[acconrad]

I think I asked this from you in another thread - but this advice feels difficult to follow. Are you in SF? Do you work at a company like Netflix which is known for paying very high salaries? Or are you not fully a developer, but in management? Because national labor statistics show that even the top quartile of salaries is still much lower than this, so I'm not sure how realistic it is for even the HN crowd to just up and make $250k programming.

[czbond]

The number is "high" as a single datapoint, but only due to an inflated SanFran economy. A $250k SF job adjusted to where I live in Dallas is actually considerably less than I make. I would need nearly $370k in SF dollars to do the same thing.

http://money.cnn.com/calculator/pf/cost-of-living/

[arbitrage314]

Actually, one small correction to your math.

You should adjust, for cost of living, only the part of your paycheck that you will be spending while living in that area.

E.g., supposed SF is twice as expensive as Dallas. If you make $100k in Dallas, and you typically spend $70k of it in Dallas while saving $30k (to spend later in life somewhere else), you would need to make $70k x 2 + $30k = $170k in SF (for an overall adjustment of 1.7) rather than $100k x 2 = $200k in SF (for an overall adjustment of 2).

Then again, if you're planning on living somewhere for the rest of your life, it's safe to assume that whatever money you make in that place, you'll also be spending in that place. Therefore, in that situation, multiplying by 2 would be correct after all.

[acconrad]

Right I'm well aware of the cost of living, but he did answer that he was 30 and living in SF. I live in Boston which is of relative cost-of-living (and salary) parity to SF, but you don't see $250k jobs being advertised for Google, Twitter and Microsoft here in Boston. I also feel like that number is inflated because a big portion of that likely comes beyond base salary (stock options, etc).

[czbond]

Absolutely agree!

[arbitrage314]

Ah, sorry I didn't respond before.

I live and work in SF at a large company (not Netflix, but something pretty similar). I'm 80% a coder, 10% a manager, and 10% a data scientist, and I love my job. $250k salaries are very common at large companies these days--you just need to stick around and work hard for a few years.

Even if you make $150k, my advice stands, but you should probably invest smaller amounts than $100k, obviously.

[acconrad]

Same age as you, but in Boston, so relatively similar salary/cost-of-living. One question is - are you actually making $250k base? I feel like for many of these large companies, that's the total compensation package, and much of that "total" is around bonus and stock options. Is it more about sticking around than it is about getting in as a high-level engineer, or is it the pay grade? If I walk into Google and get hired as a senior engineer, most salary reports in the public domain show me making far less than $250k base, even in SF.

[URSpider94]

Boston and SF are NOT comparable these days in terms of cost of living OR job market. Boston is probably #2, but it's a fairly distant #2.

$250k is a normal salary for an engineer with say 10 years experience in the Bay Area. It won't all be in a monthly paycheck, some of it will be in bonuses, restricted stock, etc., but it will be bankable and spendable annually, not locked away in illiquid assets (at least at a large company). Companies with long vesting schedules will supplement the early years with hiring bonuses until shares start to mature.

And this is why rent on a 2BR apartment in Mountain View will run you $3000 per month, and a 900 sq ft condo convenient to nothing in particular runs $850,000.

[darod]

I think it's funny that everyone is stuck on your $250k salary and not focusing on the point that you were making.