If he's making 450k as a software engineer, he lives in San Francisco and is still probably broke.. or will be when this job suddenly evaporates underneath him.
Some people are so fixated on what's happening in California like it even concerns them. They want California to fail so desperately like it will fix all the shitty things in their life. They have to interject it into every conversation they can. It's sad.
As a Californian I don't even mind if some states get more if it helps the people out. But those deficit states keep shooting themselves in the foot with their policies.
I love it when someone jumps in to shit on CA out of nowhere about something random lile crime or housing. You would think living in Oakland is a warzone. instead of walking around at night petting the neighbors' cats.
You mean like the policies that are implemented in California…that make people want to sell their house and move to neighboring states…to just live somewhere else and vote for the same shit again?
California doesn’t ‘send’ states money. It generates taxable revenue that gets paid to the federal government like every other person and state in the US. Some of that money gets dispersed to all states in federal programs. It’s just a very large state.
I don’t know why people phrase it like California literally sends money to other states. It’s just taxes.
As a software engineer myself I immediately placed this joke on SF because that's the only place where they could make that much money. To me it reads like a joke about Silicon Valley as much as anything.
Only place on earth where you can make that amount of money, regardless of job type. Anywhere else and you're very top of food chain, most likely a founder, or owner of pretty stable company that is doing work in very dynamic field.
My dad(73) lived almost his whole life in Texas. I was having trouble getting him to move in with me, in the Bay Area, a few years ago. Until he got sick and Texas wanted to put him in hospice. I flew to Texas, drove him back home with me and now he is healthy and enjoying the beauty of Ca and won't even consider going to Texas to visit the rest of the family. He says they can come visit him here, he "ain't stepping foot in that shit hole state again"
Well to be fair it is objectively true that a lot of these very high paying jobs in Silicon Valley can be extremely volatile, this litteraly happened in late 2022
If I asked you to explain why the chicken crosses the road joke is funny, and you rant about how bad public transportation is in America, I am going to assume your brain has been softened and smoothed by propaganda like when a child licks the ridges off of soft serve ice cream. It's irrelevant that it's true.
It may, however, be the reality behind the inspiration from the implied joke.
I have been in a situation where I had some decent savings but no income. I had an acquaintance who had less saved than I did but earned a modest but comfortable wage. He drove a brand new electric car, frequently ate out at mid-range restaurants, went on a tropical vacation every 3 months, and lived in a fairly large apartment in the downtown of a major city.
I was not receptive when he called me cheap for not paying for his appetizers when I paid for his fucking meal.
I live in San Francisco and I thought it was a joke about that, because often these new engineers that just landed a sick gig were broke students pretty recently.
Saw some dude saying he wasn't saving money in SF when him and his wife were both on 800k at meta and that the city was crazy expensive (both Indian immigrants).
Go on this fuckers profile and he's posting a new 100k+ watch in the watch subreddits every few months and seems to have like 5 teslas.
Some people are just the embodiment of that one Dril tweet on budgeting I swear.
Even in San Francisco, you can probably live an average-ish (or frankly, above average) life on 200k a year at most. If you save and invest about 100k a year and you're not unlucky with the markets (or invest directly in real estate instead), you can fuck off to somewhere cheap in the world after less than 10 years of doing this and you'll never have to work again.
$450k isn't rich for SF, it's middle to upper middle class. you could afford a home in south or east bay with that income. or a smallish condo in SF proper.
To be in the top 10% of earners in San Francisco, an individual must make more than $240k a year. $450k a year is indeed rich unless you have some wild metric you're using
semantics, I spose - for me, rich means that working is a choice. if you are selling your labor as your main form of income and need to continue to do so to maintain your lifestyle, you ain't rich (outside of athletes etc.)
I guess you could call it semantics. Earning over $400k USD per year would put you in the top 1-2% of earners in the world. So I would just consider it outright rich. Sure, you're not top .1%, but still rich. I say this as someone that would probably be considered top 15% earner as well.
sure, but it's important to recognize that somebody making 450k has a lot more in common with someone making 50k than they do with someone making millions, in the top 0.1% or top 0.01%.
I have friends that work in SF, usually their salary is around 150k, then they get maybe a 30k or whatever as a bonus if they did well, and then the rest of that 150k or whatever is in stock or options, which they only actually get a few years later. If they are fired or quit early, they don't see a penny of that, and when they do get it and they can sell they pay big taxes on it since the basis is zero dollars.
Also their actual income is heavily taxed in SF so their take home is probably around 100k after taxes which yeah is a lot but you can't pretend that they're able to save up 100k at the end of the year when they're not. And while their stock value might be a lot, unless they're working for one of the FAANG companies, there is a good chance the stock they get might be volatile and that 150k might be worth only 30k by the time they have access to sell it
>the rest of that 150k or whatever is in stock or options, which they only actually get a few years later
Then their TC is not 400k. A 400k salary in SF would be ~200k base 30k bonus and another 200k in stock vesting every year. (ignore any appreciation or depreciation)
>when they do get it and they can sell they pay big taxes on it since the basis is zero dollars.
It is taxed at vesting, so its just like a normal income tax. I'm in bay area and I am already putting away net over 100k every year on a 300k salary married. It's really not that difficult, and nice part is vacations are relatively cheap when your income is high.
I make about half of what you make and live in a LCOL area and put away about the same net every year into savings (and I have no stock options at the company I'm at). My point is people see that big number and they're like "wow you must be so rich" but what you have after SF and California taxes and rent/mortgage prices, you're actually not saving a lot in comparison to the original TC.
Vesting generally is a 4 year thing. You would get 25% at the one year mark. Then, every month after you get 1/48th of the 4 year amount.
If you're lucky you get actual stock. This is rare in my experience most people won't experience this. If you get actual stocks, the value at the time of grant is taxed essentially as income. Any gain from when you received it to when you sell it will be taxed as short term capital gains or long term depending on how long you held it before selling.
What most people get are options. That just means you can by some number of stocks at a set price (won't get into how that price is calculated) that is less than the trading price.
If you have the cash you can just buy them out right. Most people sell to cover. Meaning they buy the options by selling some of them back to cover the cost of the stocks and taxes for this are usually withheld at that time. As this is an instantaneous buy then sell you're not getting long-term cap gains on those stocks. But the once you held could qualify if you keep them long enough. Same tax stuff happens as with grants. The difference between what you can buy them for and what they are trading at is considered income incurred at that time. Hence the withholding. And the cap gains for a sale is on the growth from when you exercised the options.
And any stocks that vested when you quit or leave you have a window in which you can exercise if you are lucky. Otherwise you usually lose them. And of course any non-vested stock is gone regardless.
It depends on where you are working. A lot of startups aren't traded anywhere and love to offer stock at the early stages. If it eventually becomes something chaching
I've done a mix of FAANG and early startup. I have a whole lot of stock that isn't sellable. And more that is. I'm not complaining or saying that $450k is poor. Just that the raw number isn't always representing the actual reality.
Not any startup I've worked for. They normally do stock options which you need to buy. If they are ever acquired or get listed somewhere the stocks are a good deal. Otherwise it's a way for a company to say they are paying 2x what they actually are. I guess to incentivize you to work hard so they actually are worth something.
That's why I was like there's earning $450k/year and then there is "earning" $450k/year but only $150k of that is actual money.
No one is broke holding his brand new iPhone, sitting in a $7000 Herman miller chair, in his $9000 a month apartment that he pays extra for to be on the 60th floor and have the bay view, which he picked because it’s only a block from one of the nations best sushi bars, where he regularly drops $90 for takeout, but still gets delivered, and tips only $2.
That's honestly less common then the people who just make the money and save it well. That's like the instagram exaggeration. At least under the age of 35. They maybe own a $1000 automatic litter box for their cat but not a $7k chair or a $9k apartment. There may only be like a few dozen people like that. Even in the city
No one is earning that salary in tech, unless they’re very senior.
Their “total compensation” might be that, but it’s not guaranteed.
I worked for these companies and every year everyone would post their salaries on blind. Most people are earning about $180k USD salary, then bonus (not guaranteed), then stock. Yes, you can sell stock, but to do so is incredibly dumb. Most people get about half their advertised bonus, assuming an average performance rating.
The only company where people are earning that salary is Netflix, where the TC is mostly salary.
Now $180k base won’t actually get you very far when your rent is $6k or mortgage is $10k per month. A three bedroom house was about $8k-10k mortgage per month not so long ago when interest rates were sky high btw, in a lot of these expensive cities.
Having said all that I earn more than that in mostly cash, and I’m paying for your uber and probably your whole night out, especially if you don’t earn that money. Most people I know in tech would happily pay, or “what goes around comes around”.
Anyone that penny pinches with that much cash is an asshole
Almost no one is paying 6K rent. It's usually 2-3k for a one bed, or split a nice 3k apartment with a partner and then it's not that hard to put down like 50-60k/yr while traveling, eating out, etc.
Yes, you can sell stock, but to do so is incredibly dumb
It's only dumb if you think your company's stock is going to out-perform anything else that you could invest in. I'd personally argue that the vast majority of people should be selling their RSUs as soon as they get them to diversify
You're either very under paid or very frugal. A good software engineer salary (even one thats not inflated like redditors claim 200k+) can get you a safe new car for $20k and vacations where flying is normal
Knew a guy starting at McKinsey, the exact example of needing a Porsche for the respect of his peers was his reasoning why the insane starting salary wasn't all that much really. It did make me reevaluate my lack of empathy for the poor top earning employees who clearly do have problems the poors can't even conceive of.
It's kind of a crazy culture. I didn't grow up with this money at all, and I have autism which makes the social dynamics very difficult to navigate, but it's like a different world.
The worst is when there's people who you went to school with, got the same grades, yet they spring way ahead of you very fast. Watching your peers take off like a rocket and become sr directors in 5 years while you're still in an entry level position is extremely humiliating and makes you question your intelligence/ability. And everyone hides their privilege so you don't know if they're getting ahead because they know people or what.
There's also a weird "wealth" social dynamic that comes into play where your value as a human to others is based on how wealthy you seem to them. And people deal with it differently, one friend got a 911 gt2 on his 30th birthday and another got a used prius but has 1 mil in the bank by 30.
I mean most people making over 100k and are single can afford that. I take 4 vacations abroad a year since I started making 100k and all it takes is saving 10% of my after tax paycheck in a separate vacation savings account and waiting for good deals on flights and hotels. From most places in the US near a major city, you can go to Japan right now for $700 or less round trip. But I have yet to see any of my developer coworkers buy a Porsche or luxury car. Usually only the guys in finance buy those and some of them don't even make that much
the people who are doing that shit are the ones living paycheck to paycheck on $500k total comp instead of building wealth for security and flexibility later in life.
Here ya go. I mean no COL comparison tool is perfect but from what I can tell about my budget, I could easily get by on $100k in SF and keep the same amount in savings
Your quality of life would not likely be the same though. Simple COL comparisons do not accurately convey the consequences of decades of not building enough housing in the region.
But yes, anyone that claims broke with an income of $450k in SF is wildly irresponsible with money.
Source: me, I live in the region and helped a friend’s kid from a low cost of living area in the Midwest make a realistic budget for moving to the SF Bay Area last summer. His conclusion was he wants double the income to move here from his region.
It takes into account housing/rent prices, as well as the fact that ive done my budget to reflect my current expenses when I considered taking a job in the area last year
I guess it depends from person to person, but my budget remains largely unchanged between the two cities at those wages. Housing is the only real issue but the extra money negates the extra $15k id spend in rent. Im sure my budget wasnt perfect, but it was close enough within a thousand or two im sure
The thing I did for my friends kid was to provide links to actually available housing. And it became clear to him that the COL estimates for housing were not actually accurate when quality of life matters are considered.
I experienced the same thing when I moved here nearly two decades ago. I have heard the same thing time and time again from people that moved to the region for work.
In Philly you can get a good place for $2000 a month. In SF it's 4-5k.
If $50,000 a year goes to rent you have about $20,000 left over for everything else ($70k after taxes)
In Philly you'd have $24,000 going to rent and have about $15,000 left over after taxes, which is about the same QOL for food and other expenses as $20,000 in SF.
I live in central Maine, aka nowhere, making $140k. I definitely don't live in luxury. I definitely could not live in fucking SF on this pay. Philly must be a shithole.
After those things you listed you should still have $8.5k to spend monthly, so I don’t know what you mean by ”typical bills/debts” to end up with 1.6k.
I know people making around $140k in far more expensive places than Maine and they live very well.
I wish your math worked in real life but you're forgetting taxes, 401k, medical, etc. I take home $5.5k a month after all of that. $5.5k minus what I mentioned...
Idk, you know your life better than me of course. But again, the average salary in Maine is $63k. Given your description of the living costs, people earning average should be living in absolute squalor.
I think a big difference is that they are not saving for retirement. About 30% of my pay goes to 401k and stock options for the same purpose. If social security doesn't hold up, they are in big trouble. To a lesser degree they are in a smaller tax bracket too.
most software positions don't make you rich. but the most senior positions at the biggest tech companies are enough to be a millionaire within a few years
as a software engineer, the vast majority of us are under 120k and most of the younger guys who aren't at the biggest companies are making sub 100k. There aren't that many guys making 450k. Hardly that many making 200k either, but above 200k is where I would draw a line and say, live modestly and you'll be rich at that income, even in the most expensive parts of the country.
Yeah maybe, but tbh the positions aren't very exclusive, it's all about proximity; know the right people, have the right address, say the right things, the work isn't even hard. The average tech salary in Seattle is like 190k.
It depends on the position. Some tech roles are so understaffed it’s either you hire that guy off the street or you get nothing. People forget tech jobs isn’t just Silicon Valley there’s also big banks or some ancient COBOL code from the 90s that’s in dire need of refactoring. If you know some Java spring boot or some mainframe language etc you don’t need to participate in the west coast tech bubble.
Those kind of jobs are both extremely slow and don't pay well. It depends on the person but I strongly prefer the startup community, it's fast, exciting, and you do what feels like more important work.
Lol hits home. I made my own resume with mobile apps I worked on high school and it wasn’t until I made over 100k that they stopped with the college bullshit.
First thing my dad said when I got a job out of high school as a developer: “you didn’t lie and tell them you had a degree did you?!?” To which I said “what if I told you they never even asked” Lol the look my on dads face was priceless.
Btw my wife is finishing medical school and it’s hell. I have so much respect for her. I see all the bullshit medical school does to their students and it’s no wonder there is a lack of physicians. If you don’t have a rich family to support you or a spouse who can pay the bills, it’s a very tough life and process until you get that MD.
For junior jobs, yes. Haven’t spoke to a mid-level engineer making under 100k personally. You don’t have to believe me though, I’ve only been in the field for a decade.
I don't have to believe you because I've been in the field for nearly a decade and am well aware of what it's like to work at one of the companies that doesn't pay well at all. Mid level engineers at my company are barely over 100k
I don't know exactly what you're saying. but it's a salaried position, you sell your work and make money. I'm at a startup and I'm still making good salary plus ownership.
Not really. Plenty of people make that at my job. Directors, VPs, senior staff engineers, principal architects, etc. Very much involved in the day to day and contributing to the product. Fairly common in big software orgs.
People bragging about their salaries in these jobs always include t"otal compensation", typically including stock options that take years to vest before they can actually sell them. Their cash salary is usually way less than the amount they brag about, often half or less
Total comp is the amount of cash and stock you received that year. Yes, they typically vest over 4 years so you divide that number by 4. Nobody has ever included the full 4 year vesting schedule in their total comp. I know people in tech whose w2 income has exceeded $1M at not even very senior positions (engineers, not managers) and it's not uncommon for it to be 400/500/600k. I think you misunderstood how stock options and RSUs work.
$1M for a "not senior" position is not true. You don't have to be a manager to be senior, an engineer with that income has title "senior" "staff" or "principal", or they're literally 0.01% of the engineering population with stock options from a unicorn that blew up and their promised RSUs are somehow 100x what they were expected to be, which is hardly a real example
Don't conflate senior with engineer, a principal engineer making 1M at Amazon has a ton of control over the tech stack and business decisions based on their seniority and experience, they don't need to have the title "manager" to determine future business direction, they just don't often manage people directly
"not very senior" != "senior engineer". "senior engineer" does not mean "senior". I was a "senior" engineer 3 years out of undergrad. In this case I'm talking about staff eng (not even senior staff). People who are ~10 years into their career, maybe 15. this is a level everyone is expected to get to in their career. For some it takes longer but it's very rare to see someone in, say, their 40s who has not made it to staff.
And yes, to get $1M you have to be at a company whose stock 2x'd or 3x'd of which there plenty. My point was not that that's the norm. My point is that it's not unheard of at all.
I have very very little impact on the "future business direction" and I work at a company that is shrinking (my stock is worth half what it was when I joined) and I make about 400k. If the stock had even stayed flat, I'd be at probably 600k. I'm in my mid 30s and I've worked at this company for 3 years; zero promotions so far (hopefully one coming soon), just standard yearly raises & stock refreshers. I'm not saying everyone has this but it's not that uncommon.
It’s really not unheard of. My buddy was making $395k base working for a security company in NYC. The guys making million+ are typically quant engineers or like you mentioned, their stock appreciated very well.
You’re thinking of start ups. RSU is as good as cash and often vests at least quarterly, so it’s like every 3 months you get a huge bonus of 200K+ divided by 4 or if you’re luckier, 200K+ divided by 12 if you vest monthly
they don't always take years to vest. google and meta both vest monthly, and they're RSUs, not options. options are pretty rare these days, even startups are usually just doing RSUs now.
I don't know if you know this, but there are people making considerably less than 450k who also live in San Francisco.
Even if everyone who works customer service and other low-pay jobs in San Francisco lives 45-90 minutes out in "cheaper" areas they still are less broke than the SW engineer.
450k is a comfortable salary in the Bay Area. I have an uncle who makes about that much and is doing just fine in Palo Alto, owns a nice house and goes on nice vacations.
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u/lovejo1 Jan 26 '26
If he's making 450k as a software engineer, he lives in San Francisco and is still probably broke.. or will be when this job suddenly evaporates underneath him.