I graduated in 2000 from Computer Engineering (in Canada). A solid fraction of my peers ended up in Silicon Valley. It’s not just for the wages. Silicon Valley just where most of the jobs are and it remains the best place in the world if you’re an engineer.
The grass is always greener, I guess. I’m a software engineer from the US and I’d never move to SV in a million years. There are more things in life than money.
There are so many cities here with better quality of life and lower cost of living.
Quality of life is subjective, and there are no cities that offer as much financial and career opportunity to the average senior software developer as SV does right now. Yes, cost of living is high, but you’ll still come out far ahead the average senior software dev living in some midwestern city. There are exceptions / edge cases, but they’re just that.
> you’ll still come out far ahead the average senior software dev living in some midwestern city
Come out far ahead how?
I'm already pulling close to 6 figures, and I expect to reach $120-130k in a relatively short time period. Do I -need- to move to SV and live in much shittier conditions and have an insane cost of living just to earn some more money? ... I feel that remote work makes this an outdated concept (my company is fully distributed).
I'm almost 24 and if I continue to manage my finances correctly, I should have my own spacious home by 25. I'm in South Carolina, but there are plenty of other reasonable places in the US. The money that I don't have to spend on high cost of living goes straight to my savings. I get that my situation is atypical, but it's absolutely possible to have a great life and earn great money while not living in SV. If I ever feel like I need to earn more money, there's nothing stopping me from creating my own startup, etc.
I guess I'll never have the "prestige" of working in SV, but I seem to do just fine by going to conferences and networking.
It really depends on what you want. I’m not trying to shit on your life choices, you may be optimizing for exactly the right things for you.
My point on “coming out far ahead” is limited to finances. Yes, you can buy a house in SC and be making $100k once you hit 2-3 years of experience. That’s a great outcome, full stop. Nothing wrong with it.
But someone with your equivalent experience working at a big tech company in SV is already making 2-3x as much as you. Cost of living increase eats up some of that, but not even close to all of it. Especially if they live with a roommate or two and avoid buying a new Tesla, they can save $50-100k per year fairly easily.
And the difference becomes even more stark in another 5-7 years. You’ll be making $150k in SC but the dev in SV will be making $400k - 600k. They’ll also have 100x as many job options should they desire a change or get laid off, and they’ll have a much easier time raising funds and making key hires if they want to start their own company. Or becoming a key hire at a friend’s company. Or investing in a friend’s company. Etc, etc.
Again, there are genuine downsides to living in SV, and you may have made the right choice for you, but I find a lot of devs outside of SV have a really inaccurate view of just what they’re giving up, and that skews their analysis.
Silicon Valley tech companies pay something like $400-$500k if you're good enough and have 10 years experience. It goes up from there as well but it's harder to get those promotions. I also know people who made that much at 25-ish due to good negotiation (at a pre-IPO late stage startup) or were in a hot field (ML). That's not counting the usual startup lottery.
That money can offset cost of living quiet easily.
Check out levels.fyi. Moving to the Bay Area to work at a random startup makes little sense, but moving to one of the BigCos can be very financially rewarding.
> I'm almost 24 and if I continue to manage my finances correctly, I should have my own spacious home by 25
Check out this comment someone made complaining how high the CoL is in the Bay Area, even for someone making $300k. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22228756 Their analysis is flawed and overstates expenses, but even then this hypothetical tech employee saves > $110k/year (including a 401k and match). That's enough to put a down payment on a house in SC every year. If you're investing minded, you could own an apartment building in about 10 years and never have to worry about money again.
That's certainly compelling, but it still comes with huge downsides like lack of space, having to live with roommates, not having any family nearby, not being able to work fully remotely, likely not having a healthy work-life balance, etc.
If I weren't working remotely, this would be more compelling I think.
Lack of space is subjective, you certainly don’t have to have roommates if you make $300k, and work/life balance is above average at many of these companies. That said, remote work is more rare, and flights from SF to SC to visit family are a pain.
I think the bigger issue for many people is probably cultural. I’ve loved my time in SF and NYC because I love cities, am fairly liberal-minded, don’t mind small living space, and don’t really care about living near extended family. Working remotely from a sprawling home in a small town near family is the opposite of what I want for my life. YMMV!
It really depends on the career opportunities you have in SC and how they correspond to your career aspirations. There really is nothing wrong with not going to the the valley or another big tech hub, but if you want to say, become a specialist in some area of ML, then there will only be a few places to do that. It isn’t (just) about prestige.
If your goal is a comfortable life and financial stability, then you are completely right. If you want to become a millionaire or more, then you’ll have a better shot SV. If you are really focused on a specific technical topic, then SV, if you are a generalist and enjoy your work but don’t want to live it, then SC is fine.
Cost of living is only relevant compared to the salary you make and SV can pay very well. Quality of life wise most of the SV is a giant suburb so if you like suburbs it's about the same as anywhere else.
