Anecdotally, I have never heard of anyone getting a job at a FAANG with that kind of salary working remotely from day 1. On the other hand, I have met several people who started on-site but switched to working remotely later. I'm not saying it's not possible to do the former, but it seems like it's way easier to work remotely for a FAANG if you've already proven yourself, which obviously doesn't work if you have already moved to a lower CoL area and are looking for work.
The cities the parent comment mentioned (Ann Arbor, Boulder, Toronto, Tel Aviv, Boston, Seattle) are all cities where Google has offices. So, the folks they mention weren't working remotely, but rather working locally in remote offices.
Source: Google San Diego employee
Source: know the people mentioned.
A lot of the people I mentioned above actually transferred PAs to make remote work work. If that's a goal of yours, Google's a big enough company that there's probably a role available.
The problem is that you need a VP exception for remote work and many VPs don't believe in it at all. So there are entire orgs where the number of remote people is zero.
I live in New York and like living here. I understand the cost of living here is high, but I also know that there are few places that can offer the lifestyle New York can. Given the option to keep most of my salary and relocate to a lower cost of living city, I think I’d stay in New York.
I dunno about Stripe, but a lot of folks at Google (and presumably the other FAANGs in the region) have had that option for a decade or more. I've had friends I met at Google Mountain View move to Ann Arbor, Boulder, Toronto, Tel Aviv, Boston, Seattle, etc, usually to be close to family when they're having kids. You do get CoL-adjusted but 90% of SV salary is pretty typical. Only restrictions are that you have to be a solid performer beforehand, and you have to find a team that's either in that location or that's willing to have you work remotely (many teams are happy to have remote workers, particularly ones who are high performers).
> If Stripe IPOs - they could use that stock they earned for 2 years while working remotely to buy a house almost anywhere besides NY/SF. (Effectively meaning they don't need SF/NY income anymore because they have paid the most expensive part of housing off)
That's the case for most people who have worked for ~5-10 years at a Silicon Valley company. When 2009 hit I had a bunch of coworkers who joked about buying up whole city blocks in Detroit and plopping down a Google office and an intentional-living commune there. A lot of mid-career engineers at a FAANG could buy a house for cash in most parts of the U.S. and then have enough left over to retire, but choose not to because at that point they've put down roots in the Bay Area (and gotten addicted to the weather and culture).