Here's my counter-anecdote. I hesitate to do this but I think it's nice for aspiring software engineers to have details.

I moved to San Francisco in 2006 straight out of college to work at Google as a SWE. I was $27k in debt (student loan + credit card). My rent was $1450 at the time (2 bedroom with a roommate in a nice part of town), and I took out a $26k loan to buy a car. I'm not particularly frugal.

I did well at Google, left in 2010 with >$200k saved, and used that to fund my entrepreneurial adventures from then til now.

I was very fortunate to land that job, YMMV.