At the same time, US salaries are either $300k+ in the Bay Area or $0 and unemployed, there's still no appetite to let someone work for e.g. $150k in a normal metro area.
There are many large, stable, profitable companies that are hiring software engineers. They are not software houses, but they pay well for a comfortable life (outside of NYC and Bay Area) and offer good work-life balance. For some examples you can look at medical devices, utilities, manufacturing, IBMs and Walmarts and R&D departments of virtually any large non-software company.
But there are frictions, too. Unless you go into management, comp tops out around $200k in most metros. HR -- instead of write-your-own-rules in a startup you have to take corporate training and get approval for things folks at the startups take for granted. Limited tools, externally managed corporate OS and software, Outlook instead of Slack. Office time requirements -- fully remote is very rare. And so on.
Not saying this is the wrong choice, just that there are tradeoffs.
Absolutely. It’s weird though that tech focused companies with Silicon Valley style cultures who are looking to cut costs are completely uninterested in those regions. With more developer-friendly working conditions, they wouldn't have to compete as aggressively on TC. And with more normal cost of living, it could be sustainable for senior people who are not independently wealthy to have long tenures there.
I think you are absolutely right that there appears to be some low hanging fruit for tech companies to pick by looking to "second tier metros". But I inertia and (lack of) critical mass play a big role.
In the past decade (i.e., when the money was plentiful) when a startup is young, the TC of its engineers rarely makes or breaks the startup. Being able to get an MVP out and iterate quickly is more important, so it was a rational choice to stay in the Bay Area even if it means 30% inflated TC. And after that moving is expensive in both time and money and risky (e.g., a key engineer might not want to go).
And having a critical mass of tech companies helps attract talent: if a company goes under or has large layoffs it is perceived to be easier to find a new job in the center of the tech hub.
I think covid helped nudge along the process of moving tech development out of SV, but it is a slow process. My 2c.
Some tech is. Meanwhile large tech companies that are actually innovating (FAANG, near-FAANG, and FAANG-adjacent companies) are not. My comp has never been higher, and we're hiring. In the bay area.
These companies are always innovating. Google doesn't just say "Our ad recommendation system is good enough, lets just go into maintenence mode for a year." No. They constantly are trying to improve their models, switch to a better architecture, and innovate to try and eke out a few more percentage points of conversions.
There's definitely $150k jobs in a normal metro area. Chicago, for example, has a lot of posted software engineering jobs in that range (I've even seen more that are lower than that lately after this past year of tech layoffs, like around $120k, unfortunately)
> there's still no appetite to let someone work for e.g. $150k in a normal metro area
There are "normal metro areas" that aren't the Bay Area where a $150k salary leads to a very comfortable life, with loads of $150k jobs for people with decent skills.
I'd happily take 150K/year and go live in nowhere Wyoming or something. As much as I loathe Musk I'm sure I could get by on something like Starlink
Except oops Amazon would absolutely decimate my yearly comp because they base it entirely off where you live, and adjust it if you try to move somewhere cheaper
Though of course that's all moot anyway since we've all gotta go back to the office because the people who own all the realestate are weirdly chummy with all the management of these companies. Weird how that worked
> Except oops Amazon would absolutely decimate my yearly comp
There are other employers hiring tech people other than Microsoft, Facebook, and Amazon.
In fact, a teammate of mine is a software developer just got his Starlink connection up and running replacing his WISP in a rural area where he's farming as well on the side. Another friend works as an SRE and lives way out in the desert pursuing his amateur astronomy hobby. I know of several other friends and coworkers who live similar lives.
Technically I'm 100% remote, but personally I enjoy the metro life so I'm living in an affordable metro area living a lifestyle I enjoy.
