Quality of life: Being paid market value in CA vs other states
I was always under the assumption that being paid market value in CA (mostly Bay Area) meant you had to take a quality of life decrease compared to somewhere like the midwest. I recently talked to some friends at FAANG companies and they told me that their quality of life actually increased from where they moved. I also learned how much they make and it blew me away. Can any engineers with families pitch in? Did your overall quality of life increase or are you having to budget more. Home ownership is not a goal for us. We already have one and think it’s overrated.
The thing is once you move out the Bay Area your career growth suffers. The normal expectation outside of Bay Area is 2-3% salary growth every year with each promo/job change 10-15% increase.
This doesn’t scale. It will stop eventually. 10% every year means that in 20 years salaries will be 6.2x more while in other regions will be just 1.8x. Eventually the companies will not be able to afford or competition (job supply) is going to increase which prevent this. In 10 or 20 years, I believe there will be tons of engineers in the market saturating it and the companies will be able to pay less.
It is hard to switch job outside a major tech hub. Once it is hard to switch job it is hard to have the bargaining power for upward mobility. Plus the risk of getting stuck at a job you hate.
Plus at end of the day to get paid the company needs to be successful. In a winner-take-all economy, the Bay Area is winning those battles.
It is a golden opportunity to stay at your FANG job and have them relocate you outside of the Bay Area.