[quote=deadzone]Not in San Diego they aren’t making 180K fresh out of college. This isn’t the Bay Area.[/quote]
It really depends. If you work for a local san diego company, chances are your compensation is based on old san diego compensation packages (minus qualcomm and intuit) If, however, you work for one of then Bay Area hq’d companies, your compensation tends to be higher than average in SD. Well at least until we have more people in san diego who end working remotely for those companies outside of san diego who pay a lot higher than the local san diego companies. And then either san diego companies will have to do something to prevent hemorrhaging of talent or have to ship those jobs overseas if they can’t afford to pay more.
And if you’re like me, and work for a company that was started in CA and acquired by a company hq’d in Florida, you end up in a situation where you’re paid more than your VP you now work for..and it’s generally not a good sign if at your meeting for your next year’s compensation, your new boss starts the conversation off say something to the effect (paraphrased) “well, let me just start off by saying that currently our company pays you more than me…” which probably means there’s limited upside for me, short of my boss falling over dead….(I felt like saying something witty like “well, maybe I’m just really good at negotiating my compensation packages”…but then, upon reflection, thought that would be a career limiting move…. ) Nevertheless, if I find a comparable position to my liking, offering more, remote work friendly, I’m outta here too. Show me the money.
Meanwhile, I’m having a lot of trouble hiring talent. I suddenly went from have 0 headcount to needing to hire 2 mid-level IOS engineers, 1 mid level android engineer, and 2 entry support engineers that was suppose to have been filled by mid-May. Aint gonna happen. Why? My company, based in Florida, is cheap. And they are totally out of touch with reality still expect that they can attract great mobile talent in florida by paying them shitty florida wages, and their selling point is, well here in florida we don’t have state income taxes…….
True…no state income taxes. BUT….You see, engineers, particular software engineers are one of the biggest beneficiaries of the post-pandemic economy…..Because while pre-covid, there were only a few companies that allowed sw engineers to work remotely… Now, post-pandemic, if you’re a company that depends on a software engineers or SDET’s or SRE’s, you have no choice. You have to let people work remotely or you will be at a huge competitive disadvantage versus everyone else that is allowing people to work remotely…And once you open the doors up to allowing for remote work, people (the really talented people) aren’t dumb. They know that there is at least one company from CA or Bay Area that will offer to pay *almost* bay area salaries (maybe 4-6% less, anything more would be an insult), even if you work remote from say florida. So for example, in another department we lost a few SDET’s in Florida, because while our cheap ass company in Florida was only willing to pay mid-level SDET’s say $70k, a bay area company offered those guys a $130-140k to work remotely from florida for at least 2 years, with the option to relocate to Bay Area if they want…For bay area standards, that might be on the low side. From florida standards, that’s absurd….So it’s a win win for the SDET guys.. If i were in their shoes, I would have quit and joined the bay area company too. Bay area company gets someone good for slightly cheaper (not really that much cheaper), and florida person gets to make close to Bay Area salary while in Florida…That’s what every tech company in these “low cost” areas now have to compete against, if not now, eventually.
San Diego is no longer consider low cost area to employ. I don’t have a single engineer that makes less than $150k base. I have one fresh out of college bachelor’s degree person starting as a “support engineer”, which technically isn’t a fully software engineer. Had to offer her just shy of $100k…For a support engineer position. Why? She had similar offers from Bay Area companies with pretty deep pockets that were allowing her to work remotely…But here’s the kicker….I gave her the option to work either in San Diego or Florida.She decided she wanted to try florida out, so for someone fresh out of school with $100k in florida, she can afford a house in 1-2 years with a bachelor’s degree versus if she comes her, she maybe can afford to buy a SFH if she saves and invests wisely in 10-15 years…. When she finally develops into as a full blown software engineer via internal training, I’m going to have to pay her a lot more. Otherwise, she can easily just bolt to anyone else that wants to hire her. Actually, who knows, maybe in 6-8 months, I’ll be somewhere else and need people like her, and I’ll poach her from my current company along with everyone else on my current team, offering them CA salaries but remote work from florida. And observe how my current company can build a new world class mobile engineering department to replace all the engineers I eventually poach…. on a Florida budget. HA!
If you’re an experienced software engineer or a SRE, and you’re good, there’s really no reason you should ever take a “cost of living” downward adjustment for a remote job even if you live in a “lower cost area”… If a company suggests that, they are just being cheap. Companies can either spend $X or not. If they can spend $X but trying to give you $Y because you live in a lower cost area, they are being cheap. If a Bay Area company was expecting to spend $200k total comp remote or local for a engineer, and finds you from san diego, and thinks and offers you $150k instead, that company is being cheap. You should be insulted, and if you accept either you’re desperate because you got laidoff and need a job or you did a pretty shitty job negotiating your comp package.
