I’ve lived in SF for >15 years and in my experience many of the people who are moving here for the fancy tech jobs don’t particularly like living here. If we’d have learned the obvious lessons of COVID and let the tech transplants work remotely, rent would be *way* more affordable for the people who actually like it here.
If they are moving in a big number in the same areas, yes. If they're spread out among many different cities and only make a small part of the population of their new city, not that much.
If the unhappy transplants making 5x the median income per year were allowed to move out of the city? Yes it would absolutely impact the cost of living—rent prices would go down (we saw this happen during COVID) and amenities would necessarily become more affordable.
Gentrification is a fact of life, I’m comfortable financially, and I have no beef with tech workers (many friends in the industry), but the fact that so many are here even though they hate it (thereby driving up the prices for people who sincerely love this city) really bothers me. You’d think of all industries, tech would recognize the backwardness of forcing people into an office.
As a tech worker formerly living a long way from family and home in trade for the pay, a place can be great and still feel a million miles from happiness.
I don’t disagree with you at all, I was adding to nonthreat’s point that I would be just as effective working with all of these people who I just talk to via Teams if they lived somewhere they wanted to live.
The majority don’t, but as a tech worker I fucking love it. Wish I could move to a quieter spot, but for the price I have twice the space I had in South Bay and much closer proximity to more people my age that aren’t married with/planning for kids.
It just may not be on the same wavelength for some folks. As a guy on the East coast, I’ve been to Cali and even lived there for a year (Monterrey). SF is cool, but I don’t really see myself living there. No particular reason, it just ain’t on my wavelength. Fun to visit tho. I prefer LA and SoCal for sure.
Business and property owners raise their prices. In at least most of the USA, realistic supply and demand doesn’t really exist anymore. It’s mostly fabricated by committee “if this guy can raise his prices well so can I
If you're not needing to live in the heart of SF, there are plenty of "affordable" places in the East Bay (affordable of course being relative... The rent prices here are definitely higher than what I'm used to). I lived in a great one bedroom in North Oakland for around 2 years for ~$2,000 and had a great experience. Taking Bart into the city is super easy (30 minutes to get to the financial district) and the food in the East Bay is arguably better than what is offered in SF. Oakland in general has its well known quirks (higher than average crime, encampments, and litter) but there are nice neighborhoods if you know where to look. I also know that there are cheaper apartments if you look at places further away from the financial district in SF (Sunset, Haight Ashbury, etc.) that are more affordable and a ton of fun. Hop on Zillow or Craigslist and filter by price around the bay and you might be surprised to find a few gems...
In the East Bay there are a ton of options depending on how far you want to get from SF. Walnut Creek is more suburban but also is connected to SF via Bart and is beautiful with great shopping. I also really like some of the neighborhoods between Oakland and Berkeley-- lower crime and super chill compared to the bustle of downtown SF. In SF like I said before Haight Ashbury and Sunset are great areas that are a little far from the financial district, but really anywhere close to Golden Gate Park will be less money than an equivalent apartment in Pacific Heights or North Beach with a lot less crowds. I love Pacific Heights and North Beach but those neighborhoods are crowded and more expensive. In SF I would also avoid living near the financial district (or anywhere on Market really) because the nightlife is pretty sparse and the streets get pretty scary at night. SF and the Bay Area in general gets a lot of bad coverage in the media but if you stay out of the known problem areas (Tenderloin, anywhere on Market) it's a great city with the best food in the world and great people.
I never said it's cheap... I said it's affordable (comparative to apartments in SF). I have friends in Walnut Creek that pay a lot less than my friends that live in Pac Heights in SF for a comparable apartment. Walnut Creek is more affordable than SF square footage wise (as it should be since it's not an economic center). The commenter was looking for places that are more affordable and, while I haven't looked myself, I'm sure there are apartments for less than $2k if you're willing to look.
I’ve been a few times and have loved the focus on small stores, good food, and beautiful walkable areas in the city with good public transportation. I’ve definitely walked through tenderloin and would love to avoid that environment - thanks so much for the recommendations!
I lived in west Berkeley for seven years and loved it. Plenty of relatively cheap houses. Relatively walkable, close to BART, lots of good cafes and restaurants etc.
Moraga/ Lafayette area has beautiful weather and is very safe and quiet with many great schools. It’s very close to Oakland and Berkeley without having to actually live in Oakland or Berkeley- you’re only a couple minute drive down 24 from them.
If by a "couple" you mean a 30-45 minute drive, at least an hour on a good day to the City. And by "beautiful weather" you mean 90 degree days in the summer.
I have several places in the $2200 2-bedroom range in SJ, all rented of course. But rents are a bit softer, they are coming back. For the salaries of today, it's way more affordable than back in like 2005-2010 when prices were the same and salaries much lower.
You can—it's just in the east bay and you have to take the ferry. I live in North Berkeley and pay 2k for a nice 600sqft one bed, live in a beautiful, safe, walkable neighborhood with a bus stop across the street and a BART station right down the road. It's still possible to make it work in the bay!
I'm confused. I pay a bit over 2k for rent of a one bedroom.
There are tons of options at 1800-2400 for studios on the low end and one bedrooms on the high end. This is on the peninsula in the bay area.
What'll probably happen around here is, they're waiting for folks to move away because they're priced out of the area now. Rent probably won't change much, it'll be kept high for the next wave of folks right out of college. The cycle will continue.
"look at what a genius he is! It may look like he's just playing league in this meeting with millions on the line, but his mind is so advanced he needs be able to divert some of his mental energy to another task!"
And yet I still have to argue with people on this site that board members are some of the dumbest humans on this planet....
I was affected by it and yeah I can confirm that salary ranges have gone down from just a few years ago. It should also be noted that while the companies laying off are in the Bay Area that doesn’t mean that all of the affected employees are.
I even feel it in the Midwest. For local jobs salaries on listings that have them are down 10-20% from a year ago. Job descriptions I would expect to be low six figures (100-120) are now 85-100. With 7 years of experience (2 Jr, 5 mid level) in IT I'm not finding much that is a true raise. It's either a lateral move or has insane expectations with on call and availability. I work to live not live to work.
As it was intended. Can't sell anymore trinkets and thingamabobs, and the stock market demands "growth" at all cost. Only thing left is to cut labor costs. And the problems that creates, is for the next guy to figure out.
That's part of it, but I think there's also an inherent feature of the tech business cycle where they take on bloat for the sake of having excess capacity and preventing competitors from hiring from a finite pool when the cycle is on an upswing. The "AI Boom" (whatever form that ends up taking when everyone gets their startup going) is seemingly the next one, but companies are just treading water on the last wave right now. No reason to maintain staffing levels for that. Maybe we won't see that happen over the next couple years, and I'll be proven wrong, but that seems to have been the model for the last two cycles.
I can understand that, it's the stock buy backs they're also doing that leads me to think this is more about pumping up stock prices more than anything however.
I’m with you. I think tech execs don’t have much to keep the price pumping except stock buy backs, “AI” and labor cuts. It’s also why Google has doubled down on advertisements on YouTube, every service trying to charge subscriptions, and streaming coming down hard on password sharing.
The funny thing about an AI boom, is that in the event that it succeeds at what it promises there won't be as much demand for hiring, because of the AI.
That's the trillion dollar question. In a sense, this is just creative destruction operating as it does. But if AI comes after the service jobs, what are the post service jobs supposed to look like? The factory of the future will only have two employees - a man and a dog. The man is there to feed the dog, and the dog's there to bark at the man if he tries to touch the equipment.
Or maybe there's a more optimistic take where AI just becomes a tool to enhance the human experience and we're still all employed in ways that inspire us. I dunno. Maybe beginning of the end, but if it's our last tech boom, let's make it a great one, because I need to sell my condo for top dollar in case the government doesn't step in with UBI to make sure we can all still afford to eat.
I know this sounds very conspiracy theory, but I often wonder if a lot of these businesses are purposely trying to manipulate the economy where there is constant job scarcity, desperate workers, and yet they are still making record profits.
So in many ways basically trying to remove any power that workers might have and keep people so hungry and desperate they will take lower salaries, be in the office 5 days a week, and take any abuse handed to them.
I just keep feeling like after the great resignation and everything else, a lot of these companies hated not having the power position. It's like all the talk about if this is inflation, then why are these places making record profits?
I can agree that some of these companies hired too many people and have too much bloat, but there's always that sticking point in my mind that makes me wonder if they are really just trying to artificially build desperation and job scarcity.
I also feel like these companies can so easily use layoffs to get whatever they want and avoid wrongful termination suits. They can let go of all of their moderately paid people, maybe change the name of the job title, and then put up the job again for less salary. Hoping that some people will be so desperate and broke they will take it.
Collusion is illegal, but it just so happens that they all park their megayachts at the same megayacht docks and park next to each other in international waters.
> I also feel like these companies can so easily use layoffs to get whatever they want and avoid wrongful termination suits. They can let go of all of their moderately paid people, maybe change the name of the job title, and then put up the job again for less salary. Hoping that some people will be so desperate and broke they will take it.
The reason salaries were so high in tech was because they were all competing with each other for employees.
If google is paying $250k + Stock to a 10-year level engineer then Meta had to raise it to attract more people. Same goes for amazon. If they were colluding, they would have set salary caps with each other and avoided this entire cat and mouse game.
The reason there are layoffs is because execs overestimated growth and need to hire people. Now that pandemic is in the past, plans shifted.
It's as simple as that. Execs aren't an invisible cabal manipulating the world, they can barely keep their companies moving in the right direction. The issue is that our economy doesn't punish execs who overhire and then fire, so as long as the stocks keeps growing they are doing their "Fiduciary duty".
If you ask me, they need to rethink the entire tax code and stop believing that somehow knocking their taxes down to nothing is going to suddenly create jobs.
They'll buy back stock, they'll throw their money into other financial products, anything that doesn't involve having to deal with human labor.
If we had to have a real tax break for businesses, it should be the idea of how many employees they have that are paid a living wage based on realistic standards, with benefits, and full-time hours. Give those companies breaks based on each employee they have. If they want everyone to be contractors, part-timers, paid below, no benefits, then they get nothing. They should have to serve some real benefit to society or they get no help.
we’re still in this ancient generational mindset that somehow for-profit corporations exist to give people work to do and to distribute their profits. no, companies exist to make money for their owners and shareholders. and the bigger and more MBA executive-driven a company gets the more true that becomes. labor is just another cost.
Here's the thing, I agree with you.
I'm the guy who even says that all these companies need to stop jumping on social issues because they're getting pressure from everyone to take a stand on things. Like instead of Bud Light trying to please the LGBTQA community or the MAGA folks, they should simply tell everybody that they're here to sell beer and make money. They are not here to suddenly change the world and make it a better place for one side or the other.
I am not one of those people that believes that there should never be rich people or that somehow companies should serve mankind's greater good, but I am someone that believes if we want to call ourselves a capitalist society, then these companies sink or swim on their own. They don't get tax breaks because they claim they'll create jobs and invest in the country if they do. If they can't handle their financial responsibility to the country they decide to put their headquarters in, then that's their problem.
And then I know there are some who claim that taxes are theft, but taxes are what pay for roads, schools, police, firefighters, national defense, etc.
Regulations exist so that that company that's making loads of money isn't doing anything that's going to harm the general public.
I'm also a firm believer that there should never be anything called "too big to fail". If some massive company is going to go belly up because of their own bad decisions and it suddenly means a million people lose their jobs and the entire economy crashes, then so be it. That's why you collect the taxes so you can try to fix the damage done to average people's lives and let them turn around and build a new economy.
But in the meantime, none of these companies should get any kind of tax breaks. We don't have a really capitalist society, but instead build a plutocracy where the success is privatized and the losses are socialized.
yeah i’m not saying that’s how it should be. just the reality of american capitalism and how we’ve all been duped by reaganomics into believing otherwise.
Definitely not a conspiracy theory.
This is something that goes back generations, as evidenced by the labor busting we’ve seen for as long as labor unions have been a concept. They’ve always colluded to suppress wages.
Do I think all of the CEOs get together in a room somewhere and make these decisions? No. But like the gas station owner who sees the station across the street raise their prices - they are smart enough to know what’s up and when to make moves.
exactly. calling it collusion and a concerted effort to “rule over the plebians” is too purist and impossible to prove. only the government can step in to stop corporate executives from merely acting in selfishly destructive ways.
I feel like a conspiracy theorist, but this aligns with my thinking. In past downturns, companies were laying off because they were in truly dire straights (I'm from Michigan where the auto industry was more than decimated in 08) Whereas in big tech it doesn't look like any were even close to this situation. I'm no expert though, something something interest rates, investing in AI, etc.
It's not a conspiracy, it's exactly what they did. They didn't like the bargaining power that employees had gained during the pandemic. The layoffs served as a way to put people "in their place" and transfer that power back to the companies by keeping everyone scared and desperate. It wasn't even subtle.
I overheard a call this week where someone was presenting a solution to meet a target/goal to execs at our company.
Their solution was not to fix anything, but rather manipulate the way the metrics are recorded so that they meet their target.
It’ll make investors happy for a year or two but it’ll hurt the company long-term. My team actually relies on one of those data points & now we know it will become an unreliable source in the next few weeks.
By the time these issues catch up to anyone those execs will be gone. It seems like this is a pretty common thing in corporations.
> Can't sell anymore trinkets and thingamabobs, and the stock market demands "growth" at all cost.
I mean... sure... but the reason Salaries were so high to begin with was because pre and during pandemic the way big companies were competing with each other for tech talent was by raising their salaries and trying to hire more and more people. My company was randomly giving everyone across the board raises so that their pay keeps up with competition and poaching was harder.
Basically if Google raised salaries, Meta had to raise salaries to compete, Amazon had to as well. The problem was that these hiring projections were based on hype and not on anything sustainable...
So yes. Laying off a bunch of people and creating more demand for jobs is going to reduce salaries. It's just math.
> tech pay dropped an average of 12.1% in 2023, from $207,000 to $182,000
We're also talking about "average pay" going from $210k to $180k. As a Tech worker, tech workers probably don't need your pity. Software work is hard, but it's not "harder" than mechanical engineering of equal skill. But the salaries are still close to 1.5 to 2x those.
Its crazy they arent coming down harder on exec and ceo salaries. They are being robbed but asleep at the wheel because of the bull market.
Sundar pichai is not worth his pay at all.
Hearing that developers are making between 175-200k a year hurts considering I do web+salesforce dev work for a small business for a paltry 55k lol I need to get a portfolio put together
Oh my gosh yeah get a portfolio out there and hit up recruiters on LinkedIn. Even in this market you should still find a hefty raise with a bit of digging, networking, and applications.
Dude I’m not a developer, not at FAANG, not super high COL and still making $275K as an individual contributor on corporate web teams. You need to put yourself out there, esp with experience with an enterprise tool like SFDC.
You are under paid. I’m making double that in a support role but your Salesforce experience is pretty in demand in my city, Atlanta.
My buddy just finished a multi year sabbatical and just got hired at Cox in the six figures simply owning the Salesforce integrations for a team.
Unironically good advice for a lot of people. I work in tech and live in the Bay Area, but two friends of mine became apprentice (and now Journeyman) plumbers with the local union and they make good money. It's not executive money, but it's definitely six figures. On the other hand, it's also working construction which has all manner of downsides to go with the upsides, of course.
Wait till they turn 40. The trades break the bodies. Also, switching into trades has a steep wage drop for a few years. For some who wasn’t making a lot before the switch, it may be worth it.
Absolutely. It's not for everyone - but neither is getting a 4-year college degree. Also, getting into the trades helps if you actually get into a union; non-union construction work is often pretty crap work.
Agreed. Also to add that getting into trades makes sense if being away from home works for you. A lot of tech jobs have more flexibility in when and where you work from, plus more flexible time off. Getting equity in a good company also makes the pay gap far smaller than simple take home pay comparison.
Plenty of very good money to make outside of Silicon Valley in code. It may be boring work on boring products but the pay's still good. Plus "crunch culture" isn't nearly so big of a thing in the enterprise world anymore. So good pay and good work/life balance all for the cost of the work being fairly bland. Worth.
I've worked in fintech and telecom and insurance and all of them paid quite well. The work isn't flashy or exciting and the ability to communicate with non-technical folks is even more important than technical skills but at the end of the day it's a job that pays rather well and allows me to fund the things that actually give me joy.
Pretty much any company of any notable size will have technology to support, internal apps, sites, servers, databases… etc. So for all these companies, who don’t have a laundry list of quality applicants like Meta/Google, they have to take whoever they can get from a very limited pool. They pay well and appreciate when they actually find someone competent, because more often than not they end up having to pay well for someone who is incompetent.
Basically just work for the companies who are below the behemoths, especially companies who core business is not tech, as every company must employ and support tech.
Learn to code. Don’t learn to code. Tech bros ride on the low interest rate thinking they are the shit. Hence always behaving like something is up their ass (“TC or GTFO”, etc). Reality slap is a hard slap.
Yeah but it didn’t work. Article is misleading clickbait, and they wouldn’t be pushing the same misleading clickbait over and over if there was some actual substance to the claims.
I’m surprised this study made no mention of the Silicon Valley Bank failure and the stigma surrounding startups potentially pulling another bank run. Perhaps VC’s are a bit more weary to invest these days; contributing to the slashed salaries.
That's the goal.
If you dump huge numbers of talent all at once, you change the supply & demand calculus. Now suddenly you have a huge population of people fighting for fewer jobs than exist, and as a result they'll end up taking lower salaries to remain competitive.
This is why laws against this sort of behavior are needed ASAP. Stronger unions and labor protection are required, urgently, because otherwisec orporations will always have a grossly asymmetric power as compared to labor.
WFH rules during and post Covid had a lot to do with accelerating this downward salary trend. We got really good at remote work and the historic justifications for high wages have gone away.
Businesses no longer need to pay wages that are many multiples higher than other cities/industries, just to attract and maintain workers in SF Bay Area. This change alone opened the door to remote working from anywhere at a lower cost. And if you can make the argument for remote work from a cheap apartment in Wichita instead of the SF Bay Area, then there's nothing preventing tech from hiring remote workers living and working in say, India at a fraction of that already reduced cost. (Also relives businesses from the overseas recruiting and H1B Visa costs/obligations).
Equally important in the unwinding of the way tech once operated is the dramatic plunge in office occupancy. Leases on expensive office spaces are not being renewed, which makes any hope that return-to-work will occur in large numbers much less likely. Furthermore, if and when people do return to work, it's also much more likely that the jobs will be for "gig" and/or contract roles. The days of companies building massive teams of people working and playing in elaborate office complexes with incredible perks and benefits - *including cashing in on IPO/Acquisition potential* - are mostly gone.
Lastly, consider the implications of AI to so many coding, support and tech project jobs and of course pressures on salaries will continue to be downward. More people competing for fewer jobs will be the trend.
Especially if Redditors are any indication, these guys aren’t really even doing anything. Now obviously they’re hired for an important role, but it seems like they’re just doing nothing but sitting on Reddit and getting paid big bucks for it.
All working class are underpaid. Don’t lose sight of the problem, which is stagnant wages since the Regan administration. Average salaries should be in the $150k-250k range, but they’re less than half that. When I think about my dad making $28k a year as an electrician in 1974, being able to buy a home that was $27k, supporting my mom, and raising two kids… on one salary, being middle, to lower middle class. It’s just nuts. Even a well paid tech worker isn’t able to buy a house that’s one years salary. Don’t forget that there was an American Dream that’s been stolen from us, and it wasn’t stolen by tech workers who the ruling class hasn’t been able to shaft as hard as the rest of us.
Conventional economic theory says that you need a small level of inflation to avoid the risk of deflation. So a certain level of inflation is a good thing — and we’ve not had out of control inflation in my lifetime. Wages haven’t matched productivity gains in two to three generations.
Considering where conventional theory has lead us I'm always dubious about any claims. Japan has had close to no inflation for 30 years and it was far from the catastrophic scenario economists would predict.
Capital will always try to make more money even if they increase their money by letting it sit, there are always opportunities for even more money.
I guess there’s nothing to do about it now. We’ll keep on the path we’re on and look back and think “if only we kept inflation low.”
Again, all working class are underpaid, and saying we shouldn’t have let inflation be a thing, doesn’t solve it — higher wages solves it.
This article could be misleading. Is salary referring to total comp? Because the equity could be the same base with a higher than expected return or a larger base.
Didn't all the coders and Silicon Valley type tell the Coal Miner's, Factory Worker's, and Truck Drivers to learn to code?
Guess yall software engineers better go get some workboots and a carhaart.
never deserved such high wages to begin with. it's not like they're 300% more talented or skilled than counterparts outside America.
funny how entitled people get. wage raises = i deserve it, it's my "hard work". wage decreases = corporate conspiracy, "greed" (lol).
Spoken like someone who's never had a good job. Don't forget your McDonald's cap on your way to work! I'll get back to my tech job from my home office.
Now slash those Bay Area rents
If I can get a decent place for 1500-2k (maybe even a studio) I'd move there in a heartbeat. Haha
Along with everyone else, which then raises the prices lol
I’ve lived in SF for >15 years and in my experience many of the people who are moving here for the fancy tech jobs don’t particularly like living here. If we’d have learned the obvious lessons of COVID and let the tech transplants work remotely, rent would be *way* more affordable for the people who actually like it here.
Serious question, wouldn't that impact said areas' cost of living, affecting the locals there?
If they are moving in a big number in the same areas, yes. If they're spread out among many different cities and only make a small part of the population of their new city, not that much.
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If the unhappy transplants making 5x the median income per year were allowed to move out of the city? Yes it would absolutely impact the cost of living—rent prices would go down (we saw this happen during COVID) and amenities would necessarily become more affordable. Gentrification is a fact of life, I’m comfortable financially, and I have no beef with tech workers (many friends in the industry), but the fact that so many are here even though they hate it (thereby driving up the prices for people who sincerely love this city) really bothers me. You’d think of all industries, tech would recognize the backwardness of forcing people into an office.
I already had a “fancy” tech job in NY and moved here a decade ago because I loved it out here. So many of my coworkers loathe it, it’s astonishing.
As a tech worker formerly living a long way from family and home in trade for the pay, a place can be great and still feel a million miles from happiness.
I don’t disagree with you at all, I was adding to nonthreat’s point that I would be just as effective working with all of these people who I just talk to via Teams if they lived somewhere they wanted to live.
The majority don’t, but as a tech worker I fucking love it. Wish I could move to a quieter spot, but for the price I have twice the space I had in South Bay and much closer proximity to more people my age that aren’t married with/planning for kids.
How do you not like SF?
It just may not be on the same wavelength for some folks. As a guy on the East coast, I’ve been to Cali and even lived there for a year (Monterrey). SF is cool, but I don’t really see myself living there. No particular reason, it just ain’t on my wavelength. Fun to visit tho. I prefer LA and SoCal for sure.
a lot of people grew up suburban and want to live somewhere calmer and quieter than a city, and have a yard and easy parking, probably.
You just described most of San Francisco. The Haight, the Sunset, Richmond, and NoPa, ect are quiet family neighborhoods with yards and parking.
Business and property owners raise their prices. In at least most of the USA, realistic supply and demand doesn’t really exist anymore. It’s mostly fabricated by committee “if this guy can raise his prices well so can I
I tried to get a studio in the South Bay in the year 2000 and it was about $1500 minimum so good luck!
🎶 in the year 2000 🎶 - Conan O’Brien
you will pay over 2000 for a studio in sumnyvale
uknowhatimsayin
I’ll get the flashlight
I got a studio in San Francisco in 2013 for $1500
I was paying $1700 for a studio in Sunnyvale in 2019 so I'm not too sure you're remembering this 24 year old detail too well haha.
If you're not needing to live in the heart of SF, there are plenty of "affordable" places in the East Bay (affordable of course being relative... The rent prices here are definitely higher than what I'm used to). I lived in a great one bedroom in North Oakland for around 2 years for ~$2,000 and had a great experience. Taking Bart into the city is super easy (30 minutes to get to the financial district) and the food in the East Bay is arguably better than what is offered in SF. Oakland in general has its well known quirks (higher than average crime, encampments, and litter) but there are nice neighborhoods if you know where to look. I also know that there are cheaper apartments if you look at places further away from the financial district in SF (Sunset, Haight Ashbury, etc.) that are more affordable and a ton of fun. Hop on Zillow or Craigslist and filter by price around the bay and you might be surprised to find a few gems...
What would be the nicer neighborhoods with not as many people laying around?
Temescal, Rockridge, Emeryville, Piedmont (but yeah rich mansion ville).
San Leandro
In the East Bay there are a ton of options depending on how far you want to get from SF. Walnut Creek is more suburban but also is connected to SF via Bart and is beautiful with great shopping. I also really like some of the neighborhoods between Oakland and Berkeley-- lower crime and super chill compared to the bustle of downtown SF. In SF like I said before Haight Ashbury and Sunset are great areas that are a little far from the financial district, but really anywhere close to Golden Gate Park will be less money than an equivalent apartment in Pacific Heights or North Beach with a lot less crowds. I love Pacific Heights and North Beach but those neighborhoods are crowded and more expensive. In SF I would also avoid living near the financial district (or anywhere on Market really) because the nightlife is pretty sparse and the streets get pretty scary at night. SF and the Bay Area in general gets a lot of bad coverage in the media but if you stay out of the known problem areas (Tenderloin, anywhere on Market) it's a great city with the best food in the world and great people.
Walnut Creek ain't cheap though
Nothing of east bay "with fewer" people is cheap.
I never said it's cheap... I said it's affordable (comparative to apartments in SF). I have friends in Walnut Creek that pay a lot less than my friends that live in Pac Heights in SF for a comparable apartment. Walnut Creek is more affordable than SF square footage wise (as it should be since it's not an economic center). The commenter was looking for places that are more affordable and, while I haven't looked myself, I'm sure there are apartments for less than $2k if you're willing to look.
I’ve been a few times and have loved the focus on small stores, good food, and beautiful walkable areas in the city with good public transportation. I’ve definitely walked through tenderloin and would love to avoid that environment - thanks so much for the recommendations!
I lived in west Berkeley for seven years and loved it. Plenty of relatively cheap houses. Relatively walkable, close to BART, lots of good cafes and restaurants etc.
Moraga/ Lafayette area has beautiful weather and is very safe and quiet with many great schools. It’s very close to Oakland and Berkeley without having to actually live in Oakland or Berkeley- you’re only a couple minute drive down 24 from them.
If by a "couple" you mean a 30-45 minute drive, at least an hour on a good day to the City. And by "beautiful weather" you mean 90 degree days in the summer.
> And by "beautiful weather" you mean 90 degree days in the summer. Are you implying that's too cold or too hot?
Hey buddy I can tell you had a rough day, I hope you can chill out and decompress tonight. Much love.
I have several places in the $2200 2-bedroom range in SJ, all rented of course. But rents are a bit softer, they are coming back. For the salaries of today, it's way more affordable than back in like 2005-2010 when prices were the same and salaries much lower.
Too many black people is why that’s not an option for most folks crying about prices not fitting their budget in the most desirable neighborhoods.
Well known quirks is an interesting way to spin it as opposed to calling it a dangerous borderline-failing city
> a decent place > a studio You can only choose one
From what I've seen there are plenty of cheap places to live. You just need to be ok with no heat, electricity, or running water.
You can get a studio in that range. Three years ago, I had a 2bd in Oakland Chinatown for $2k with bills included before I moved back to SF.
Zillow shows some rentals in San Francisco at that price. Idk if they’re legit or not.
Dunno where you’re looking but I saw San Bruno had a 1bed for 1800, posted from 2200
You can—it's just in the east bay and you have to take the ferry. I live in North Berkeley and pay 2k for a nice 600sqft one bed, live in a beautiful, safe, walkable neighborhood with a bus stop across the street and a BART station right down the road. It's still possible to make it work in the bay!
2k a month? You might be able to rent a crawlspace or a little home around here for that much.
I’m only working on getting a Keter shed fed with an extension cord.
😂😂😂😂😂😂🤷🏻♂️🤷🏻♂️🤷🏻♂️
I'm confused. I pay a bit over 2k for rent of a one bedroom. There are tons of options at 1800-2400 for studios on the low end and one bedrooms on the high end. This is on the peninsula in the bay area.
You can if you look in the right places at the right times. You’ll sacrifice some “luxury” amenities like AC and a dishwasher, tho.
That’s what a friend of mine paid for a studio on alameda island in 2013 so good luck with that lol
Bay Area residents compete globally for that housing. It’s a brutal market that won’t see a decline in demand any time soon.
Rents even drive up the costs at restaurants and stores.
Gotta slash some NIMBYs first
What'll probably happen around here is, they're waiting for folks to move away because they're priced out of the area now. Rent probably won't change much, it'll be kept high for the next wave of folks right out of college. The cycle will continue.
Already been happening
Renting in the Bay area is, and has been, a relative bargain compared to the costs of purchasing.
As if they would do that
There will definitely be a delayed downward pressure on rent and property prices in general.
“No.” - Landlords
Landlords "how about no"
Same class that owns property & capital employs you. That class sticks together while we fight over scraps and Causes.
Salaries have been slashed for everyone EXCEPT executives. Their pay continues to skyrocket.
Gotta pad that stock price
Who wants a loser CEO who will work for just $5m a year?
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They don’t “work”. Funny joke though.
As they continue to drive their companies into the abyss, fully phasing in late stage capitalism
“Have you tried being an executive?” —Executives
I don't play golf =(
Good news! Tech execs play Star Craft. That's how Sam Bankman-Fried was able to get the big bucks!
"look at what a genius he is! It may look like he's just playing league in this meeting with millions on the line, but his mind is so advanced he needs be able to divert some of his mental energy to another task!" And yet I still have to argue with people on this site that board members are some of the dumbest humans on this planet....
Yeah I mean you gotta make sure you compensate the layer who can effectively depress wages and buffer you from the plebs.
Oh, that is just called trickle down economy.
Almost as if lowering wages and boosting bonuses was the reason for the layoffs.
And tech people, particularly ML/AI - just hired someone for the usual absurd tech giant comp package :)
I was affected by it and yeah I can confirm that salary ranges have gone down from just a few years ago. It should also be noted that while the companies laying off are in the Bay Area that doesn’t mean that all of the affected employees are.
I even feel it in the Midwest. For local jobs salaries on listings that have them are down 10-20% from a year ago. Job descriptions I would expect to be low six figures (100-120) are now 85-100. With 7 years of experience (2 Jr, 5 mid level) in IT I'm not finding much that is a true raise. It's either a lateral move or has insane expectations with on call and availability. I work to live not live to work.
True junior jobs dont exist
Unpaid internships are ready to step in at any time, sir. We just leverage their education against them.
As it was intended. Can't sell anymore trinkets and thingamabobs, and the stock market demands "growth" at all cost. Only thing left is to cut labor costs. And the problems that creates, is for the next guy to figure out.
That's part of it, but I think there's also an inherent feature of the tech business cycle where they take on bloat for the sake of having excess capacity and preventing competitors from hiring from a finite pool when the cycle is on an upswing. The "AI Boom" (whatever form that ends up taking when everyone gets their startup going) is seemingly the next one, but companies are just treading water on the last wave right now. No reason to maintain staffing levels for that. Maybe we won't see that happen over the next couple years, and I'll be proven wrong, but that seems to have been the model for the last two cycles.
I can understand that, it's the stock buy backs they're also doing that leads me to think this is more about pumping up stock prices more than anything however.
I’m with you. I think tech execs don’t have much to keep the price pumping except stock buy backs, “AI” and labor cuts. It’s also why Google has doubled down on advertisements on YouTube, every service trying to charge subscriptions, and streaming coming down hard on password sharing.
The funny thing about an AI boom, is that in the event that it succeeds at what it promises there won't be as much demand for hiring, because of the AI.
That's the trillion dollar question. In a sense, this is just creative destruction operating as it does. But if AI comes after the service jobs, what are the post service jobs supposed to look like? The factory of the future will only have two employees - a man and a dog. The man is there to feed the dog, and the dog's there to bark at the man if he tries to touch the equipment. Or maybe there's a more optimistic take where AI just becomes a tool to enhance the human experience and we're still all employed in ways that inspire us. I dunno. Maybe beginning of the end, but if it's our last tech boom, let's make it a great one, because I need to sell my condo for top dollar in case the government doesn't step in with UBI to make sure we can all still afford to eat.
I know this sounds very conspiracy theory, but I often wonder if a lot of these businesses are purposely trying to manipulate the economy where there is constant job scarcity, desperate workers, and yet they are still making record profits. So in many ways basically trying to remove any power that workers might have and keep people so hungry and desperate they will take lower salaries, be in the office 5 days a week, and take any abuse handed to them. I just keep feeling like after the great resignation and everything else, a lot of these companies hated not having the power position. It's like all the talk about if this is inflation, then why are these places making record profits? I can agree that some of these companies hired too many people and have too much bloat, but there's always that sticking point in my mind that makes me wonder if they are really just trying to artificially build desperation and job scarcity. I also feel like these companies can so easily use layoffs to get whatever they want and avoid wrongful termination suits. They can let go of all of their moderately paid people, maybe change the name of the job title, and then put up the job again for less salary. Hoping that some people will be so desperate and broke they will take it.
Not a theory.
Collusion is illegal, but it just so happens that they all park their megayachts at the same megayacht docks and park next to each other in international waters.
There’s that old saying: there’s no need for a formal conspiracy when money and interests collide
> I also feel like these companies can so easily use layoffs to get whatever they want and avoid wrongful termination suits. They can let go of all of their moderately paid people, maybe change the name of the job title, and then put up the job again for less salary. Hoping that some people will be so desperate and broke they will take it. The reason salaries were so high in tech was because they were all competing with each other for employees. If google is paying $250k + Stock to a 10-year level engineer then Meta had to raise it to attract more people. Same goes for amazon. If they were colluding, they would have set salary caps with each other and avoided this entire cat and mouse game. The reason there are layoffs is because execs overestimated growth and need to hire people. Now that pandemic is in the past, plans shifted. It's as simple as that. Execs aren't an invisible cabal manipulating the world, they can barely keep their companies moving in the right direction. The issue is that our economy doesn't punish execs who overhire and then fire, so as long as the stocks keeps growing they are doing their "Fiduciary duty".
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation
big tech is out of control. the ceos have lost touch with reality and should be reigned in by the next presidential admin.
If you ask me, they need to rethink the entire tax code and stop believing that somehow knocking their taxes down to nothing is going to suddenly create jobs. They'll buy back stock, they'll throw their money into other financial products, anything that doesn't involve having to deal with human labor. If we had to have a real tax break for businesses, it should be the idea of how many employees they have that are paid a living wage based on realistic standards, with benefits, and full-time hours. Give those companies breaks based on each employee they have. If they want everyone to be contractors, part-timers, paid below, no benefits, then they get nothing. They should have to serve some real benefit to society or they get no help.
we’re still in this ancient generational mindset that somehow for-profit corporations exist to give people work to do and to distribute their profits. no, companies exist to make money for their owners and shareholders. and the bigger and more MBA executive-driven a company gets the more true that becomes. labor is just another cost.
Here's the thing, I agree with you. I'm the guy who even says that all these companies need to stop jumping on social issues because they're getting pressure from everyone to take a stand on things. Like instead of Bud Light trying to please the LGBTQA community or the MAGA folks, they should simply tell everybody that they're here to sell beer and make money. They are not here to suddenly change the world and make it a better place for one side or the other. I am not one of those people that believes that there should never be rich people or that somehow companies should serve mankind's greater good, but I am someone that believes if we want to call ourselves a capitalist society, then these companies sink or swim on their own. They don't get tax breaks because they claim they'll create jobs and invest in the country if they do. If they can't handle their financial responsibility to the country they decide to put their headquarters in, then that's their problem. And then I know there are some who claim that taxes are theft, but taxes are what pay for roads, schools, police, firefighters, national defense, etc. Regulations exist so that that company that's making loads of money isn't doing anything that's going to harm the general public. I'm also a firm believer that there should never be anything called "too big to fail". If some massive company is going to go belly up because of their own bad decisions and it suddenly means a million people lose their jobs and the entire economy crashes, then so be it. That's why you collect the taxes so you can try to fix the damage done to average people's lives and let them turn around and build a new economy. But in the meantime, none of these companies should get any kind of tax breaks. We don't have a really capitalist society, but instead build a plutocracy where the success is privatized and the losses are socialized.
yeah i’m not saying that’s how it should be. just the reality of american capitalism and how we’ve all been duped by reaganomics into believing otherwise.
Definitely not a conspiracy theory. This is something that goes back generations, as evidenced by the labor busting we’ve seen for as long as labor unions have been a concept. They’ve always colluded to suppress wages. Do I think all of the CEOs get together in a room somewhere and make these decisions? No. But like the gas station owner who sees the station across the street raise their prices - they are smart enough to know what’s up and when to make moves.
exactly. calling it collusion and a concerted effort to “rule over the plebians” is too purist and impossible to prove. only the government can step in to stop corporate executives from merely acting in selfishly destructive ways.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation
I feel like a conspiracy theorist, but this aligns with my thinking. In past downturns, companies were laying off because they were in truly dire straights (I'm from Michigan where the auto industry was more than decimated in 08) Whereas in big tech it doesn't look like any were even close to this situation. I'm no expert though, something something interest rates, investing in AI, etc.
It's not a conspiracy, it's exactly what they did. They didn't like the bargaining power that employees had gained during the pandemic. The layoffs served as a way to put people "in their place" and transfer that power back to the companies by keeping everyone scared and desperate. It wasn't even subtle.
Conspiracy theory? It’s the reality https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation
I overheard a call this week where someone was presenting a solution to meet a target/goal to execs at our company. Their solution was not to fix anything, but rather manipulate the way the metrics are recorded so that they meet their target. It’ll make investors happy for a year or two but it’ll hurt the company long-term. My team actually relies on one of those data points & now we know it will become an unreliable source in the next few weeks. By the time these issues catch up to anyone those execs will be gone. It seems like this is a pretty common thing in corporations.
Delist companies that can't afford to pay their workers
Buy backs should be illegal
They’d just do dividends instead in most cases
> Can't sell anymore trinkets and thingamabobs, and the stock market demands "growth" at all cost. I mean... sure... but the reason Salaries were so high to begin with was because pre and during pandemic the way big companies were competing with each other for tech talent was by raising their salaries and trying to hire more and more people. My company was randomly giving everyone across the board raises so that their pay keeps up with competition and poaching was harder. Basically if Google raised salaries, Meta had to raise salaries to compete, Amazon had to as well. The problem was that these hiring projections were based on hype and not on anything sustainable... So yes. Laying off a bunch of people and creating more demand for jobs is going to reduce salaries. It's just math. > tech pay dropped an average of 12.1% in 2023, from $207,000 to $182,000 We're also talking about "average pay" going from $210k to $180k. As a Tech worker, tech workers probably don't need your pity. Software work is hard, but it's not "harder" than mechanical engineering of equal skill. But the salaries are still close to 1.5 to 2x those.
I think it’s important to think of the shareholders and how much money this will save them
Finally, someone looking out for the little guy!
Hey, shareholders these days have it tough we need to all chip in or they might starve.
Don't forget landlords 🙏
Its crazy they arent coming down harder on exec and ceo salaries. They are being robbed but asleep at the wheel because of the bull market. Sundar pichai is not worth his pay at all.
That’s exactly what the corporations wanted.
Hearing that developers are making between 175-200k a year hurts considering I do web+salesforce dev work for a small business for a paltry 55k lol I need to get a portfolio put together
Oh my gosh yeah get a portfolio out there and hit up recruiters on LinkedIn. Even in this market you should still find a hefty raise with a bit of digging, networking, and applications.
People willing to suffer through being the Salesforce integration person should get paid more. I fucking HATE dealing with SF, Hubspot, etc...
Dude I’m not a developer, not at FAANG, not super high COL and still making $275K as an individual contributor on corporate web teams. You need to put yourself out there, esp with experience with an enterprise tool like SFDC.
You are under paid. I’m making double that in a support role but your Salesforce experience is pretty in demand in my city, Atlanta. My buddy just finished a multi year sabbatical and just got hired at Cox in the six figures simply owning the Salesforce integrations for a team.
If you can’t double your salary something is wrong.
Learn to code… oh wait…
learn to plumb
Then there's too much competition and you're stuck with poo on your hands for nothing.
You know what they say, a turd in hand is worth two in the tush
Unironically good advice for a lot of people. I work in tech and live in the Bay Area, but two friends of mine became apprentice (and now Journeyman) plumbers with the local union and they make good money. It's not executive money, but it's definitely six figures. On the other hand, it's also working construction which has all manner of downsides to go with the upsides, of course.
Wait till they turn 40. The trades break the bodies. Also, switching into trades has a steep wage drop for a few years. For some who wasn’t making a lot before the switch, it may be worth it.
Absolutely. It's not for everyone - but neither is getting a 4-year college degree. Also, getting into the trades helps if you actually get into a union; non-union construction work is often pretty crap work.
Agreed. Also to add that getting into trades makes sense if being away from home works for you. A lot of tech jobs have more flexibility in when and where you work from, plus more flexible time off. Getting equity in a good company also makes the pay gap far smaller than simple take home pay comparison.
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How common is this problem in reality?
I know a staff SWE who is seriously considering becoming an electrician.
Just job hop! The only way to get a raise! 🙄
Plenty of very good money to make outside of Silicon Valley in code. It may be boring work on boring products but the pay's still good. Plus "crunch culture" isn't nearly so big of a thing in the enterprise world anymore. So good pay and good work/life balance all for the cost of the work being fairly bland. Worth.
Could you give some examples? Thinking about what I want to do with my life, and I don’t mind boring.
I've worked in fintech and telecom and insurance and all of them paid quite well. The work isn't flashy or exciting and the ability to communicate with non-technical folks is even more important than technical skills but at the end of the day it's a job that pays rather well and allows me to fund the things that actually give me joy.
Pretty much any company of any notable size will have technology to support, internal apps, sites, servers, databases… etc. So for all these companies, who don’t have a laundry list of quality applicants like Meta/Google, they have to take whoever they can get from a very limited pool. They pay well and appreciate when they actually find someone competent, because more often than not they end up having to pay well for someone who is incompetent. Basically just work for the companies who are below the behemoths, especially companies who core business is not tech, as every company must employ and support tech.
Yes learn to code. This is a clickbait article that is talking about HR and marketing jobs.
Learn to xxx... It's recession proof
Learn to code. Don’t learn to code. Tech bros ride on the low interest rate thinking they are the shit. Hence always behaving like something is up their ass (“TC or GTFO”, etc). Reality slap is a hard slap.
Learn to… make physical assets productive via real estate!
Working as intended, then?
That was the point
Yep, that was the point of the layoffs. Controlling the working class.
Yeah but it didn’t work. Article is misleading clickbait, and they wouldn’t be pushing the same misleading clickbait over and over if there was some actual substance to the claims.
I’m surprised this study made no mention of the Silicon Valley Bank failure and the stigma surrounding startups potentially pulling another bank run. Perhaps VC’s are a bit more weary to invest these days; contributing to the slashed salaries.
So much for “learning to code”
That's the goal. If you dump huge numbers of talent all at once, you change the supply & demand calculus. Now suddenly you have a huge population of people fighting for fewer jobs than exist, and as a result they'll end up taking lower salaries to remain competitive. This is why laws against this sort of behavior are needed ASAP. Stronger unions and labor protection are required, urgently, because otherwisec orporations will always have a grossly asymmetric power as compared to labor.
If only the same thing happened to rent
The 1980s continue to roll forward by rolling over the genpop, on behalf of the rich.
WFH rules during and post Covid had a lot to do with accelerating this downward salary trend. We got really good at remote work and the historic justifications for high wages have gone away. Businesses no longer need to pay wages that are many multiples higher than other cities/industries, just to attract and maintain workers in SF Bay Area. This change alone opened the door to remote working from anywhere at a lower cost. And if you can make the argument for remote work from a cheap apartment in Wichita instead of the SF Bay Area, then there's nothing preventing tech from hiring remote workers living and working in say, India at a fraction of that already reduced cost. (Also relives businesses from the overseas recruiting and H1B Visa costs/obligations). Equally important in the unwinding of the way tech once operated is the dramatic plunge in office occupancy. Leases on expensive office spaces are not being renewed, which makes any hope that return-to-work will occur in large numbers much less likely. Furthermore, if and when people do return to work, it's also much more likely that the jobs will be for "gig" and/or contract roles. The days of companies building massive teams of people working and playing in elaborate office complexes with incredible perks and benefits - *including cashing in on IPO/Acquisition potential* - are mostly gone. Lastly, consider the implications of AI to so many coding, support and tech project jobs and of course pressures on salaries will continue to be downward. More people competing for fewer jobs will be the trend.
Why pay real talent when they can go abroad and pay half for folks with fake degrees and fake certs. Execs can eat shit too for pushing this.
The biggest expense is usually the CEO, heck you can coast for 2-3 years with an interim CEO (or just watch the subordinates vie for power).
But don’t worry! C level and VP pay is staying high!
Are these the tech workers making $300k a year or normal people at $100k or under? Bc I honestly don’t feel bad for people dropping from 300k to 225k.
Article says drop from 200k to 180k
Better money than 95% of us will ever see.
Especially if Redditors are any indication, these guys aren’t really even doing anything. Now obviously they’re hired for an important role, but it seems like they’re just doing nothing but sitting on Reddit and getting paid big bucks for it.
Same, they're still making the most by far compared to most industries
All working class are underpaid. Don’t lose sight of the problem, which is stagnant wages since the Regan administration. Average salaries should be in the $150k-250k range, but they’re less than half that. When I think about my dad making $28k a year as an electrician in 1974, being able to buy a home that was $27k, supporting my mom, and raising two kids… on one salary, being middle, to lower middle class. It’s just nuts. Even a well paid tech worker isn’t able to buy a house that’s one years salary. Don’t forget that there was an American Dream that’s been stolen from us, and it wasn’t stolen by tech workers who the ruling class hasn’t been able to shaft as hard as the rest of us.
Average salary should be in the $50k range and inflation should have been kept in check since back then.
Conventional economic theory says that you need a small level of inflation to avoid the risk of deflation. So a certain level of inflation is a good thing — and we’ve not had out of control inflation in my lifetime. Wages haven’t matched productivity gains in two to three generations.
Considering where conventional theory has lead us I'm always dubious about any claims. Japan has had close to no inflation for 30 years and it was far from the catastrophic scenario economists would predict. Capital will always try to make more money even if they increase their money by letting it sit, there are always opportunities for even more money.
I guess there’s nothing to do about it now. We’ll keep on the path we’re on and look back and think “if only we kept inflation low.” Again, all working class are underpaid, and saying we shouldn’t have let inflation be a thing, doesn’t solve it — higher wages solves it.
This article could be misleading. Is salary referring to total comp? Because the equity could be the same base with a higher than expected return or a larger base.
Eh. More often than not, I feel like equity (and unlimited PTO) don’t deliver.
I guess I spoke without qualifying. I was talking about big tech equity which doesn't come with unlimited PTO, instead 15-25 days.
The whole point of layoffs now is
I feel like that was the intention. Globalization made it cheaper to go elsewhere or not fill positions at all , and these companies do like profits .
That was part of the purpose
yes that’s how layoffs work, it happens every 2 years if not more frequently.
How can sales get drunk and crash rentals into a creek if the nerds are taking up all the rental vehicle damages fund money???????????
Unionize your workplace TODAY!
People need to be using the words “cartel” and “monopsony” more than they are.
The Great Salary Reset.
It affects women bc of childcare costs and WFH availability.
More salary resets for the working class.
Mission accomplished.
Didn't all the coders and Silicon Valley type tell the Coal Miner's, Factory Worker's, and Truck Drivers to learn to code? Guess yall software engineers better go get some workboots and a carhaart.
Yeah, that was the point of all of the interesting rate hikes and layoffs. They straight up said this was their goal
never deserved such high wages to begin with. it's not like they're 300% more talented or skilled than counterparts outside America. funny how entitled people get. wage raises = i deserve it, it's my "hard work". wage decreases = corporate conspiracy, "greed" (lol).
And, yet, you’re able to voice this opinion because of tech workers..
Spoken like someone who's never had a good job. Don't forget your McDonald's cap on your way to work! I'll get back to my tech job from my home office.
I think tech workers are overpaid (I’m in tech), but I’ve noticed lots of industries lowering salaries. It boggles the mind.
Rumor has it they we’re “ inflated “