The person I was replying to didn't specify any particular baseline for living standards, so I reject the assertion that my example was inappropriate.
If you want to raise a family in SF proper, I agree that 100k/yr total income would be insufficient for what most people consider a reasonable QoL, even if one spouse stayed at home to take care of the children to avoid childcare costs.
Of course, in SF, 100k/yr is "entry-level engineer at an early stage startup" territory in terms of earnings, which is not the typical profile of someone trying to raise children. You'd have to be trying really hard to not make double that as a mid-level engineer in the Bay, though.
Keep in mind that even once you get past the flashy comp numbers at FAANG, there are a huge number of publicly-traded tech companies in the Bay which pay enough that you could afford a mortgage to buy a house in SF on a single engineer's earnings without breaking 35% of post-tax take home pay. (A bit of a stretch at 200k, easy at 250k.) Even startups are getting there: a friend of mine recently got a new job in the Bay (not in SF, but close) paying over 200k in cash comp (base + bonus) with less than 5 years of experience, plus some options (which are probably not worthless, but can't immediately be used to pay a mortgage). He's a good engineer but this isn't an unusual outcome; some of the engineers I know aren't as good, but they make more money because they took the interview grind seriously and went for companies with publicly-traded stock.
If you want to raise a family in SF proper, I agree that 100k/yr total income would be insufficient for what most people consider a reasonable QoL, even if one spouse stayed at home to take care of the children to avoid childcare costs.
Of course, in SF, 100k/yr is "entry-level engineer at an early stage startup" territory in terms of earnings, which is not the typical profile of someone trying to raise children. You'd have to be trying really hard to not make double that as a mid-level engineer in the Bay, though.
Keep in mind that even once you get past the flashy comp numbers at FAANG, there are a huge number of publicly-traded tech companies in the Bay which pay enough that you could afford a mortgage to buy a house in SF on a single engineer's earnings without breaking 35% of post-tax take home pay. (A bit of a stretch at 200k, easy at 250k.) Even startups are getting there: a friend of mine recently got a new job in the Bay (not in SF, but close) paying over 200k in cash comp (base + bonus) with less than 5 years of experience, plus some options (which are probably not worthless, but can't immediately be used to pay a mortgage). He's a good engineer but this isn't an unusual outcome; some of the engineers I know aren't as good, but they make more money because they took the interview grind seriously and went for companies with publicly-traded stock.