Kong,
One observation is what OC and SD lack, compared to LA, BOS, NYC, SF/SJC: A major research university. UCSD is really awesome, but its not in the league of what you have in the aforementioned metro areas. BOS and SJC emerged as the tech hubs of America due to MIT and UCB/Stanford. LA has CalTech, UCLA and USC. NYC obviously has Wall Street, where you make crazy money as the norm.

An example from my company is that they pay a 15% adder for LA office location, but 0% additional for OC and SD. This implies a 15% gap in cost-of-labor, which is the metric used for this so-called adder (as opposed to cost of living).

Are you a developer or a sw engineering mgr? Either way, you should be making a lot more. Do you work for a software firm or an enterprise?