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Comment by jlarocco | Hacker News Reader

I noticed the same thing. The salaries are about 1.3-1.5x mine, but a quick search on Trulia shows rent prices 2.4x mine. Seems like a losing deal.

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The real question is how dev salaries stack up around the rest of the US. Bay Area developers have higher social status than their colleagues in other places, which (admittedly very anecdotally) seems to correlate with better pay.

Are there dev jobs paying, say, $150k in Chicago? If so, I don't see much advertising/discussion for them...

$150K is chump change in the financial industry (prominent in Chicago). But that is a weird/competitive market.

I'm not going to give my personal numbers, but that number is in line with senior compensation when I moved from VA in 2008. My gf recruited for SharePoint developers for the DC area - asking ran from 140K to north of 200K. This was a few years ago; I don't know the current market; I strive to stay far, far away from anything enterprise based.

You don't need to be making $150k in Chicago to be doing better than Bay Area developers. It seems like it's not uncommon for junior level developers to make $75k in Chicago, but 1-bedroom apartments only cost somewhere between $1k and $2k/month depending on what neighborhood you live in. And I'm not surprised you haven't heard about jobs in Chicago. People on HN seem to be pretty down on Chicago, which in my opinion, is a shame.

Are there dev jobs paying, say, $150k in Chicago? If so, I don't see much advertising/discussion for them...

Yes, there are. Not as many of them, but they exist.

My experience is that base salaries in Chicago are comparable to the Bay Area. It's probably harder to get a $75k+ per year RSU package, because the people who are at that level are more likely to be older and to work in finance for cash rather than RSUs of an illiquid company.

If you're in Chicago and look for good programming jobs, you should reach out to me (claes.bergryn at gmail) because I have some ideas.

Not necessarily. If you're making $100K but your rent is $1000 your salary minus your rent will be $88,000. If you're making 1.3x ($130K) but your rent is 2.4x ($2400), your salary minus your rent will be $101,200.

Obviously, this ignore taxes but the increased salary can more than make up for extremely high rents.

But that's just rent. The apartments 2.4x mine appeared to be in worse neighborhoods with higher crime, worse schools, etc. than my current neighborhood.

And commuting is expensive. I have a 10 minute bike ride right now, there's no way I could afford to live close enough to SV to bike to work. It's almost enough to erase the rest of the cost difference. http://www.niallkennedy.com/blog/2006/03/silicon-valley-comm...

I'm not saying "Bay Area is still definitely better because, hey, look at my math". I'm just saying that a 1.3-1.5x salary increase can more than offset a 2.4x rent increase. Obviously there are other factors that are too numerous to list such as commuting costs.

They don't pay taxes in Bay Area?

   $100K/year - 35% - $1K/month = $53K/year
   $100K/year - 35% - $2.4K/month = $36.2K/year
   $130K/year - 35% - $2.4K/month = $55.7K/year

You aren't taking marginal tax rates into account. The tax rate you pay on the incremental 30k is higher than the average tax rate of the first 100k, which makes a significant difference.

Yeah, necessarily: a $1k rent on $8,333 a month ($100k a year) is 12% of gross income. A $2.4k rent on $10,833 a month ($130k a year) is 22% of gross.

The guy living in the $1k apartment land has a better financial life. (Also, good luck finding a place for $2,400 in SF right now that matches what you can get for $1k in most other parts of the country.)

Not necessarily. Many big-ticket costs do not depend on location. Student loan payments, car payments, health care, etc. tend to cost the same whether you make 3X or 5X your rent. You're going to pay them off faster in a high-cost, high-salary area than in a low-cost, low-salary area.

Wanna bet? Health care is more expensive here. Cars are more expensive here (to purchase, but more importantly, to maintain). Food and alcohol are dramatically more expensive here.

In fact, pretty much everything you'll spend money on as a normal adult is more expensive here. I actually can't think of anything that wouldn't be more expensive, unless it's something that's already an obscene luxury good, like a Ferrari.

Your only argument here seems to be that you can make a calculated bet to pay off student loans, because 78% of $130k ($101k) is larger than 88% of 100k ($88k). Maybe, but good luck with that: I think you'll find that the cost of living easily consumes the difference.

My assumption is that student loan payments are much higher than (or close to) your housing costs for most young adults. Compare:

$2000 student loan payment + $1000 rent, at $70,000 salary would be tough.

$2000 student loan payment + $2500 rent, at $140,000 salary is do-able.

I agree about the smaller "cost of living" items though.

Your example doesn't demonstrate that having a 1.3x increase in salary with a 2.4x increase in rent is necessarily a losing deal. And of course you can find a place for $2,400 in SF right now. Maybe you have to have roommates which is fine to many people.

No, because the absolute amount of money also matters.

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