| B.S. in Comp Sci at no-name school (Washington State University) Got taken advantage of in my first job out of college, started at $45k/yr working locally in a small city in California (San Luis Obispo). Worked for a small shop making B2B software to sell to the government. Spent a long time there (7 yrs) because it was chill and I had enough downtime to work on side projects, but wasn't really advancing in all the right ways technically. Didn't use JIRA or work on sprints or have a manager, etc. Got a $12k raise each year. Left at $120k because I could feel myself stagnating. Moved to San Francisco, but, ironically, got a fully remote job helping a B2C online ecommerce shop. Small shop, about 10 engineers and ~40 people total. Started at $150k/yr + fractional percent of equity + bonus as a Sr. Software Engineer. Pay was not based on locality. Stayed with the company for 4.5 years and was promoted to Team Lead ($180k/yr) and then Staff Software Engineer ($200K/yr) where I oversaw a team of 6. Also received ~$30k EOY bonus + equity that ended up having a value of approx. $400k. Second job was definitely more intense than the first. I worked more than 40 hours a week frequently, but enjoyed the fast-paced environment and worked with a lot of intelligent people that I learned a lot from. I would repeat the experience. I didn't work on-call at all, just opted in to trying to push the quality on projects which took more time. Overall, I don't feel I did anything too crazy. HCOL isn't necessary. I would definitely make more ($250k~) working locally in SF. It's just consistent effort, putting yourself in jobs that have upwards trajectory, having loyalty when the job is a good fit, taking on more responsibility when it's offered rather than having a negative view that more work is a capitalist trap, and learning to push a little in negotiations. |