[0x3f]

Oh right, well it depends on CoL doesn't it? You can reframe European salaries as 'obscene' by world standards too. Both the US and Europe have totally broken and unaffordable housing markets, for example, but at least the Bay Area compensates with salary. I would say that relative to costs it's more that other salaries are obscenely low, if anything. People in Europe should be rioting, but unfortunately only the home owners are politically active.

[mort96]

Does cities like San Francisco not have janitors? Waiters? Food delivery drivers? Or do those jobs command a six-figure salary too? If they can live comfortably in the city on a five-figure salary, maybe the argument that "cost of living is so high in SF that you can't live without a $300,000/year salary" is just a little bit overblown?

I can not imagine what one could possibly need $300,000 per year for unless an apartment costs like $200,000 per year.

[swiftcoder]

> Does cities like San Francisco not have janitors? Waiters?

When I used to visit the Meta campus in Menlo Park, the QA folk I worked with were commuting 2 hours each way just to be able to afford housing. I've no idea how far away the janitorial staff must have lived to do the same

[throw-the-towel]

> I can not imagine what one could possibly need $300,000 per year for unless an apartment costs like $200,000 per year.

Being able to afford unpredictable expenses and not have it bankrupt you. In the US, that would include healthcare. Everywhere in the world, that would be useful if you were laid off.

[mort96]

To build an emergency fund, you just need an income that's a bit higher than your expenses. If you earn $60,000 after tax per year, and spend $50,000 per year, you have a decent $10,000 emergency fund after one year and a massive $100,000 emergency fund after a decade. You don't need $300,000 per year to save.

[0x3f]

You get by on a low salary by living with multiple people in the same apartment. Or you live far away and commute. Or both.

Not really a tenable long-term situation for a senior employee with plans to start a family. Family homes of decent size and area are literally millions of dollars.

[mort96]

I guess I don't understand why programmers somehow deserve a better life than other people. Janitors deserve to start families too, don't they?

[throw-the-towel]

Usually this kind of argument leads to punishing the programmers, not lifting up the janitors.

[mort96]

That's kind of two sides of the same coin, isn't it? The cost of living is so high in part because so many have ridiculously high salaries, isn't it?

[swiftcoder]

> The cost of living is so high in part because so many have ridiculously high salaries

Bigger problem in the SF area is that a bunch of folks who owned property before the gold rush have ended up real-estate-rich, and formed a voting block that actively prevents the construction of new housing (on the basis that it might devalue their accidental real estate investment)

[prepend]

Its about how the market values those skillsets, not about what people “deserve.”

No one is sitting around and setting salaries based on the intrinsic human dignity of the people working jobs.

[0x3f]

It's not about deserving, programmers just have enough market power to be able to choose to go elsewhere. Janitors and other more fungible employees do not.

Besides, I did already say that everyone else was underpaid relative to costs. But that's not unique to the Bay Area. Cost of housing relative to income is terrible in almost all of the major European cities too.

Once cities become wealthy enough to develop a home owning class, they seem to cease being able to provision adequate housing supply in general.

[jalla]

I worked at Redwood Shores. On a walk across the 101, I discovered where the cleaning staff and food workers lived. In cars, under the bridge or parked in a quiet corner of the street next to industrial or commercial property.

[swiftcoder]

> Oh right, well it depends on CoL doesn't it?

To some extent, maybe, but often not. For example, London has similar cost of living to the Bay Area, and when I was at Meta experienced folks like Dan Abramov over in London were making about the same as fresh college hires in Menlo Park...

[0x3f]

Yeah I was talking more about the definition of obscene. Like is it obscene to make 300k if housing is so expensive? I say no, and that London salaries are just bad. Although it would be preferable to fix the housing market.

To be fair though, Dan specifically is kind of notorious for messing up his comp negotiation. Did you not see the Twitter pile on at the time?

[swiftcoder]

> Dan specifically is kind of notorious for messing up his comp negotiation

Indeed, but having seen the infamous spreadsheet, he didn't have all that much headroom (unless he agreed to move to the US)