[ghaff]

The thing is that "comparable opportunities" equates to (perceived) Bay Area salaries which are more or less equated to higher-end FAANG salaries and the (perceived) ability for a random engineer to drop a few emails and be starting in a new well-compensated position the following Monday.

You're not going to get those most places. I'm not sure it's the norm in the Bay Area either though.

[Kalium]

> The thing is that "comparable opportunities" equates to (perceived) Bay Area salaries which are more or less equated to higher-end FAANG salaries

In my experience, people mostly look to preserve their financial position rather than take a jump up. Just because rent's cheaper somewhere else doesn't mean I want to take a proportionate pay cut. I've watched people turn jobs down flat when offered 50% of their pay in NYC because rent is half of NYC's.

Salary history matters a lot of negotiating power in the future. Salary matters for building up a financial cushion in case this job elsewhere doesn't work out and now I'm somewhere that has a lot fewer options on offer.

[sidlls]

I don't work at FAANG. My "all in" is about 65% what I'd earn at FAANG at the same level (EM, L5/6). It's about 150%, or more, of what I'd earn just about anywhere else in the US. Not to mention the opportunity cost: most anywhere else the software job market is not nearly as well developed.

It is absolutely the norm in the Bay Area for salaries even adjusted for cost of living to be far better than elsewhere. Plus all the additional attractive features like a relatively more tolerant population, much more diversity, better public venues like parks, and recreation like museums and such.