I know what a Google (engineering) salary is, and even if you're paying half of a tech salary to rent, the other half is still a hell of a lot to have leftover for your average American.
... I've worked for Google in the bay area.
To rephrase this: For the most junior (engineering) employees, a starting salary allows you to spend under the recommended maximum of 25-30% of your salary on rent to live in a decent 1BR apartment minutes from your office. You then receive significant bonus and stock on top of this. It's...not a problem.
It is a pain to relocate from SF to South Bay, and pretty depressing at that.
I don't disagree! (I've lived in SF the entire time I've worked at Google, first it MTV, then SVL, then remote, now SVL again).
L3 salary is $140k (from levels.fy). 30% of $140k allows for rent of $3.5k/m which is not actually all that generous. You're lucky to get a studio for that these days in Manhattan.
Salary doesn't mean much. Total compensation for L3 should be around 180k in the bay area these days I believe.
When I was at Google, my final salary was only half my total compensation.
I know, but OP specifically said salary and that bonus/stock would come "on top."
> $3.5k/m which is not actually all that generous. You're lucky to get a studio for that these days in Manhattan.
Pshh.
I see dozens of studios/1 bedrooms on padmapper right now in Manhattan available for ~$2,200