Why do Salaries in SV Suck So Much? (Fremont: daycare, big house)

[sezzam]

Originally Posted by abqcd

...
In my current position, they pay to patent my inventions, I get a % of the royalties, and I can even take a leave of absence from work to start my own business, licensing my own IP, and return to work no questions asked if I should fail. Hard to beat. I guess I had unreasonable expectations to begin with that the grass would be any greener in SV.
...

If your current work is as you describe, I hope the SV offer you have convinces you to stay where you are.

[roadwarrior101]

Originally Posted by MediocreButArrogant

120k base salary is far below what a senior developer should be making in SV. We're paying $100k base salary for kids graduating with a BSCS from top CS schools (Stanford, Cal, CMU, MIT, sorry if I left your school off the list).

We did our annual salary reviews at the beginning of the year and I have access to salary benchmark data from Radford. Off the top of my head we used Google, Apple, Yahoo, Oracle, Salesforce.com, Adobe, eBay, and Intuit as our benchmarks. 50th percentile for a senior developer (7+ years relevant experience) was around $172k, not including bonus, profit sharing, and stock grant. I'd expect total cash/stock compensation of around $220k minimum for someone you want to retain.

Well, not everyone is a Sr. Software Developer at a top company. There are enough of those people to prop up the housing prices, especially with the additional stock options, but this doesn't represent the majority of folks working in the valley. There are other types of engineers that pay less, along with folks on the business side.

[gone down south]

Originally Posted by WeakandDizzy

I don't get it. Silicon Valley engineers think $175K-300K is big money. In the Silicon Valley no less. I know several couples who are teachers that make $120-130 K together and that is in the Southeast! Medical device salesmen make $200-300K without a sweat. Kids fresh out of Ivy League B.A. programs head to Wall Street for $100 K plus to start and the good ones are making $ 1,000,000 plus in the big firms after a few years. Several businessmen I know in the Southeast make $ 200 K plus/ year in rather mundane tasks like putting up fences, installing and maintaining generators and pumping septic tanks. I'm not trying to denigrate you guys but come on you live in one of the most expensive places on the planet. I wouldn't move back to the Bay Area for anything less than $500K/yr to equal my salary in the Southeast. It has great weather and I know it is the heart of high tech, but you all have been sold a bag of goods.

There are highly paid people everywhere, but the average is higher here.

[bigdumbgod]

Originally Posted by WeakandDizzy

I wouldn't move back to the Bay Area for anything less than $500K/yr to equal my salary in the Southeast.

Only on C-D do we hear that one needs to make half a million dollars per year to live in the Bay Area.

Engineering types seem to talk about about money so much, one wonders if they actually like the work they do?

[MediocreButArrogant]

Originally Posted by SMUR

I don't know about this conclusion. Was there a study?

No. That's the conclusion I drew to explain the difference between one person's anecdotal evidence and the data that Radford supplies.

[WeakandDizzy]

Originally Posted by bigdumbgod

Only on C-D do we hear that one needs to make half a million dollars per year to live in the Bay Area.

Engineering types seem to talk about about money so much, one wonders if they actually like the work they do?

I did not say I would need $500,000 to live in the Bay Area. I said that is how much they would have to pay me to equal my pay in the Southeast in terms of COL. I'm not sure I would return even if they offered me such a salary ( I have not actively looked but I would guess not). Now possibly for the same salary in Central Coastal California ( eg. SLO).

[bigdumbgod]

Originally Posted by WeakandDizzy

I did not say I would need $500,000 to live in the Bay Area. I said that is how much they would have to pay me to equal my pay in the Southeast in terms of COL. I'm not sure I would return even if they offered me such a salary ( I have not actively looked but I would guess not). Now possibly for the same salary in Central Coastal California ( eg. SLO).

Plenty of people living just fine on less than one tenth of that kind of money here. Way too much materialism going on.

[roadwarrior101]

Originally Posted by bigdumbgod

Plenty of people living just fine on less than one tenth of that kind of money here. Way too much materialism going on.

Of course, but if you have a family, you probably want to live in a 4 bedroom house, in a nice community, with good schools. If you're here in the Silicon Valley, in places like Los Altos, Palo Alto, Los Gatos, etc, that type of house will cost you at least $2M.

If you're in the Southeast, a similar sized house in a nice suburb of say Atlanta, may cost you something like $300-400k.

I don't think this is being overly materialistic, but just wanting to enjoy what many consider an upper middle class lifestyle.

[zombocom]

Originally Posted by bigdumbgod

Plenty of people living just fine on less than one tenth of that kind of money here. Way too much materialism going on.

If you're single and don't mind having roomates, that might be the case. However, if you have kids and want to own a decent house... Well, that'll be difficult.

I'd say a family should have a combined salary of at the very least 150k... Mortgage, health care, 401k, child care, education, etc, etc...

My wife and I have a combined income right now of about 130k, luckily we're both at the beginning of our careers, so it'll only go up (I hope), but with 2 kids, it's actually amazing how far that doesn't go - 40k a year for child care for two toddlers alone wipes out your income.

[bigdumbgod]

Originally Posted by roadwarrior101

I don't think this is being overly materialistic, but just wanting to enjoy what many consider an upper middle class lifestyle.

Wants vs. needs. An "upper middle class lifestyle" is all about soaking in materialism.