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Comment by orangecat | Hacker News Reader

People see their cousin's uncle's neighbor's roommate making $400K at Meta and just assume every single employee there makes that much.

Every single employee, no. But the average L5 really does make over $300k in total compensation. Yes some of that is stock, but the companies are now stable enough so that doesn't cause a ton of variation.

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At Meta and L5, probably over $400k or $450k for the average eng.

I think it's true both ways:

A lot of people assume it's like finance money, but it's not.

And on the flip side there's a lot of people coming from normal company or startup land, and assume that the $400k + average performing L5 is a myth, when that's pretty typical for big tech.

And I definitely agree with sibling here: $300k or $400k is good money, but in a place where the median house costs $1.5 million or something insane like the parts of the bay area that have a <45 minute commute, it doesn't go as far as you'd think. And it's incredibly risky, because now you're tied to always getting that level of comp for decades or you'll get evicted. (And while $400k + L5 Meta comp may be typical at Meta, it's not exactly trivial to maintain, or nearly as relaxing as a software gig you can do at other companies)

That's the avg initial comp package but the stock had a pretty nice run so a lot of people are making 600k++.

Why do need to make $400k a year "for decades" to pay a $1.5M home down to a level at which a significant income change doesn't evict you? With some napkin math, let's say down payment was $200k, so you have $1.3M loan, and if you pay down $100k a year then after just 8 years you are down to a mortgage of $500k. Still a lot of money, but won't get you evicted if you make less, and while on $400k a year and with a spouse that has income too, you shouldbe able to reach that even earlier.

At a 7% interest rate, your math isn't reasonable. You’re mostly paying interest. The situation in the Bay is way more insane than people realize.

That's a lot of handwavey assumptions about how much you can pay off per year / month; where's that $100K pay down coming from? How much is the interest pay? What other expenses are there?

That’s the part that I never understood: taking actions to tie yourself to needing that money every year. It’s a trap. I watched a friend convinced they were set with their FAANG job buy in the Bay recently just to be laid off. You can’t trust this industry.

I’ll be that guy, but $300k pre-tax at current cost of life is not an insane number at all.

I both agree that $300k household income is roughly the bottom edge to support a Fussellian upper-middle lifestyle these days (and that edge is retreating upwards fast…), but also notice that it’s about 94th percentile for US household income.

Household. A married couple both making that are 98th percentile.

Sure but less than 8% of Americans live in the top 10 most expensive cities.

In what percentile of your social class do you sit with $300k? Probably not very high.

"Of your social class"? That comparison doesn't make much sense. If you are at the bottom of your social class, you picked the wrong class to compare yourself with. Of course I'm at the bottom of all millionaires, but that's because I barely have a 7-figure net worth and have a weird self image.

Said like a 1990's banker / a 2020's tech worker.

That’s silly. As a high-income FAANG engineer living in the heart of SF, I was easily able to save more than 70% of my money.

What was your rent though?

I was not at FAANG, but a unicorn startup back in mid to late 2010s, and I was making 150-180k in that time, but not in SF.

Rent back then for a 2br was like $2400.. Today, that same apartment goes for $4900.

I am pretty sure the base for the same level today is probably more like 170-200k, but literally everything has also become doubly expensive.

Also if you're in SF you either need to allocate another 300-400 a month for parking, or sell your car. I was paying 130 per month for my garage parking spot (again, not in SF), and when I moved to SF some time ago I sold my car because it was going to cost me a lot to use my car.

And unlike FANG, where you can either hold and double every 3-4 years if lucky, or sell immediately with taxes, I walked away with 10x or more..

Rent was (and is) around $4000 for 3br, shared between 2 people. (And this was not an unusual price to see during our apartment hunt a few years ago.) If you're paying $4900 for 2br in the city, my impression is that it's either a brand new development or in a posh area like Pac Heights.

I don't have a car, but I feel like that's one of the biggest privileges of living in the city. Maybe the calculus changes if you have kids, though.

Well there you go. Sharing it makes it simpler but also not very ideal unless you’re a really young person or single and don’t mind sharing.

I have cats so I need my own place and they need their own spaces :3

Getting rid of the car has been an awesome change though.

I’m so cheap now it’s crazy. Only spend money on food and cat stuff haha.

If I wanted to go for a studio or 1br, I think I'd be able to get a good one for $2500-$3000 in SF. Either way, it's only around 15% of a $300k salary after tax. There should be no CoL issues at all with a FAANG salary.

Yeah not denying that. Of course anyone single or without too many responsibilities can “survive” even on 100k. I’m not talking about that, because we get older and it doesn’t scale. my friend is a staff engineer who makes 240k plus stock.

He has a child on the way. His wife also works. Their rent is 7k a month (home in a good school district - important to us Asians) because they aren’t going to share an apartment and have means to live in a bigger space. They could rent a house for 4k and risk getting shot in Oakland, or live closer to work and have a decent home for their family.

He is always complaining about finances because he spends like 10k a month on just living. If he buys a home, it’s like 2 million at least for something decent in a good area.

I think Bay Area is mad expensive. You really need to make a lucky break to thrive here. Most people sell their vested stock immediately, so those guys who made millions etc are few and far in between because they held for a while.

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