I could use some advice. A few weeks ago, I did the Triplebyte quiz on a whim, later did their interview, and now I'm talking to companies in Silicon Valley / San Francisco about potentially interviewing with them. If you're unfamiliar with Triplebyte, they do their own candidate vetting, with the promise that if you pass their process, you can go directly to a final interview at their client companies (typically early- to mid-stage startups, many YC graduates) who are located almost entirely in California or NYC. (Triplebyte has been great, by the way, and I highly advise trying them out if you're looking for a new position.[1])
I currently live in Ohio with my wife and infant daughter. She has a fairly low income job (non-profit), and if we moved to California, she would be a stay-at-home mom. We own a three bedroom house here. I make roughly $85K as a full stack developer for a startup here for whom I've worked for a few years.
I'm going to be at the point soon where I need to pick the companies with whom I'll interview. The expenses of living in a SF / SV suburb are scaring me. Renting seems in the $3K+ range for a two bedroom (which would be the minimum since we have a daughter... may try for another child later). By comparison, my mortgage is ~$850 / mo.
We're relatively frugal and ideally want to get to a point where we can be financially independent, so savings rate is important. We would also want to find a decent school district for when my daughter starts school. Also, we would be moving away from my wife's family, which would require her to fly up fairly frequently so our daughter could see her grandparents.
Basically I'm trying to figure out if I'm crazy for even considering this, and if there is a way to make it work. Triplebyte has said I'm probably mid- to senior-level and could expect around $130k - $150k.
What are your thoughts?
1. Triplebyte referral link: https://triplebyte.com/iv/afyYdFu/cp ($1500 for both if you get a job through them.)
I'd suggest looking for full stack remote jobs where you'll make $100k-130k/year while remaining in Ohio (if thats where you want to live). Leaving a support system/family behind if you have a child (and considering another child) is not trivial.
Work remote, live better, visit SF once or twice a year for conferences to network and mingle.
$130k - $150k isn't really big money around here. You'll be able to live, but I suspect that you'll start to feel pretty quickly that your quality of life has been overall compromised since leaving Ohio. Real estate is the biggest expense — a $3k apartment won't even be a nice one, but you'll feel it everywhere — expensive meals, goods, lots of taxes, etc.
Long term prospects for property aren't great either. Property prices have been trending for a while in only one direction (straight up) and properties that would be considered very modestly nice in other cities are easy $1M+ in and around SF. Real estate agents play bidding games so everything goes for well above listing prices. NIMBY practices and regressive taxation laws (Prop 13) guarantee this isn't going to be fixed anytime soon.
As someone with a daughter, it's also worth considering that the public schooling system is in a pretty bad state. It seems that almost everyone will either use private if they can afford it, or move out to Marin or the South Bay so that their kids can go to a functional school. Don't take my word for it though, I have lots of anecdotes, but have never needed to seriously look into it, so do your own research.
Another big factor to consider is just the city itself, and how nice it is to be here. A combination of huge wealth disparity, unaffordable real estate/rent, poor treatment for the mentally ill, and moderate weather means that the number of deranged people that you'll meet on the streets and public transportation is way above average. Property crime is essentially rampant at this point (mostly in the form of smashed car windows and bike theft), and the police force is quite ineffective, so I don't expect that to go anywhere but up. If you're a reasonably sized guy it's all mostly tolerable (in that you don't really fear for your well being), but I'm not sure it's an environment that I'd want to raise children in. As far as I can tell, a lot of other industry workers just seem to take Uber/Lyft everywhere to avoid it.
All that said — SF is a fun city, and the nature around it is beautiful. It's one of the very few walkable/bikable cities in North America, which is great. As a tech person, it's also neat to be right in the thick of things.
Look for remote work, and see about building a network both in SV and NYC. The latter is a bit closer to you and you might find it easier to land a remote job with a NYC firm.
I actually had a remote job in the pipeline but they ended up not being able to pay a commensurate salary or benefits (i.e. it was a significant pay cut from what I'm making now).
At least this process has got me back to studying data structures and algorithms again, so perhaps I can interview at Google Pittsburgh again and try for a better outcome this time. Any tips for finding a good remote position?
Always be looking, and don't relax your criteria (compensation, work/life balance) because its remote.
Just because a position is advertised as on site doesn't mean you can't negotiate it to be remote.
Here are some remote job resources I keep bookmarked:
https://github.com/lukasz-madon/awesome-remote-job
https://stackoverflow.com/jobs/remote-developer-jobs
Salary negotiation cheat sheet: http://salarytutor.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Salary-Tut...
So much this. Soooo much.
If you do come, I recommend, you ask for 170K minimum. Even then, you should make plans to leave within a few years.
?! ?!
A family of 4 in the bay area with household income at $105350 is low income (http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/04/22/in-costly-bay-area-eve...). At 150K you'll be living in rented accommodations with $3K - $3500 in rent per month.
If you consider that your wife will start working, please be aware that daycare starts at about $1.5K++ per month (it might be advantageous for your wife to be a stay at home mom below a certain salary level).
I would recommend targeting a 200K+ total household income for this to work for you.
Source: recent comps from redfin.
Note to OP at the prices divyekapoor mentioned for rentals, you likely won't be in a house in a good school district, you'll be in an apartment. Or in a house or apartment in a bad school district. Alarmingly, even the options that you can't afford will still seem not good enough. Depressing, I know. If your Priuses are the plug-in type and you want to take advantage of that, your selection is further narrowed.
Other than that I agree with the above.. my comments are just tweaks.
From what I hear in online communities, SV sounds extremely anti-family. Companies that can hire new grads that will conveniently work overtime for pizza and beer will not really value a 9-5 family man like yourself. Add to that the stress and time-sink of long commutes, and that's all time that you could be spending with your young family.
That said, commute is a killer.
E.g. you're taking home 90k after taxes, minus 50k for housing, that leaves 40k for you + wife + kid. Yes, you're not going to be starving, but you won't be living large either.
Can you consider a remote gig with a SV company? You would stay in Ohio, get a big bump to your current income stream, the wife and kids would not have to move anywhere etc. You'll just have to fly into to the Bay once in a while to spend time with the team, otherwise you'll be fine.
It just seems like recently, the move is toward in-office employment with little to no work from home. I've talked to a handful of companies I'd love to work with, but I'd be willing to bet that they would all balk at remote employment.
Before I say anything else, one of the major benefits of both NYC and the Bay Area is that you have a lot of opportunites to climb the career ladder. If that's what you want, you'll have a lot of opportunity to increase your salary beyond the range you've stated.
For that salary range I wouldn't recommend the greater NYC area unless there is a significant bonus and you know you'll get it. Housing becomes cheaper once you get away from NYC. But home prices are still high and property taxes are shocking in New Jersey, varying widely from town to town. At one point I was evaluating NYC/NJ vs the Bay Area, and concluded the property taxes and various fees (e.g. HOA) made NJ almost as unappealing as the Bay Area. The housing stock isn't great either.
Everybody says NJ has decent public transit to NYC. That's only if you can afford a home near a NJ Transit or PATH stop and your office is near a train station on the same line. Otherwise you might be driving to an NJ Transit station (and pay $100/month+ for parking), NJ Transit to Path Train/NYC MTA, then walk. Plus, all those are very crowded at peak times. Somebody I worked with had car->bus->train->train to get to work.
In NYC it's easy to get trapped in cycle of climbing the job ladder (maybe taking jobs you hate) just so you can feel like you can accumulate savings and an emergency fund. I was amazed by how many tech people I met who worked in banking who hated their jobs and worked way more than they wanted to because of the pay and a desire to stay in the NYC area.
Where I am now there are far fewer tech jobs than NYC, and a lot of the jobs are in companies that aren't as fancy sounding as what you'd see in NYC. I moved to a job with a bit of travel, so I didn't take too much of a pay cut. Some days I wonder if I made the right choice, but I don't worry about my savings getting destroyed by rent/mortgage+taxes during a job loss.
Expect to pay $3k-ish in the cheapest areas in the peninsula for an older 2 bedroom apartment. Now take all your expenses (eating out, gym, etc) and multiply by 2-3. Oh, and food is at least twice as expensive as in the Midwest (reference: when I fly home to see parents, I occasionally grocery shop for them.) My grocery bill is $700-$800/mo for 2 adults, plus $300/mo of munchery. (That said, I lift hard so I eat a lot of food. Still.)
I really need to emphasize that $3k is for a crappy apartment thrown up in the 80s for bottom dollar.
For comparison, friends rent a (small, crappy) detached 2 bedroom house with a 20x20 ft yard in Mountain View for $4700/mo.
If you want to be in eg Palo Alto Unified, expect to pay $5k-ish for a 3 bedroom. Also, a friend who moved here with a freshman daughter said she hates the school and hates how competitive all the students are.
Sales tax is 9% btw. And don't forget our high state income taxes.
And if you ever managed to buy a home (which you won't be able to do), you'll spend near $1m and pay roughly $1-$1.2k/mo in property taxes. For forever. That makes saving enough money to retire extremely hard.
btw I help manage apartments here; leave your email below if you have questions and I'm happy to answer anything directly.
Also, you should look into Cost of Living calculators. They will take into account your new salary, cost of living (rent, food, gas, etc.) compared to your current salary. http://www.bestplaces.net/cost-of-living/
Smaller living space and more traffic are two downsides to the Bay Area. The weather is probably nicer, though, so any outdoor living space can be more utilized.
Personally, I have allergies. That would also be a consideration when moving. Can you take a few weeks trip out with everyone to see if there are any problems (or if existing problems go away)?
The biggest thing you might want to consider that you may not be thinking about is the lifestyle difference. The weather is mild year-long here, which means not having to deal with Ohio winters. If you like outdoorsey stuff, hiking/camping/etc are huge here, and it's a day's drive to ski resorts. You'll need to own a car here, but depending on where you live you may be able to take public transport to work, and towns are very biking-accessible.
The weather does sound really nice, and we own our two Priuses outright. It's sounding really unaffordable though.
You could consider living somewhere like Berkeley, which is a short (and direct) 20 minute BART ride into S.F. (if you don't have a remote or local job).
I'd push hard to get your salary up to ~$165k/year as a senior-level (totally doable).
After taxes and whatever you throw down for partial Health Care payments through your job, you can target around $9k/month in your pocket.
1) About 1/3 of your income can go to housing. You can rent a small home in Berkeley (very nice areas) for $3k to $3.5k/month [1][2] The market is just now starting to open back up, so it'll only get better.
2) About 1/3 of your income can go to bill's, groceries, car payments, BART tickets, etc... (~2.5k to 3k)
3) Last 1/3 of your income (~3k) can go directly into your savings account.
It's doable, in very nice areas, with a high quality of life.
That said...
...it all depends on what your personal definition of "high quality of life" is.
Top rated public schools (9/10 & 10/10 rated), great weather year around, hiking, biking, sailing, surfing, beaches, skiing, fishing, local farmers markets (supplied by actual local farms from the central valley), amazing & unique local Grocery markets [3], stellar independent eateries [4], etc... all out your back door, most of it walkable [5], most of it bike friendly [6], and/or very close by.
Big, spacious, modern house with lot's of acreage. Nope.
[1] https://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/eby/hhh?nh=49&min_price=...
[2] https://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/sub/d/beautiful-and-serene-...
[3] https://www.yelp.com/biz/monterey-market-berkeley
[4] https://www.yelp.com/biz/gourmet-ghetto-berkeley
[5] https://www.cityofberkeley.info/bicyclingandwalkingguides/
[6] http://www.berkeleyside.com/2017/07/11/berkeley-gets-first-b...
I make that working remotely from Michigan for a company on the east coast. Costs and stress in SF will likely be substantial. I know, I went to college in the bay area.
> Renting seems in the $3K+ range for a two bedroom
Thats like half your monthly paycheck, no? Doesnt sound safe.
Unless your wife also got an offer making a comparable amount there is no way it would be worth it. I say this as someone that loves visiting Northern CA.
You should switch to remote and leverage your skills to make at least 120k. Enjoy the good life in the Midwest and travel.
Even with a developer salary I'm not able to save anything. Housing + childcare/preschool eats everything up. In a few years when the kids are in public k it's possible that I'll have some financial leeway again.
Spending few years here is worth it because this was a career change and I'm able to learn a ton in the bay area. But unless my salary increases dramatically in a few years, I'll likely move to another area.
For you, I'd wait until you have a few offers in hand, then calculate out how much it would cost for you to live here.
No matter how I sliced it, I was looking at least a few of the following:
* Quadrupling our mortgage
* Picking up a 30-60 minute commute
* Sending my kids to either expensive private schools or terrible public ones
Good luck, pal! I hope you make the right choice.
And since your daughter is young you can afford to spend a few years finding the right place. Like I said, commuting sucks. If you pick an SF startup but you are in San Jose, expect a 1hr minimum train ride each way that will be very crowded. Traffic is also bad. Some places have rent control which is nice.
Really think hard on startups you think will be acquired or IPO. You really need the lottery ticket of options to be able to fund a downpayment in the housing lottery. It's almost impossible to pick the right early stage startup.. YC is a good filter but also go find the ones with the super smart people. The type that succeed no matter what. Or find a startup with veteran or ex-industry types. This is where networking in crucial.
It will be a shock. Then again the Bay area is beautiful with great things to do but my guess is you'll be working all the time!!! :)
There's no way I would stay in SF if I had children. Maybe south bay, but even then you're still looking at spending $4k / month on a 3 bedroom house.
Just the difference in your housing costs (about 30k after taxes) wipe out your salary increase. On top of that it sounds like you'd be losing a 2nd income as well by moving so it looks like a net loss. On top of that other things in the area are going to be some what more costly.
That said, there are other options. Look at WeWorkRemotely.com and RemoteOk.io for remote jobs. Get a good job, work remotely and have a good quality of life.
I almost went down the SF/SV route many times. Each time I ran the pros/cons and SF/SV has the worse return on life value for a family, IMO than almost anywhere. I've worked remotely for nearly 9 years and love this life. No commuting. Just my .02.
Under your circumstances, it's a No-Go for sure. Plus you'll end up dealing with all the rudeness and competitiveness in Bay Area. That alone should keep you away from the Bay. Then traffic, prices, etc. Long timers are actually looking to get out of the Bay, snapping larger homes and a better quality of life somewhere else.
There are families of 6 that live in illegal 1-car garage units on the peninsula who pay >$1k a month for the privilege. If you think that's crazy (I do) then you have to come up with less-crazy alternatives.
If you want to try hacking it in the bay, recommend you go for an extreme commute from a place like Antioch or Manteca. You can get otherwise-sane deals on housing if you're willing to sacrifice an extra hour's drive each way. Your little ones can have a yard and their own rooms while you slog it out on some of America's most miserable interstates.
Also kinda crazy, but totally worth considering, move to Las Vegas and commute via air. Cheap one hour flight each way, low cost of living.
As you "season" in the bay, you may be offered more and more money as you take on new positions. Eventually even buying a $1+ million house that checks all the usual boxes will become possible. It takes years for this to happen, but you may find as your career grows, uprooting the family every year to move 10 minutes closer to work can make things better.
In addition to the increase in money not being enough to buy you an equivalent quality of life you will be living in a completely different culture. This will wear on not only you but your wife. You really don't want to be turning your life upside down and ditching your connections/support network at this point in your life.
SV, NYC, and similar are places where you go to make money. They are not places you go to settle down.
No one mentions the upside of living in the Bay Area: 1. My pay doubled as the stock market reached new highs in 3 years 2. My wife got a job in the 120K range 3. We sold our home and made 200K profit from it
In 3 years, we secured an extremely comfortable life, with money in the bank, great experience, in a booming job market, a large house and with all the amenities of living in the Bay Area.
If I am in your position, I would think where I would be in 3-5 years time.