As someone else guessed, I'm near RTP. The triangle has companies like IBM, Red Hat, Cisco, and SAS. The focus here isn't just banking and finance.

I don't know what other places in the area pay but I only took a small pay cut when I moved here. Once you factor in the cost of living that pay cut works out to be a decent raise.

I wonder what is going to happen to Redhat now that it's been acquired by IBM, who from my understanding, survives off of legacy support (might he wrong though). From what I understand Redhat was pretty big in the RTP tech scene.

I work for Red Hat but don't have any inside information.

I get the impression that IBM will start using more Red Hat tech, but for the most part we are keeping the two companies pretty separate.

OP is probably talking about Research Triangle Park, which does have a lot of interesting technology jobs.

... that pay a lot less than their big-city counterparts.

Median hourly wage, Computer and Mathematical Occupations, San Francisco: $56.18 ($112,360 ann.)

Median hourly wage, Computer and Mathematical Occupations, Durham-Chapel Hill: $42.77 ($85,540 ann.)

https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_41860.htm#15-0000

https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_20500.htm#15-0000

That difference is smaller than I thought. It's probably a no-brainer if you want to buy a house and raise a family. But from the perspective of a young single person, an extra $30k/year will get you from $1k/month rent to a $3k/month rent. Of course, rent isn't the only thing more expensive in the Bay area. But once you factor in better weather, more things to do, less conservatism - I find it unsurprising that many young people would not want to switch.

$1k/month to $3k/month is $24k per year in post tax dollars. You're going to need to make more than $30k more a year to get this.

I just ran the numbers for a $100k salary in NC and $130k in California. The person in NC will pay $17203.92 in federal taxes and $5250 in state taxes for a total of $22453.92. The person in California pays $24403.92 and $9094.69 for a total of $33498.61. This brings their post tax income to $96501.39 for California and $77546.08 for NC. The person in California only makes about $1.5k extra a month.

There are plenty of non-monetary reasons why someone might choose to live in one state or the other but you do need a lot more money in California to cover the cost of basics like housing. Not properly accounting for that could give someone quite a shock if they relocate there.

I'll give you better weather. More things to do? I'm not sure. Less conservative? Well, my reference point is Austin, TX, in which case I'd disagree.

Fewer hot (HOT! HOT! HOT!) tech jobs? Probably.