Let's pick a huge employer in Silicon Valley, Facebook, and search for jobs on Indeed.

https://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=facebook&l=Menlo+Park%2C+CA

Not a single Software Engineer position.

And I really don't think hot San Francisco startups are using Indeed to look for talent, which is why SF falls so low on their rankings

Tier one employers don't normally advertise on indeed

Which is also why Indeed's previous article "Where are the Highest Paying Tech Jobs in the US" is complete garbage. Shows SV average at $111k. SV and SF have disproportionately high portion of Tier 1 companies and positions, many of which will never show up on Indeed.

How can you talk about SV without Facebook? Facebook has 20k employees, about half of them in SV.

Since this is only looking at populations greater than 1 million, I think an area with an overwhelming percentage of tech jobs such as your hypo 99% would be very interesting to anyone hunting for a tech job.

Again, this is Indeed, so job seekers and employers are the target audience of this post.

That includes those fortune 500 companies (a couple of whom had internal recruiters bail when I mentioned my current salary + the COLA number). Cutting your real estate costs by $12-15k goes a long way but it doesn't magically cover $40k+ paycuts. It is good for employers (for instance, one guy was willing to disclose "I got two guys with Master degrees for $20k less than what you wanted.") but not so good for employees on the upper end of the pay scale. (i.e. above 6 figures outside of SF/NYC)

It is anecdotal, just my experience after looking to move there.

Just my experience after having moved here.

Though looking at glassdoor data for Atlanta, it does look like data scientists have an average that's almost $34k lower than san francisco. So maybe I just got lucky.

MIT grad, data scientist here. Again, if you are not a top data scientist, it will work fine for you. I routinely get offered $300K/year as a recent PhD grad in the Bay area. I would not get anywhere near proportional compensation in Atlanta or even Seattle.

I'm not going to pretend this is scientific in any way, but using online COL calculators (http://money.cnn.com/calculator/pf/cost-of-living/index.html), $300k in San Francisco is supposedly (taken with many grains of salt) equivalent to $172k in Atlanta, which you could surely land?

For most Americans that's pretty close to being correct - the average savings rate is around 6%. (https://www.fool.com/investing/2016/10/03/heres-the-average-...)

This would be quite difficult for someone on an average salary with kids, or sometime who works in an industry where keeping up appearances is important.

Vacation costs, Amazon splurges, etc, don't change between Akron and SF.

If most companies are paying a certain salary, doesn't that imply that salary IS market rate?

I don't think you can directly compare salaries across cities even after factoring in cost of living since it ignores the fact some places are more desirable to live in than others and thus should command "premiums".

Also, people overestimate the effects of cheaper housing. Yes, cheaper housing is nice but one has to remember that lots of things cost the same no matter where you live. Food, transportation, travel, and education costs are mostly static across the country. It's important to factor that in and not get dazzled by the fancy house or condo you can suddenly afford.

In my particular case, the "market rate" at Location A is ~$40k higher (after COLA) than the "market rate" in Atlanta.

So, when I mean "market rate" I mean "My options at Location A + the options in Atlanta."

> I don't think you can directly compare salaries across cities even after factoring in cost of living since it ignores the fact some places are more desirable to live in than others and thus should command "premiums".

To be perfectly honest, I consider Atlanta vs. where I am now a wash in most respects and a $40k premium is simply too steep for the difference. It isn't like I live in the Bay Area where rent is $40k.

I don't work in the Bay Area, NYC, or a similar location. I'm comparing my current location to Atlanta.

This is now the third time I've repeated this ITT, including the OP.

The difference in rent/real estate is like $10k/year. I've been to Atlanta regularly for quite some time and I can assure you I know the exact difference in COLA as a result. ;)

vs

> had offices

For example, Johns Hopkins University is IIRC the highest-funded research-focused university in the USA.

(Edit - adding link to support above : Johns Hopkins leads U.S. universities in research spending for 37th consecutive year : https://hub.jhu.edu/2016/12/07/research-spending-hopkins-nsf...)

It's a general research-focused university, like MIT. The oldest research-based university in the USA in fact.

Though you're right it's very strong in medicine and all things 'bio' including biochemistry, biophysics, bioinformatics, and biotech.

But it also has a strong astrophysics program, eg the Space Telescope Science Institute is based there.

And the JHU Applied Physics Lab is not too far away too.

But I'm not sure why you feel that med-tech and bio-tech don't contribute to a tech hub. Are you considering tech as purely web tech?

Anecdotally, my rent is $1300/mo for a 900 sqft loft directly on Atlanta's Beltline [1], and my total comp is (edit: decided to remove this since I might get doxed. I'll be happy to talk with anyone seriously considering Atlanta via email).

It's also been really interesting to see Georgia rocket to the #2 location in the US for filmmaking (a personal hobby of mine). The folks I know in the industry say we're poised to overtake LA eventually.

I mention this because Atlanta has a great mix of culture from a variety of different backgrounds. The music and arts scenes are particularly strong.

[1] https://beltline.org

You realize that this is solely because of Georgia making hundreds of millions of dollars in tax subsidies available to Hollywood right? This is not sustainable. Hollywood previously set up shop in New Orleans("Hollyood South")for the same reasons and then moved on to Georgia when those tax credits were capped in Louisiana. See:

https://www.bestofneworleans.com/gambit/louisianas-film-indu...

and

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-c...

Whenever we go there, usually to take in an MLB game, I just want to turn around and leave immediately. There doesn't seem to be any rational reason for it. When the spouse drives out of town to go stalk Walking Dead filming locations, the overwhelming sense of dread eases up, and I just get bored looking at bits of rural Georgia that were lucky enough to appear on television for one scene.

Maybe I'm allergic to peachtree streets.

In contrast, NYC, Chicago, Boston, Phoenix, Nashville, San Diego, Denver, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, and most other US cities I have visited just don't have an aura to them that I can pick up. Baltimore felt like I just walked in on someone who had been crying and was trying to hide it. Washington, DC, felt like someone was following me the whole time, like being hunted. Cincinnati felt great just being around it; it made me want to consider moving there.

Atlanta is just the opposite of that, every time I go. Just being there stresses me out for no readily apparent reason.

On paper, it seems like it should be great. Georgia Tech is close, and the local economy is great. All kinds of television shows and movies have that juicy Georgia peach at the end of the credits now, instead of Vancouver. The weather is decent for 10 months out of the year. Lots of local agriculture. Lots of roads leading out of town, and a hub airport for a relatively decent airline. Diverse, cosmopolitan culture, as long as you stay in the city limits and away from the suburbs. About the only thing it lacks entirely is a seaport. I just can't stand actually being there.

I've lived in Baltimore, NYC, SF, and DC as an adult, and found something to like about all of them (although I laughed out loud at your description of Bmore). I really can't imagine moving to ATL. I think it's a 3rd-tier city that thinks it's a 1st-tier city.

I am skeptical of this. I am early in my career, live in SF, and make north of $300k. I do not work for one of the big 4, and I know people making more than me. That's not imaginary money - it's all liquid.

This isn't meant to brag. I just think a lot of people underestimate how much you can make in SF if your skills are in demand.

I've taken several salary surveys and done plenty of research through publicly available sites (e.g. glassdoor, linked in, payscale, etc.). For what it's worth, my all-in compensation is well below $300k/year as a senior engineer and is typically reported as being on or above the very high end of average. Given the propensity to exaggerate in these surveys I expect my salary to be even farther from the average than reported.

Definitely agree with respect to opportunities, though. Even at double the cost of living or slightly more, the doubled salary means one is saving more in absolute terms and has access to a much better job market.

I got my current job applying through the website knowing nobody at the company. There are just more (and better) opportunities here.

I'm in the Bay Area and I'm feeling underpaid. Please tell me what to learn.

Off-topic: try a five day water fast for your migraines. You need neuronal autophagy.

ROS is something of a standard framework used in many places. AI is largely a buzzword and can mean many things, but ML tends to have more specific meaning. TensorFlow is becoming the commonly used library for all things machine learning. CUDA is becoming an incredibly useful skill, and GPU experts are always appreciated (including outside of robotics).

So play around with OpenCV if you want to work in computer vision, play around with TensorFlow if you want to do machine learning, and play around with ROS for learning how the backend of these systems work. If you want to be more of a specialist, learn CUDA and optimizing GPU code - I suspect that will be highly in demand for some time.

>Off-topic: try a five day water fast for your migraines. You need neuronal autophagy. reply

Tell me more.

Most modern illness is caused by a pervasive lack of autophagy, which is basically a cellular cleaning cycle for your body. Since we're all rich and we eat and snack all the time, autophagy cycles are basically never activated. The body needs "feasting" for cellular growth, but is also _needs_ famine for cellular dismantling and re-purposing. Otherwise you'll have cells with damaged mitochondria that keep clinging to life even though they are broken and very inefficient. Sometimes these damaged cells even replicate out of control, AKA cancer.[1] Cancer cells, since they typically rely on sugar fermentation for fuel instead of oxygen, would normally be "marked" as damaged and dismantled during an autophagy cleaning cycle, but since we never stop eating sugar that never happens. Same with migraines.. in my view you basically have a bunch of damaged cells in your brain that need dismantled and cleared out. But unless you fast (or eat keto, however that's a bit less efficient for autophagy) your neural cleaning cycle simply never runs.[2]

https://www.amazon.com/Tripping-Truth-Metabolic-Theory-Cance...

http://perfecthealthdiet.com/2010/09/migraine-sufferers-shou...

That would be my advice, although I have a university background so take what I say with a grain of salt.

Atlanta is not paying SF wages. Trust me on this. But you are right. The cost of living is far better in Atlanta.

NC's growth has slipped in the last couple years, though, because of the HB2 nonsense. It'll be a few years before we recover our image.

Example

You make $100k in city A and spend $40k on expenses. That leaves $60k disposable.

You are considering a job in city B with half the cost of living and the same pay.

You still make $100k but your expenses have gone from $40k to $20k. Your new disposable income is $80k.

Cost of living is half but it's not like having 100% more income, it's 33% more .

Now, SF might be a great place if you have no kids, no expenses and rent a tiny little room. But, as soon as you want to have a family and backyard, you better get out! SF and CA in general is no place to raise a family. The key in this strategy is, don't put down roots in the CA bay area.

When a round of golf at a Davis Love or Fred Couples designed course costs the same as playing at a shitty muni in L.A., it feels like my disposable income has tripled.

Raleigh felt stagnant when I left, with most of the jobs enterprise software in unsexy industries. Grass is always greener I suppose!

Not much of a start-up scene, AFAIK.

That, and there's some really cool startups in stealth mode I've yet to see mentioned here, some breaking $10m in revenue and others getting funded left and right.

Atlanta is on the rise.

Be realistic for a minute, they can probably not afford the talents from HN.

With the pay stats, it's similar: E.g. Newark is #5 but does not even appear on the op's list.

So those 8 hubs, are not the biggest or highest paid, only the ones which match San Jose statistically the most. It's outright silly. https://mapping.cbre.com/maps/Scoring-Tech-Talent-2017/

(Seriously, though, hit me up via my HN profile if you're interested in getting a sense of what the industry and life in general are like here - it's a great town that's been very good to me, and I'm always happy to talk about it!)

I'd be more concerned (with zero knowledge of washington) over whether or not the train + connections would take me near most of the tech jobs.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/21/realestate/extreme-commut...

I've had an hour-long walking and train commute for the last year, and by the end was extremely burnt out. Moved to a smaller and more expensive place in the city with a 15 minute bike ride and couldn't be happier.

Can be, but often aren't. The trains in the three busiest commuter rail lines are not really conducive to laptop use if you are my height (6'4") because of the seat pitch. I have tried to use my XPS 13 on NJTransit trains, but I need to hope I get a row to myself so I can slant sideways to actually get my laptop at a usable angle.

NSA headquarters is in between Baltimore and Washington DC and there is a lot of other major government contracting work along that corridor. There is a lot of IT work available in the area, even if it isn't in Baltimore proper.

This move has been underway at least since the mid-oughts, but it has accelerated lately after Adobe's investment in the Thanksgiving Point area and as Utah County's outskirts (Eagle Mountain and Saratoga Springs) have started to recover from the mortgage crash.

I'm more concerned about SLC's long-term prospects at this point; no one seems to want to go further north than 7200 S anymore.

I'll bet Provo / Orem beats SLC on a lot of these metrics just because of Vivint and a few other bigger names.