A cost of living adjustment is one of the easiest calculations to do. Is it as simple as this (http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=cost+of+living+in+mount...), or did I misunderstand your point? It doesn't seem that complicated to take a $100k salary point and normalize for cost of living.

Seems like a good idea but I doubt the data is very accurate. I live in Montreal which is well known to be one of the cheapest places to live in North America (very cheap housing, very cheap energy, etc.) but WA puts Montreal as the most expensive? http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=cost+of+living+in+mount...

Higher Taxes. Quebec has generally higher taxes vs. the rest of canada, and places like washington have no state income tax. Also the locations it could be comparing could be downtown metro area's and their costs. 3km away from the downtown core and you get a huge drop in price.

The taxes aren't that much higher. And the rent is cheaper than Toronto.

You're looking at approx 30% deducted at source for 50k in Quebec, I think. You get quite a lot for your tax dollars in Canada though.

And this is utterly ridiculous.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=moving+from+Montreal+to...

I nearly spit-taked when I saw that, it's so distorted... until I noticed that it's for Vancouver, Washington. Ah, well, maybe.

Wolfram Alpha says: "(UN retail price index data in Canada available only for Montreal)"

WA has good data on cost of living in the US, but I don't think it has comparable data for Canada. For example, if you take out a few of your terms there you'll see that for Toronto it's using the US national average, which is way off. If you try and check their sources, all they list is http://www.coli.org/, which has US data only.

It's just another data point. A lot of kids about to graduate will look at these salaries, go "holy crap! I'm headed to the Bay!" and completely overlook other parts of the country where they could make comparable or even better salaries, relatively speaking.

And yes, I did read the part where Google adjusts for region in their other offices. I just don't think other companies always do the same.

That's a bad strategy. If you're going to move away from family and friends to the dead middle part of the US where you'll have less opportunity, less useful connections, etc., then the salary you get is going to have to be much higher to offset this career hit.

Further, if you're on $100k+ in the Bay and you can get down to a ramen lifestyle with roommates, etc. you could potentially save more than you'd even make in the midwest.

I've lived in one of the lowest cost of living places in the US and I'm now living in one of the more expensive countries in the world. I am a lot more financially successful here than I ever was there and I was single there. Now I have a wife and kids.

>And yes, I did read the part where Google adjusts for region in their other offices. I just don't think other companies always do the same.

This makes no sense. You think other companies have offices in the middle of Oklahoma but pay employees a Valley wage? They must have people literally getting into gun fights over the janitor jobs.

Cost of living is very complicated. Most software engineers making $100,000 are young, single, don't have kids, and are comfortable with renting. Most software engineers making $200,000 are older and have kids, which means they need larger living spaces and have a strong preference for owning rather than renting. On this alone, you need different conversion factors. Also, the distance/price curve is different for different cities. Manhattan is very expensive but there are affordable neighborhoods 30 minutes away; the Bay Area isn't as expensive at its core but the catastrophic prices cover a larger area.

Unless the salary is commensurate with increased value or output, I see no reason why older SDEs should make more than younger devs. To be clear, there is often great value in older SDEs, but "because they have kids and want a house" is not a reason to pay them more.

He wasn't saying that, he was saying that their cost of living was different.

According to CNN's cost of living calculator (http://cgi.money.cnn.com/tools/costofliving/costofliving.htm...):

  $100,000 in Mountain View, CA
  = $58,302 in Austin, TX
  = $73,992 in Seattle, WA
  = $71,306 in Chicago, IL
  = $61,660 in Cleveland, OH

And from a quick skim down any real estate listing for Mountain View, CA I think these numbers might be a bit on the high side.

Interesting; it turns out I make right around MV$100,000. Never realized that.

But given two roughly equal-valued salaries, I think the higher absolute salary is still superior. Savings, for instance, don't scale with cost of living; saving 20% of $100,000 is much different from saving 25% of $40,000.

Also, if you relocate from Mountain View, I suspect you'd be able to keep more of your salary than the cost-of-living decrease would strictly dictate.

These savings can only come after the cost-of-living overhead. It's important to note that average salary does not scale 1:1 with cost of living.

Depending on your finances, a 20% bump in pay with a 40% increase in cost of living may lower your discretionary income.

For some, this is offset because overhead does not scale 1:1 with salary: living in a high-cost area provides a greater discretionary income advantage to those with high incomes than for those with modest incomes.

But cost of living can mean you save none of the $100,000 and lots of the lower salary.

I just moved from Oklahoma to Tennessee and CNN's housing estimate is way off. It says TN is 20% cheaper and it is actually just the opposite.

Probably depends on where in Oklahoma and Tennessee. I moved from Tulsa to Nashville three years ago and the housing market seems fairly equivalent to me with Nashville being slightly higher (which makes sense with Nashville being larger than Tulsa).

Yeah, real estate in the area is what stuck out in my mind the most. I have no idea what rents are like, but then again a new, single grad doesn't mind shacking up with a few other people and keeping costs down.

An experienced engineer with a family and kids looking for a house might not fare as well.

I wonder what the difference is like between Canada and the States? It must be lower in Canada, even in Vancouver, BC with all the expenses here. Still, I'm sure I'm making well below what I should be. Well, whatever the situation, I'm happy I'm working at a fantastic place with great people and interesting work! I also make far more money than I need to live comfortably.

[edit] I make far less than $100 000.

I am guessing that one of the biggest differences between total compensation packages between hiring Canadians vs. Americans is that companies don't have to pay for health care costs for their employees based in Canada. This is mainly because health care is funded from our income tax.

I believe health insurance is a factor for Americans when choosing a job, but may not be as large a factor for Canadians.

From a company standpoint, this should mean that Canadians may be cheaper to hire (although, given that CDN is higher than USD at the moment, this may not hold).

When I visited Vancouver, the locals mentioned some ridiculously high rents/condo prices for places in downtown near Stanley park (and I'm from the Bay area). I thought the city was gorgeous but couldn't figure out any high paying employers (100K+). What gives? How can a developer afford this?

The simple answer is sometimes the correct one: for the most part, developers do not afford those particular condos. Or many of those who do they're single and childless. Vancouver's one of the most desirable places to live in the world, and so people preferentially migrate here (it's typical for people to be half-seriously astonished to meet a native), and so the market soars (plus there are some weird factors inflating it, arguably).

Although I've certainly known a few developers here to make over $100k. A few I've met professionally, and several of my old high-school friends. But this is not at all typical.

Personally I think the cost of living stuff is largely a red herring. First of all, it's normally not even. Maybe rent is cheaper but food is higher, or certain necessary services are more expensive. Second of all; an iPhone costs the same in Mountain View as it does in podunk Arkansas. You can say "but... luxury!" all you want, we have more and more of these nationally priced items around us all the time.