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I loved this line from the article "With unsolved US VISA problems for STEM workers, IT companies might have to get creative to hire potential employees." -- Ye

I loved this line from the article "With unsolved US VISA problems for STEM workers, IT companies might have to get creative to hire potential employees." -- Yeah, creative...like paying a living wage for the location. Pay salaries that will allow someone to rent their own 1B (not bunking) and the "shortage" will magically disappear.

ryandrake 10y ago
Yep, the tired old "Shortage of Engineers" meme is bound to come up in any discussion about tech hiring that ignores compensation. Saying there is a shortage of something in a market only makes sense given a price. Sure, there is probably a shortage of Bay Area engineers if you're paying $70K, but I bet there is no shortage if you're paying $400K.
- wrong_variable 10y ago
  I think its a lot more complex than that. If the cost of beef was increased 4x for whatever reason, then most people would just switch their preference for meat. There are ofcourse a lot of greedy companies. But a lot of the time the consumer demands a price point for software product, many startups cannot afford to pay 400K to developers. I think its not a reflection of how difficult it might be to create software but stagnant wages for the average person.
  - vonmoltke 10y ago
    I agree with everything you say about the economics of the situation, but ours is the omly industry I know of where inability to make enough money to pay for a sufficient workforce translates into a workforce shortage. A cattle rancher isn't going to compalain about a "ranchhand shortage" if she can't afford to pay enough to attract them.
    - TrickzOnU 10y ago
      It is not. The rancher would just hire an illegal immigrant often and it happens all the time on farms and restaurants. It doesn't fly in office environments and in positions where the salary cant just disappear in the books. Secondly, only the technology industry has a massive pipeline of overseas workers available...so naturally there is constantly a "shortage" as a means to increase the pipeline of overseas workers. I'm not saying NOT to hire overseas workers. I'm saying to be honest about it. Say -- we refuse to pay market wages and would rather that new graduates not find work than pay them a living wage for the Bay Area, instead we'll hire offshore workers desperate to flee their countries and willing to shack up 3 to a studio apartment.
      - a3n 10y ago
        The whole thing is based on unrealistic expectations. People work somewhere in the Bay Area, or launch a startup there; it's one of the most expensive areas in the country, maybe the world. Then they don't want to pay enough so that there is no shortage of employees. So then the talk turns to bringing in H1Bs who will work for the low end of the "prevailing" (Ha!) salary. Why don't these companies cut to the chase and just open an office in India? Or have the entire operation there? Or are some of them actually not trying to change the world by delivering better toast to your door, and they just want to live in the Bay Area?
        ryanSrich 10y ago
        It's a form of off shoring. They create a fake shortage, lobby for more H1Bs, pay the national average for fair market, which is laughably low for the Bay Area, and there you have it. The tech shortage sponsored by Facebook...
      - illegalFallacy 10y ago
        >It doesn't fly in office environments This is untrue in my experience as the equivalent in an office environment to hiring an illegal immigrant would be subcontracting a 'job' to either a staffing agency whose H1B employees get paid piecemeal and billed out for different amounts. I've also worked with independent contractors who if you added up their low pay on the level, wouldn't be making adequate pay. Heck, I've worked contract jobs through staffing agencies trying to make end meets and had the job location charge for parking which would be reimbursed 3 months later. Good luck getting ur money if you are working the next job and can't afford the time to follow up for that check. There are plenty of ways companies dance around the same entity of illegal immigrant wages.
    - acjohnson55 10y ago
      To be fair, that is literally what a shortage is, economically speaking.
  - branchless 10y ago
    The system of usury against land ensures that land costs adapt to absorb all available income after food/clothing/energy costs have been accounted for. Why is silicon valley more expensive to rent in? Because people came with money and the banks agreed to loan at a multiple of the new wage ceiling. If wages increase x4 guess what will happen? We need to stop banks creating debt to issue against land otherwise it will always absorb all income. And therefore all productivity gains flow to the land owner.
    - branchless 10y ago
      Would love to know how anyone could downvote this! Come on, let's hear how rents are not tied to wages in a thread about remote working providing higher wages than the local area but lower wages than the hot-spot. Let's hear it HN.
    - metafunctor 10y ago
      This seem to be exactly how it works. A lot of states and countries have tried to fix the problem by introducing housing benefits – but guess who, in the end, gets that money?
      - branchless 10y ago
        Housing benefit is the worst thing you can do. It's landlord benefit. Land value tax is the way forward.
    - hueving 10y ago
      >Why is silicon valley more expensive to rent in? Because supply and demand. High salaries attract a lot of people to the bay and communities systematically refuse to build new housing to meet the demand so the price goes up. You can do whatever you want to the banks but that won't change the fundamental of 2X people trying to live in X houses.
      - branchless 10y ago
        No, many hot-spots have large rentier presence including people "owning" and renting out multiple residencies which causes huge supply pressure. Credit also typically increases ahead of wages which squeezes people further. This isn't supply of people vs supply of homes, this is supply of credit. If you neutralise this you will see prices fall and be paying less of your labour to banks. 2008 - the credit taps ran dry => huge crash. Before that near unlimited credit saw land prices increase hugely. Neither on the up or the down did we see wages have such volatility.
  - ta_donk_gt 10y ago
    > many startups cannot afford to pay 400K to developers. Then hire remote devs. Or move your startup to a more affordable location. If you need to have developers work onsite, and you need to be in the Bay Area, then you need to pay accordingly.
  - conjectures 10y ago
    > many startups cannot afford to pay 400K to developers It's a good point, but I wouldn't expect a construction company that could only pay 20% of cost to hire cranes to complete many buildings. So maybe startups in that bracket just aren't viable under their current models. Maybe they need to rethink their salary/equity mix to make up for lack of cash.
- BadassFractal 10y ago
  Would you be the CEO that decides to pay your employees 2-3x market rate? I'd love to watch that experiment from the sidelines.
  - RKoutnik 10y ago
    400k is market rate for top-quality bay area engineers, depending on specialty [0]. You don't see job ads for those folks, because hackers like that don't read them. [0] And even for lower-paying specialties (like UI/UX), 400k isn't even 2x market rate.
    - Bahamut 10y ago
      Can verify - I turned down an opportunity for lead frontend work a year ago for $350k-400k (a lot of compensation in stock/bonuses, so it was variable), and that wasn't even at a big tech company. (For the curious, I opted for tremendous work-life balance instead)
      - chris11 10y ago
        Where are you currently in your career? I'm kind of curious, because I never hear of compensation packages normally going up that high. So I'm wondering what skills companies are looking for at that price.
        chris_va 10y ago
        400k isn't unusual about 6 years in.
        Bahamut 10y ago
        At that point, I was 2 1/2 years in - that was a year ago. That was a rarity I think, although there are numerous stories of Netflix paying $300k+ now.
    - tensor 10y ago
      At these rates it doesn't make any sense for any company to hire in the bay area. There are amazing engineers elsewhere in the US and in the world who have much more reasonable salary expectations and also live in places with much more reasonable living expenses. Bay area engineers like to pretend that there are no people of their calibre elsewhere in the world, but that is just flat out wrong.
- kowdermeister 10y ago
  $70k is a splendid salary if you live outside the US :) It's probably more than I ever earned in my lifetime.
  - Dangeranger 10y ago
    70k is a good salary even in many places within the US, the problem is that the cost of living in SF and NYC makes that salary very hard to live on. Rent in some locations within SF and NYC can meet or exceed 70k.
    - kowdermeister 10y ago
      I get that, it's just so unreal to see these numbers for the same thing as I do. This is a really good reason why remote work is going to level the market. I'm a bit surprised that it's not already around 50% of hires.
      - branchless 10y ago
        Remote working on this scale in several major industries would precipitate a second banking crisis far larger than 2008 I suspect.
      - Dangeranger 10y ago
        What is considered 'good' compensation for a senior developer in Budapest? Have you been turned down for remote work due to where you live?
  - TrickzOnU 10y ago
    Yes, i'd take a $70k salary while living in North Carolina. But the "shortage" being discussed here is for the Bay Area. I'm here, let me break down my costs: - $17k taxes - $3k health care premiums - $7k college loans - $36k rent - almost nothing left for savings, retirement, down payment, engagement ring, any means to get out of my situation
    - 10y ago
- cscurmudgeon 10y ago
  I bet there is no shortage if you're paying $4 million.
- vostok 10y ago
  > Sure, there is probably a shortage of Bay Area engineers if you're paying $70K, but I bet there is no shortage if you're paying $400K. Just to reiterate this, I know many people who would become developers if they could make $400k. These are smart people with strong technical skills.
  - bayesian_horse 10y ago
    Until all companies are paying $400K, then they have the same problem again. And on the other hand: Can they afford these wages? I would guess that many companies would have trouble justifying that salary on a broad level.
    - vostok 10y ago
      Companies can afford to give massive payouts to founders and investors so I don't see how they can't spare a few dollars for developers.
- bayesian_horse 10y ago
  Compensation has nothing to do with "shortage of engineers". Engineers have to come from somewhere, and the only way higher compensation can bring more engineers is by competing with other industries or regions. It's not like engineers prefer living on social welfare to an underpaid engineering job.
  - ryandrake 10y ago
    I'll address this one, see also vostok's comment below. I know plenty of former engineers and other super-smart technical people who wrote software for years but left because they hit the salary ceiling. They would go BACK to software engineering in a heartbeat if there was a compensation trajectory that matched their current jobs.
anonymousguy 10y ago
Or, just leave the bay area... http://www.moving.com/real-estate/compare-cities/results.asp?Zip1=76131&Zip2=95032&sbmtZIP=Get+Report http://www.moving.com/real-estate/compare-cities/results.asp... Seriously... why should a smaller house cost nearly 10x more in the same country? You won't be paid 10x less where the cheaper houses are.
- TrickzOnU 10y ago
  Yes, that is what many of us do. We either leave the tech industry, or tech positions, or the area. There is no "shortage", it is just that "unfillable" positions dont pay a living wage for the locale+experience.
  - anonymousguy 10y ago
    Just to be clear, leaving the bay area doesn't mean giving up on technology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plano,_Texas#Economy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plano,_Texas#Economy
- thesmart 10y ago
  Uhm, usually because living in the Bay Area is actually a 10x better life for some people. Great weather, very diverse, lots of jobs, public transit is good, arts are amazing, food is amazing, close to sea and ski, etc. etc.
  - anonymousguy 10y ago
    The bay area art scene could be better, but I doubt 10x better. Fort Worth, which I used to compare in my previous comment, has some pretty strong art museums recognized internationally. https://www.fortworth.com/about/neighborhoods-districts/cultural-district/ https://www.fortworth.com/about/neighborhoods-districts/cult... Soon Fort Worth will over take San Fransisco in population, and at the last recession was far less disrupted economically. Speaking purely from data and statistics Fort Worth is more diverse than San Fransisco with regards to ethnicity, religion, nationality, and so forth. And I doubt there is a substantial difference in the diversity of food options since I have been to San Fransisco. The weather and public transit are likely superior though. Otherwise, if I were single and had 10x the income I would likely agree that the bay area is a more fun place to be.
jedberg 10y ago
Even for companies that pay good salaries there is a shortage. If you look at the H1B filings, you'll see for example that the average Netflix H1B salary is just about $300K a year. That being said, a lot of companies are abusing H1B and the system needs a huge overhaul so that the people who want to come work here can, the people who want to hire foreign works can, and we don't have a few companies using imported workers as indentured servants.
- TrickzOnU 10y ago
  I'm familiar with these opportunities. They are not entry-level positions, they are highly technical positions which require extensive architectural experience...the sort that individuals often have mid-career (often with children, braces, school tuition, medical co-pays, etc.) So yes, $300k for a mid-career position is clearly not enough in the Bay Area. Could you raise a family in a 1BR, yes you can! But there is a "shortage" of people who want to raise a family in a 1BR. There is no magic here -- pay would need to be commensurate to experience + cost of living or people simply will not take the job.
  - rco8786 10y ago
    You can do a lot better then a 1Br on a 300k salary in the Bay Area. Even in the most expensive parts.
    - source99 10y ago
      Just for fun: $300K pre tax. Tax rate of 40% $180K after taxes High Quality Child Care for 2 Children = $6K per month or $72K / year 108K after childcare 3Br house in SF - http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/hhh?search_distance=4&postal=94115&max_price=15000&bedrooms=3 http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/hhh?search_distance=4&pos... Call it $6K / month or $72K per year $36K left after housing + Childcare + taxes. $3K / month for transportation, food, clothing, vacations. Good luck...
      - rco8786 10y ago
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
SmellTheGlove 10y ago
Spot on. I'm director-level on the east coast (not NY, DC or Boston, although I came from DC). While I could probably see a 50% raise going to Silicon Valley, that wouldn't even come close to keeping me whole unless I'm supposed to stuff my family into an apartment. That said, I'm not sure what more the tech firms can do - wages are already really high out there and they're pressing the cities to let them build more housing (as in, not permit more housing in general, but that they'd even foot the construction) and the cities aren't going for it. At some point if a geographic area says no more growth, its time for businesses to pack up and go elsewhere.
syngrog66 10y ago
I'd suggest that an even cheaper solution for them in the long run, instead of raising the pay they offer, is to figure out ways to cause less "false rejection" scenarios. I totally understand the desire to avoid "false positive/hire" scenarios. But currently our field also has a big problem with false rejections. This would have the added bonus of increasing your usable talent pool both among residents/citizens as well as among remote/off-shore/foreign candidates.

ryandrake 10y ago

Yep, the tired old "Shortage of Engineers" meme is bound to come up in any discussion about tech hiring that ignores compensation. Saying there is a shortage of something in a market only makes sense given a price. Sure, there is probably a shortage of Bay Area engineers if you're paying $70K, but I bet there is no shortage if you're paying $400K.

wrong_variable 10y ago
I think its a lot more complex than that. If the cost of beef was increased 4x for whatever reason, then most people would just switch their preference for meat. There are ofcourse a lot of greedy companies. But a lot of the time the consumer demands a price point for software product, many startups cannot afford to pay 400K to developers. I think its not a reflection of how difficult it might be to create software but stagnant wages for the average person.
- vonmoltke 10y ago
  I agree with everything you say about the economics of the situation, but ours is the omly industry I know of where inability to make enough money to pay for a sufficient workforce translates into a workforce shortage. A cattle rancher isn't going to compalain about a "ranchhand shortage" if she can't afford to pay enough to attract them.
  - TrickzOnU 10y ago
    It is not. The rancher would just hire an illegal immigrant often and it happens all the time on farms and restaurants. It doesn't fly in office environments and in positions where the salary cant just disappear in the books. Secondly, only the technology industry has a massive pipeline of overseas workers available...so naturally there is constantly a "shortage" as a means to increase the pipeline of overseas workers. I'm not saying NOT to hire overseas workers. I'm saying to be honest about it. Say -- we refuse to pay market wages and would rather that new graduates not find work than pay them a living wage for the Bay Area, instead we'll hire offshore workers desperate to flee their countries and willing to shack up 3 to a studio apartment.
    - a3n 10y ago
      The whole thing is based on unrealistic expectations. People work somewhere in the Bay Area, or launch a startup there; it's one of the most expensive areas in the country, maybe the world. Then they don't want to pay enough so that there is no shortage of employees. So then the talk turns to bringing in H1Bs who will work for the low end of the "prevailing" (Ha!) salary. Why don't these companies cut to the chase and just open an office in India? Or have the entire operation there? Or are some of them actually not trying to change the world by delivering better toast to your door, and they just want to live in the Bay Area?
      - ryanSrich 10y ago
        It's a form of off shoring. They create a fake shortage, lobby for more H1Bs, pay the national average for fair market, which is laughably low for the Bay Area, and there you have it. The tech shortage sponsored by Facebook...
    - illegalFallacy 10y ago
      >It doesn't fly in office environments This is untrue in my experience as the equivalent in an office environment to hiring an illegal immigrant would be subcontracting a 'job' to either a staffing agency whose H1B employees get paid piecemeal and billed out for different amounts. I've also worked with independent contractors who if you added up their low pay on the level, wouldn't be making adequate pay. Heck, I've worked contract jobs through staffing agencies trying to make end meets and had the job location charge for parking which would be reimbursed 3 months later. Good luck getting ur money if you are working the next job and can't afford the time to follow up for that check. There are plenty of ways companies dance around the same entity of illegal immigrant wages.
  - acjohnson55 10y ago
    To be fair, that is literally what a shortage is, economically speaking.
- branchless 10y ago
  The system of usury against land ensures that land costs adapt to absorb all available income after food/clothing/energy costs have been accounted for. Why is silicon valley more expensive to rent in? Because people came with money and the banks agreed to loan at a multiple of the new wage ceiling. If wages increase x4 guess what will happen? We need to stop banks creating debt to issue against land otherwise it will always absorb all income. And therefore all productivity gains flow to the land owner.
  - branchless 10y ago
    Would love to know how anyone could downvote this! Come on, let's hear how rents are not tied to wages in a thread about remote working providing higher wages than the local area but lower wages than the hot-spot. Let's hear it HN.
  - metafunctor 10y ago
    This seem to be exactly how it works. A lot of states and countries have tried to fix the problem by introducing housing benefits – but guess who, in the end, gets that money?
    - branchless 10y ago
      Housing benefit is the worst thing you can do. It's landlord benefit. Land value tax is the way forward.
  - hueving 10y ago
    >Why is silicon valley more expensive to rent in? Because supply and demand. High salaries attract a lot of people to the bay and communities systematically refuse to build new housing to meet the demand so the price goes up. You can do whatever you want to the banks but that won't change the fundamental of 2X people trying to live in X houses.
    - branchless 10y ago
      No, many hot-spots have large rentier presence including people "owning" and renting out multiple residencies which causes huge supply pressure. Credit also typically increases ahead of wages which squeezes people further. This isn't supply of people vs supply of homes, this is supply of credit. If you neutralise this you will see prices fall and be paying less of your labour to banks. 2008 - the credit taps ran dry => huge crash. Before that near unlimited credit saw land prices increase hugely. Neither on the up or the down did we see wages have such volatility.
- ta_donk_gt 10y ago
  > many startups cannot afford to pay 400K to developers. Then hire remote devs. Or move your startup to a more affordable location. If you need to have developers work onsite, and you need to be in the Bay Area, then you need to pay accordingly.
- conjectures 10y ago
  > many startups cannot afford to pay 400K to developers It's a good point, but I wouldn't expect a construction company that could only pay 20% of cost to hire cranes to complete many buildings. So maybe startups in that bracket just aren't viable under their current models. Maybe they need to rethink their salary/equity mix to make up for lack of cash.
BadassFractal 10y ago
Would you be the CEO that decides to pay your employees 2-3x market rate? I'd love to watch that experiment from the sidelines.
- RKoutnik 10y ago
  400k is market rate for top-quality bay area engineers, depending on specialty [0]. You don't see job ads for those folks, because hackers like that don't read them. [0] And even for lower-paying specialties (like UI/UX), 400k isn't even 2x market rate.
  - Bahamut 10y ago
    Can verify - I turned down an opportunity for lead frontend work a year ago for $350k-400k (a lot of compensation in stock/bonuses, so it was variable), and that wasn't even at a big tech company. (For the curious, I opted for tremendous work-life balance instead)
    - chris11 10y ago
      Where are you currently in your career? I'm kind of curious, because I never hear of compensation packages normally going up that high. So I'm wondering what skills companies are looking for at that price.
      - chris_va 10y ago
        400k isn't unusual about 6 years in.
      - Bahamut 10y ago
        At that point, I was 2 1/2 years in - that was a year ago. That was a rarity I think, although there are numerous stories of Netflix paying $300k+ now.
  - tensor 10y ago
    At these rates it doesn't make any sense for any company to hire in the bay area. There are amazing engineers elsewhere in the US and in the world who have much more reasonable salary expectations and also live in places with much more reasonable living expenses. Bay area engineers like to pretend that there are no people of their calibre elsewhere in the world, but that is just flat out wrong.
kowdermeister 10y ago
$70k is a splendid salary if you live outside the US :) It's probably more than I ever earned in my lifetime.
- Dangeranger 10y ago
  70k is a good salary even in many places within the US, the problem is that the cost of living in SF and NYC makes that salary very hard to live on. Rent in some locations within SF and NYC can meet or exceed 70k.
  - kowdermeister 10y ago
    I get that, it's just so unreal to see these numbers for the same thing as I do. This is a really good reason why remote work is going to level the market. I'm a bit surprised that it's not already around 50% of hires.
    - branchless 10y ago
      Remote working on this scale in several major industries would precipitate a second banking crisis far larger than 2008 I suspect.
    - Dangeranger 10y ago
      What is considered 'good' compensation for a senior developer in Budapest? Have you been turned down for remote work due to where you live?
- TrickzOnU 10y ago
  Yes, i'd take a $70k salary while living in North Carolina. But the "shortage" being discussed here is for the Bay Area. I'm here, let me break down my costs: - $17k taxes - $3k health care premiums - $7k college loans - $36k rent - almost nothing left for savings, retirement, down payment, engagement ring, any means to get out of my situation
  - 10y ago
cscurmudgeon 10y ago
I bet there is no shortage if you're paying $4 million.
vostok 10y ago
> Sure, there is probably a shortage of Bay Area engineers if you're paying $70K, but I bet there is no shortage if you're paying $400K. Just to reiterate this, I know many people who would become developers if they could make $400k. These are smart people with strong technical skills.
- bayesian_horse 10y ago
  Until all companies are paying $400K, then they have the same problem again. And on the other hand: Can they afford these wages? I would guess that many companies would have trouble justifying that salary on a broad level.
  - vostok 10y ago
    Companies can afford to give massive payouts to founders and investors so I don't see how they can't spare a few dollars for developers.
bayesian_horse 10y ago
Compensation has nothing to do with "shortage of engineers". Engineers have to come from somewhere, and the only way higher compensation can bring more engineers is by competing with other industries or regions. It's not like engineers prefer living on social welfare to an underpaid engineering job.
- ryandrake 10y ago
  I'll address this one, see also vostok's comment below. I know plenty of former engineers and other super-smart technical people who wrote software for years but left because they hit the salary ceiling. They would go BACK to software engineering in a heartbeat if there was a compensation trajectory that matched their current jobs.

anonymousguy 10y ago

Or, just leave the bay area... http://www.moving.com/real-estate/compare-cities/results.asp?Zip1=76131&Zip2=95032&sbmtZIP=Get+Report http://www.moving.com/real-estate/compare-cities/results.asp... Seriously... why should a smaller house cost nearly 10x more in the same country? You won't be paid 10x less where the cheaper houses are.

TrickzOnU 10y ago
Yes, that is what many of us do. We either leave the tech industry, or tech positions, or the area. There is no "shortage", it is just that "unfillable" positions dont pay a living wage for the locale+experience.
- anonymousguy 10y ago
  Just to be clear, leaving the bay area doesn't mean giving up on technology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plano,_Texas#Economy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plano,_Texas#Economy
thesmart 10y ago
Uhm, usually because living in the Bay Area is actually a 10x better life for some people. Great weather, very diverse, lots of jobs, public transit is good, arts are amazing, food is amazing, close to sea and ski, etc. etc.
- anonymousguy 10y ago
  The bay area art scene could be better, but I doubt 10x better. Fort Worth, which I used to compare in my previous comment, has some pretty strong art museums recognized internationally. https://www.fortworth.com/about/neighborhoods-districts/cultural-district/ https://www.fortworth.com/about/neighborhoods-districts/cult... Soon Fort Worth will over take San Fransisco in population, and at the last recession was far less disrupted economically. Speaking purely from data and statistics Fort Worth is more diverse than San Fransisco with regards to ethnicity, religion, nationality, and so forth. And I doubt there is a substantial difference in the diversity of food options since I have been to San Fransisco. The weather and public transit are likely superior though. Otherwise, if I were single and had 10x the income I would likely agree that the bay area is a more fun place to be.

jedberg 10y ago

Even for companies that pay good salaries there is a shortage. If you look at the H1B filings, you'll see for example that the average Netflix H1B salary is just about $300K a year. That being said, a lot of companies are abusing H1B and the system needs a huge overhaul so that the people who want to come work here can, the people who want to hire foreign works can, and we don't have a few companies using imported workers as indentured servants.

TrickzOnU 10y ago
I'm familiar with these opportunities. They are not entry-level positions, they are highly technical positions which require extensive architectural experience...the sort that individuals often have mid-career (often with children, braces, school tuition, medical co-pays, etc.) So yes, $300k for a mid-career position is clearly not enough in the Bay Area. Could you raise a family in a 1BR, yes you can! But there is a "shortage" of people who want to raise a family in a 1BR. There is no magic here -- pay would need to be commensurate to experience + cost of living or people simply will not take the job.
- rco8786 10y ago
  You can do a lot better then a 1Br on a 300k salary in the Bay Area. Even in the most expensive parts.
  - source99 10y ago
    Just for fun: $300K pre tax. Tax rate of 40% $180K after taxes High Quality Child Care for 2 Children = $6K per month or $72K / year 108K after childcare 3Br house in SF - http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/hhh?search_distance=4&postal=94115&max_price=15000&bedrooms=3 http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/hhh?search_distance=4&pos... Call it $6K / month or $72K per year $36K left after housing + Childcare + taxes. $3K / month for transportation, food, clothing, vacations. Good luck...
    - rco8786 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

SmellTheGlove 10y ago

Spot on. I'm director-level on the east coast (not NY, DC or Boston, although I came from DC). While I could probably see a 50% raise going to Silicon Valley, that wouldn't even come close to keeping me whole unless I'm supposed to stuff my family into an apartment. That said, I'm not sure what more the tech firms can do - wages are already really high out there and they're pressing the cities to let them build more housing (as in, not permit more housing in general, but that they'd even foot the construction) and the cities aren't going for it. At some point if a geographic area says no more growth, its time for businesses to pack up and go elsewhere.

syngrog66 10y ago

I'd suggest that an even cheaper solution for them in the long run, instead of raising the pay they offer, is to figure out ways to cause less "false rejection" scenarios. I totally understand the desire to avoid "false positive/hire" scenarios. But currently our field also has a big problem with false rejections. This would have the added bonus of increasing your usable talent pool both among residents/citizens as well as among remote/off-shore/foreign candidates.