I think you might slightly underestimate the sheer # of companies and tech jobs in the Bay Area? I think Hacker News is an echo chamber when it comes to this because there are so many "rockstar" type engineers here.
Not arguing that 95% of companies don't. Just saying there are many outside the base FAANG camp that do... it's a much bigger ecosystem than one might expect at first blush. If you hang out on blind or get contacted by these companies over time it becomes evident.
This is just patently false. I live in SV and have pretty high living expenses, around $80-90k/year. If I were earning $300k, after 40% effective tax rate and CoL, I'd still save ~$100k. That's far more money in my pocket than the hypothetical Canadian employed me earning $150k, both nominally and especially so after the currency conversion.
Probably. But there is worldwide demand for good developers, try looking into remote work. I've spoken with many people who have more than one "job", which amount to long, but not insane work weeks.
One thing I think a lot of people underestimate is the sheer amount of _clueless_ (or almost clueless) software developers out there. There are a lot of young people with good intentions but very, very little "real" experience (writing a React web app for a class assignment isn't "real" except for saying you've tried the framework). Work experience is quite different from CompSci knowledge, evne if both are important! If you have even just 3-5 years of real experience building real systems with real failures and real successes, you should be quite easily employed elsewhere if your current job doesn't meet your expectations.
Keep this in mind: we don't let surgeons operate alone before they have 5-6-7 years of _post-doctoral_ education and training. If you have the battle scars and experience to get a project done properly, you should be fine.