at least an hour, (very) occasionally going out," lifestyle but it's eating good food with a roof over your head. If that sounds like poverty, well, you should see real poverty sometime.

The choice of words was poor, but living with roomates and commuting an hour when your salary is $100/year is, in my opinion, unreasonable. There's good food and roofing available all over the country.

$100K/year is an entry level salary at many places these days. If you're not entry level and don't have absurd amounts of student loans, then you can afford to do better. You can have less of a commute, or maybe not live with roommates, and actually put some money into savings. It's still nowhere near poverty wages.

Re: I made 6 figures at my Facebook dream job – but couldn't afford the Bay Area

#44

Post by paulcole »

swsieber wrote: post #38
zeveb wrote: post #28

> I’d been granted a few thousand shares when I got hired, and after the company had its IPO in 2012, I sold all the shares that had vested. … We could finally rent a house for just our family, no roommate. In order to afford that, selling stock became necessary every quarter it vested. Obviously, this is not the path to financial security, but when the sum of money that lands in front of you isn’t life changing, you…

People want the nice things their parents had, but not on the same timeline. They don't realize that nice things take a while to accumulate. Yes my parents drive a Prius. But growing up in a family with 5 other siblings, they pretty much drove beaters. And our house started with, as we so fondly called them, the seven ugly carpets of the world. And those were slowly replaced over time. The house we lived in until I w…

Your parents had 6 kids to care for. If not for that, wouldn't their standard of living greatly exceed that of a childless couple today?

Re: I made 6 figures at my Facebook dream job – but couldn't afford the Bay Area

#45

Post by bbctol »

Grishnakh wrote: post #33
colmvp wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd hardly call buying a car that's less than 40k "near-poverty.'

It's not that, it's the part about having to live with roommates in a tiny apartment. I did that in college. Why would I want to go back to that lifestyle? Why should I? If that's all you can afford by working at a super-high-end job these days, then what is the point? (Again, remember that $100k is well above the average family income in the US right now; a single guy making that much should be able to live very, ve…

Part of the reason he's making that much is because he's in the Bay Area; Facebook would pay their employees less if they were based elsewhere. He can't say he deserves a certain lifestyle based on salary, and is being punished unfairly by location, because those are not at all separate factors.

Re: I made 6 figures at my Facebook dream job – but couldn't afford the Bay Area

#47

Post by stephencanon »

pmiller2 wrote: post #22
scarby wrote: post #5

Barely breaking 6 figures is an entry level engineers salary in the bay area. Also in the world that I live in single income families are the exception rather than the rule.

He was barely breaking 6 figures in 2009. I wasn't around the Bay Area then, but that strikes me probably significantly better than entry level at the time, given the way rents have gone.

Back in 2009 you could rent a house with a yard in a nice part of Palo Alto for ~2.5k/month (Or less, my wife and I were paying 1.8k at the time for a small but very nice house with a 1 acre yard). ~$100k (while still reasonably entry-level) went pretty far then.

Re: I made 6 figures at my Facebook dream job – but couldn't afford the Bay Area

#48

Post by bgirard »

I'm moving to the bay area to take a job at Facebook in 2 weeks. When comparing all my offers, my wife and I made a budget for each offer to understand the salary differences and their cost of living. We know exactly what we can afford. I don't understand why everyone doesn't do this before taking a job somewhere.

Re: I made 6 figures at my Facebook dream job – but couldn't afford the Bay Area

#49

Post by hapless »

timtadh wrote: post #21

I think the point is: his salary while not high by SF was high in nearly any other location in the US. In any other location, he and his family could live how they wanted. In any other location, have a $40,000 car instead of a $10,000 or less car is a perfectly reasonable. In any other location, eating out more than once a month would be perfectly reasonable. Having a expensive hobby racing cars is reasonable, just n…

Spending 40% of your annual income on a car while supporting an entire family on that income is grossly irresponsible, regardless of the geography.

Re: I made 6 figures at my Facebook dream job – but couldn't afford the Bay Area

#50

Post by ravenstine »

That's exactly why I chose not to work in the Bay Area. Perhaps I have chosen the less challenginger or rewarding path (I don't know), but my first job as a programmer paid me peanuts(40k) and I lived in a pretty nice place with a roommate; a year later I got another job that paid 84k and got to rent a small house, live on my own, and not have to worry about how much I spend. Entry level pay, even in SoCal, can mean decent living. Entry level in the Bay seems to mean constantly struggling to make ends meet while living with several people. Granted, I know people who get a thrill out of that, and that's perfectly fine, but that's just not for me. Living both in San Francisco and the East Bay taught me that. Was fun, but I like not being a workhorse and having excess cash to spend on my various projects.

Then again, it sounds like tat guy's spending was way out of line. Like many people, he probably blew his money on expensive toys(and a penis car) to gain a feeling of status.

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