Comment by alephnerd

> First, many people may not want to move, even if their kids or siblings move. Other people have friends and family too.

Absolutely, but then they shouldn't complain on HN that they aren't getting jobs because they aren't open to relocating from Skokie to San Jose.

> many people may not have the skills or drive to get the "median" paying job

The 25th percentile TC for a SWE is 200K in the Bay Area [0]. If you are not even in the top 75 percent of SWEs you are already on the chopping block.

> obviously moving to the Bay Area and NYC is one of the higher probability routes to success and upward movement (at least financial), but it's not without other costs. For those with the desire to attain that financial success, I encourage them to follow the playbook.

The brutal reality is, if you aren't working in the Bay or NYC, we are going to offshore you. We can get the cream of the crop in Europe, Israel, or India with a Chicago, Dallas, or Atlanta TC along with added FDI subsidizes. As such, we have no reason to hire a median employee for 100% WFH who lives outsides the Bay+NYC and pay what is essentially a premium.

Additionally, you don't have to live in the Bay or NYC forever. Spend 10-15 years of your career, build that nest egg, and then return to your hometown if you really dislike the Bay or NYC. You will have reached financial independence and that gives you the flexibility to take a $75k-120k TC dev role (at that pricepoint you are safe from offshoring if you are a Bay+NYC tier developer).

> But I would not expect them to keep friends and family close

If you cannot afford to fly to our fly out your retired parents to stay with you for a couple weeks and can't fly out to meet with them with the priors I mentioned, then you have major issues. Most Asian American (Chinese, Indian, Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean, etc) and Eastern European (Russians, Israelis, etc) families would do something similar in the Bay.

[0] - https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/san-fra...