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A comment on San Francisco is one of the worst-paying places in the US for software engineers. Parent comment

Re:San Francisco is one of the worst-paying places in the US... by sjg007 on Wednesday November 08, 2017 @11:01AM (#15653691)
I agree with you and don't believe the high salaries reported here. The best reference set is the H1B salary data which trends with the glassdoor self reported data.

https://www.foreignlaborcert.doleta.gov/performancedata.cfm

The folks making closest to 200k or higher are largely Computer and Information Systems Managers in Santa Clara county at levels 3 and 4. I imagine these are Senior Directors or VPs.

http://www.flcdatacenter.com/OesQuickResults.aspx?code=11-30...

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Re:San Francisco is one of the worst-paying places in the US... by joshuamorton on Wednesday November 08, 2017 @01:15PM (#15655203)
Look through these:

https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/search?q=salary+s...

H1B data doesn't include stock or bonuses.

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Re:San Francisco is one of the worst-paying places in the US... by sjg007 on Wednesday November 08, 2017 @10:43PM (#15659670)
The argument is that the expected value of salary + rsu/stock/options is effectively just salary. These reddit posts basically agree with H1B data. Salaries are the bar. A H1B has to be paid more than the prevailing wage for the position and the company has to have documented that they could not find a qualified American for that role. Prevailing wages are set as a function of the H1B + American workers so over time salaries rise.
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Re:San Francisco is one of the worst-paying places in the US... by joshuamorton on Wednesday November 08, 2017 @11:34PM (#15659886)
But that's not the case, since salaries are significantly less variable than stock comp.

For high paying jobs, salary is 50-80% of total comp. For lower paying ones, it's 95+%, which is what the salary surveys show.

So comparing salary only, you strongly bias against top paying positions since salaries make up a smaller portion of the compensation for those positions.

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