Re:Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level
by shuckles on Monday January 06, 2020 @12:37PM
(#21971093)
One can rent a perfectly decent home in Cupertino with 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms for under $4,500 [1]. Price to rent ratios are very high for most SFH properties, so renting is often the right move. This will allow families to send their kids to public schools ranked among the best private schools in the nation for free, without any charter or magnet lotteries. I don't think rent for any comparable home in, say, Austin is more than $2,000/mo cheaper, or $40,000 before tax. That's a much narrower gap to justify than most of the hyperbole in this thread and especially narrow if both partners are working: job opportunities in the Bay Area are strong for almost all kinds of professions.
[1] https://sfbay.craigslist.org/sby/apa/d/cupertino-3-bedroom-3...
Using that number means I'm roughly at par with a FAANG salary given my level. But it's not like the FAANG engineer is setting fire to that 240k. Depending on where you are in your amortization schedule 20-80ish % of your payment goes to principle. And my 500k house is probably going to be worth 800k in 10 years while the bay area house would be 4.5-5 million. When you take that into account I'm probably at 70% of an equivalent FAANG position.
The more important thing to look at here is risk. FAANG salaries and bay area real estate prices are out of whack with the fundamentals. If you get in and out without the bubble bursting you're sitting pretty. If it bursts or even has a 10% correction the FAANG engineer is way behind.