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Talent War in Silicon Valley Demands High Salary (axios.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Employees at Google's parent company Alphabet earned "a median pay package of more than $197,000" in 2017, around 18% lower than Facebook's median salary of $240,000, the Wall Street Journal reports. Per the Journal, this illustrates the competitive "talent war in Silicon Valley, where talented engineers are in limited supply." These two salaries were more than $100,000 above Amazon's median pay, which sat at $28,446. The median price for a home in Silicon Valley is upwards of $1 million, in Seattle the median home price is just under $800,000.
People have realized that if they go and earn big bucks for a few years and then bail to somewhere cheaper, that mega salary will help them get above the going rate anywhere. Recruiters don't look at a $200k salary and think "oh but that was Silicon Valley, this person will take $50k out here and maintain the same lifestyle", they think "well I had better offer at least 100k to get someone like that!"
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
And that's the flip side of it: The so-called "Golden Handcuffs". We have it, to a lesser extent, in Metro DC as well. The pay is significantly higher, and you adjust your lifestyle to it. And then. . . .companies outside "the bubble" cannot offer that level, even if the cost of living is low enough that it's a defacto lifestyle IMPROVEMENT. . .