[BossOfBosses]

(01-18-2019 10:50 PM)Lampwick Wrote:  

(01-18-2019 07:31 PM)2 Cool 4 U Wrote:  

Median income in the bay area = 120k

Median home price in the bay area (between SF and San Jose along the peninsula, and Hayward to San Jose, and Marin County) = 1.1 Million

Median rent in the bay area (between SF and San Jose along the peninsula, and Hayward to San Jose, and Marin County) = 3k/month

There is no way a tech or finance worker can afford to live in the Bay Area. Unless they live with multiple roommates, live 1-2 hours away from work, or move to cheaper cities like Las Vegas, Phoenix, Seattle, Dallas, or Houston. Plus California has the highest income tax in the country.

$120k is the lower bound for tech jobs in the Bay Area. This salary is attainable even in support roles. In fact, a lot of the guys asking about code boot camps may be better served by aiming for one of these jobs rather than full-on software engineer. It's much harder to get hired as a software engineer with just a boot camp on your resume. But there are a lot of jobs that require social skills, technical competence, and some Javascript that pay $120k - $160k. Job titles include Customer Support Engineer, Technical Account Manager, Solutions Engineer, Solutions Consultant, Integrations Engineer, etc. One caveat though is that it is much more difficult to progress from one of these jobs to Software Engineer. So if you are dead set on being a developer, then you should continue to apply for Software Engineer jobs, even at smaller companies. If you're somewhat technical, but more of a people person, then these jobs can be a better fit.

Product Managers make around $200k+. These jobs are much harder to get since there's a lot of competition. This is also one of the only tracks that has a career ladder to Director of Product, VP of Product, etc. Get to that level, and you start making $300k - $400k and higher.

Software engineer salaries vary, but at top tier companies, they can make $350k - 400k. Lower tiers $200k - 300k. Entry level at smaller companies can be much lower, maybe $120k - 150k. Again, very competitive, but if you are graduating with a degree in computer science, and want to be an engineer, the Bay is where the money's at.

Salespeople are often in the same range as engineering or higher, but it's based on commission, so that can vary wildly depending on the company and territory.

Sales Engineers make $150k - 250k. This varies pretty wildly based on how technical the product is, and the commission component.

Another thing is that Engineering and Product work in levels. Level 4, level 5, etc. When you level up, you make more money. Engineers have the most liquid skill set, so they jump back and forth between big companies, often after big portions of their stock have vested, and they sometimes level up in the process. Leveling up is easier to do in the Bay. For Engineering and Product, a lot of their compensation is often in stock grants which vest over four years. So some of the big run-ups in compensation are due to the public and private markets, which have been in a bull market for the past 10 years.

Seattle oftentimes has a better ROI than the Bay because the pay is comparable, the cost of living is lower, and there is no state income tax. So you see a lot of people moving from the Bay to Seattle. But again, Seattle mainly has satellite offices, unless you work for Amazon or Microsoft. Satellite offices have lower career growth potential, so I suspect that a lot of people are leveling up in the Bay Area, and then moving to Seattle to pursue a big offer. There may also be some kind of tax play, but I haven't looked too deeply into it.

Looking only at cost of living and taxes is a penny ante mindset. Go to teamblind.com to get a more unfiltered view of what people are making. A lot of people are blowing smoke, but a lot of them aren't. In daily life, these people don't want to advertise the crazy amounts of money they're making because they know the hate they'll get for it, especially as people around them are struggling. And you certainly can't tell by the t-shirt and jeans they're wearing.

Average for software engineers in SF (not senior engineers) is 130k
https://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=Software+E...isco%2C+CA

Senior engineers average 150-200k. Definitely not 400k.

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This is way overblown.

LA girls >> SF girls. Sorry you are a so butthurt about it