Post on behalf of my friend. Hello, I'm a new grad who recently accepted an offer at Atlassian. I'm very excited to move to the Bay area, but I'm very concerned about housing. I see rent at most apartments around 3k and higher. My office is in SoMa and it will be moving to the financial district soon. I wanted to ask people who are in the Bay area their commute plans. Is it reasonable to live south of the city to get somewhat cheaper rent? Also, how are monthly expenses. I know it will vary person to person, but a few ideas can generally give me some indication. I've never really been rich or had too much money in my life so I'm trying to save up as much as possible. I pretty much just want a decent apartment or something where I can get groceries and occasionally go out for food. Maybe drinks once or twice a few months. I got worried after hearing all the offers here on Blind. It seems people really are living the dream out here! Since people are very interested in offer details, this is mine: Base: 110k Sign on: 30k Relocation: 10k RSU: 60k I don't exactly know what TC means, but I think you can get it from that?
You are still new in your career , focus on doing well and earning more. Don't live somewhere far, have the commute and inconvenience impact your performance.
Live in the city and get roomates. Suggest you live outside of soma.
Do not live in soma. Check out eastern neighborhoods of sunset or west portal along Muni train lines. Cheaper places, better amenities, no discarded heroin needles or human shit on the sidewalks. Split a 2 bedroom there with a roommate and you'll be just fine. Good on your company to go to financial district. I'm jealous!
That base will give you around 5-6k net salary per month. You can use part of the signon for the deposit/furniture, ideally save as much as you can from it for a safety net. With 5/6k every month you don’t want to spend half on rent, so in my opinion here are the best options: - Share an apartment with coworkers/friends. That will definitely reduce the rent to around 1/3 of your total. - Since your office is in SoMa, take a look to https://www.trulia.com/rent-near-sf-bart/ . There are some cheaper areas with Bart so you can easily commute to Embarcadero/Powell. - Find a studio in one of the new condos in SF (Lumina, Jasper, Mosso, etc) with pool, gym etc and live like a boss, save what you can from the other 50% of the rent. You will save on commute, gym and other amenities so that is something. - Atlassian is very remote, tell to your manager you will wfh and move to Sacramento Last one is a joke. Good luck!!
Thank you for the information. It is very helpful. In terms of working from home, would you advise that to a new grad? I feel like I would be missing things that happen within the office. My plan is to eventually move to mountain view. I hear it's a bit cheaper there? Atlassian has an office there as well.
Cheaper than SoMa yes, but still very expensive and depends a lot of the neighborhood. About working remotely/office, you don’t have to work the whole week from home, maybe try with a couple of days a week, it will depend on you honestly, some people want to experience the social side of a job and others prefer to focus on the job and ignore everything else, for a new grad I would say focus on your career and where do you want to be in 5 years and build from there, there is time for everything