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Comment by hcarvalhoalves | Hacker News Reader

I'm depressed looking at those figures now. I'm not in the US, but still... As a developer who works both on backend and frontend, let alone sysadmin work, I'm not making 1/3 of that.

I should look into working with US contractors.

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If you're making $100k in say, San Francisco, about half your paycheck is gone to federal, state, and local taxes, social security, retirement plan, etc. Say you're left with $4200/mo. Take a look at house prices and rents there. There goes half of that. Now half of what's left on food. Now you need transportation, clothes, a phone, insurance, etc.

Don't get me wrong, it's a pretty good life. And you can definitely spend a lot less money by having roommates or living in a dangerous neighborhood or eating only noodles. On the other hand, good luck raising a family. All in all, it's not nearly as much money as people imagine when they convert it to local currency and cost of living.

I make significantly less than $100k in San Francisco and net significantly more than $4200 a month. I don't have a retirement plan, but I doubt that would be enough to cover the difference.

I think it does. We are talking about 1k-1.4k per month here; well, if you are aiming for $10k+ 401k per year.

With no retirement savings at all (terrible idea, by the way), something between $76k and $77k nets exactly $4200/month in California, after taxes, social security, etc. (According to PaycheckCity.com)

If you put back 10% into a 401(k), you need $88k minimum to net $4200/month.

IF you make less than 100k in SF, you are doing something really wrong...

Thanks for the advice.

As someone who lives in Seattle, where housing prices are getting pretty ridiculous, the running joke is "at least we're not San Francisco"

I love the bay area, but you're right, it's pretty deceptive to look at a dev salary in SF at 100k and compare it to a dev's salary in the rust belt.

Mortgages are so cheap now, though, that housing costs so much less per month than it did 7 years ago.

All that does is driving up home prices. 1600 sqft 4 bedrooms in cheap cities (san mateo, redwood city) are inching towards a million. If you want 2500 sqft in a walkable city with amenities, expect to pay closer to two million!

Yeah, I'm aware the living costs impact the salaries. The living cost in my city (São Paulo) is on par with SF though [1], while the salaries are not even near. Taxation is also heavier than in US. This makes my current salary minuscule in real terms.

[1] http://bit.ly/XWLkyu

Mozilla hires remote developers from all over the world. Working remotely is "business as usual", not the exception, for most teams. Plus, Mozilla has offices in about a dozen cities in (I think) 9 countries.

http://careers.mozilla.org/en-US/

Thanks Chris, I'll look into this opportunity.

But I guess you adjust compensations according to the remote place, right?

So someone in East Europe can't hope for e.g. Texas level salaries? (Not to speak about Silicon Valley)

And by adjusting, I mean not by living costs, but according to average salaries in some particular place. This is worth mentioning, because there are places where people are used to low wages, but living costs are on par or even more expensive compared to US. Especially true for East Europe...

I don't see why you would adjust compensation. If you do the work to the standard required, you get compensated by as much as it makes sense to compensate you - ie: some fraction of the value you generate for Mozilla?

If you could get the work done for USD 1000$ a month, why would you pay anyone more? If someone lives in a low cost country, why would you want to alienate them from your team by paying them significantly less?

Just to correct you a bit, I was talking about a "low wages country", which is not necessary a "low cost country".

And yes, some companies (including Big Co's) do this - adjust salaries according to local low wages. Since OP refused to answer, I suppose Mozilla does this as well.

Setup a business entity in the US. Work from your country. No need for a visa.

That's interesting. Do you have any pointers on how to do something like that?

I'm not making 1/5 of that.

We, who live in other countries, are cheap.

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