Is 250k considered unusual in the bay area for a BigCo for someone for someone 3-5 years out of college? If that's the case, choosing to living in SF is even crazier than I thought.
Yes, that's unusual. Think half that for someone only a few years out of college. And that's for software dev at a large company. The vast majority of employed people in the Bay Area do not make six figures (source: I've lived here for several decades).
As someone in the bay area working for a BigCo, I expect to be making making ~250k with 5 years of experience due to internal info, see also https://danluu.com/startup-tradeoffs/