[quote=walterwhite]Compwise only from my W2.. SD is doing better for me than Silicon Valley if you factor in cost of living. And way better than L.A….At least currently….[/quote]
It’s not just you and me. I’ve talked to a few coworkers who are at the director level and we all agree that, if you’re young, single, and wanna take a swing in hoping to be at the ground floor of the next Facebook/Google, etc, then the bay is where you should be. But once you get older and taking that kind of risk is out of the question and you have to do budget based on W-2 and cost of living, you’ll quickly notice that they bay ain’t got nothing on SD. I’m living 11 blocks away from work and when I was getting interview up in the bay, that was one of my criteria (being <20 blocks or ~5 miles away from work). With that criteria, my cost of living went up at least 50% and when you add in comparable school quality, the cost of living gap widen. Then I ask about the ball park of pay for companies up there and companies down here. It turns out the gap was ~10% for a Sr. Software Engineer.
