[geebee]

"An engineer earning an amazingly-not-uncommon salary of $100k/year ends up living in an expensive place like San Francisco, starts spending money on some admittedly lovely luxuries, and quickly becomes convinced that her spending is just about right for a comfortable life."

Certainly, one way to manage all this is to not live in a place like San Francisco. But I think it is important to make sure people know that lovely luxuries aren't really what forces people with families to focus on money, and that if you do try to raise a family in SF on the median developer's pay (about $114k a year in SF), you'll find engineers don't really have "more money than <we> need", though of course there's always a version of poverty or struggling that would make raising a family on $114k in any expensive city a cakewalk.

Just keep in mind, the median price for a house here is over 1 mil, and that 1 mil will get you a 2br, maybe 3, south of 280 or maybe the outer sunset. OK areas. Full time childcare is about $24,000 a year. Those are really the whopper expenses (that and health care).

Are those "lovely luxuries"? Well, maybe living in SF is a lovely luxury. I like it here, though I'm really here because I grew up here, have two kids in school, and have so much family around that I'm sort of superglued at this point. But yeah, I could leave. All in all, I think there are better places (no, I'm not like some pac northwester trying to get you scared of the rain, if it's your choice to live here you should be welcome in SF, but I really do mean this, I'm really not sure SF is worth it if you have the option of living somewhere else).

I'm not trying to be hard on the author of this piece, but I do think it's important for people to know that engineers in SF even in dual income families struggle with housing and child care payments, not with luxury cars, expensive vacation, lovely luxuries.

[scott_s]

But here’s the thing: Being able to afford those things is pretty good definition of affluence in modern American society.

From: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/31/upshot/letter-from-the-edi...

I'm not saying you are not making a good use of your money - I make similar tradeoffs. But we have the choice. Our income affords us that choice. There are people who do not get to make those tradeoffs, they do not have the choice of living in "OK areas", or paying for childcare.

[toomuchtodo]

> I'm not trying to be hard on the author of this piece, but I do think it's important for people to know that engineers in SF even in dual income families struggle with housing and child care payments, not with luxury cars, expensive vacation, lovely luxuries.

Choosing to work in a locale where a median home price is a million dollars is a luxury. Engineers could pick from other metro areas, and get fairly close to $100K/year with much lower costs of living (Austin, Dallas, Durham come to mind, there are many more).

[s73v3r]

"Choosing to work in a locale where a median home price is a million dollars is a luxury. Engineers could pick from other metro areas, and get fairly close to $100K/year with much lower costs of living (Austin, Dallas, Durham come to mind, there are many more)."

And have their potential job prospects cut in half or worse.

[devonkim]

I haven't heard of many $100k+ software jobs in Durham. It's almost all RedHat, that one small MS office, and Ansibleworks I would imagine that make up much of the ones north of that I'd imagine. I worked with a team in Cary and I got the impression that they were paid less than us in the Seattle area for sure for comparable experience.

[toomuchtodo]

What good is a job when you need $100-150K/year to lead a middle class life in SF?

[ryandrake]

The point is that they are plentiful in SF and Silicon Valley, and that reduces risk. When you lose your job in the Bay Area, you walk across the street, resume in hand, and lo and behold there's another tech employer. When you lose your job in, say, rural Florida, you have to move or take up bartending to survive.

I'd love to move back east, and would in a heartbeat, but I'd have to settle for a single digit number of local employers, and that's not a risk I'm willing to take. The fact that houses are $1MM+ here in the Bay Area is the price I pay for a bit of employment security.

[sliverstorm]

Still, it's easier for John Doe to empathize with a family that is struggling to pay for their ordinary-house-in-expensive-neighborhood, than it is for him to empathize with a family that is struggling to pay for their three Jags, butler, and Caribbean cruise.

Although oddly enough both probably cost about the same.

[dilap]

Most of my family is here in SF. Since when is "living near your family" a "luxury"? Fuck that.

[scott_s]

When it is a choice, and other people do not have that choice because of their ability to pay for it.

[shard]

Living near or with family is a luxury in many cases. Consider the parallel situation where the father moves to somewhere else for a job, leaving wife and children behind, due to lack of opportunities in his area. Being able to say "fuck that" is a hell of a privilege.

[toomuchtodo]

How many tech workers live in or move to SFBA because their family lives there?

[ChrisLoer]

Yeah, I think living in SF is a luxury -- although I know that's painful to say to someone who really has roots there. I lived there for four years, and it's an amazing town. Living there also puts you in the middle of a network of bright creative people, so it probably makes you more productive. I'm not saying it's easy, just that we have choices.

[walshemj]

From what I see of housing costs 100k isn't that much in sf and one relitivly minor medical emergency can put a big hole in any savings you have.

[gohrt]

> Full time childcare is about $24,000 a year.

You don't pay this on "a median developer's salary". Most children have two parents.