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Comment by MuffinFlavored | Hacker News Reader

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MuffinFlavored·

I am in South Florida (somewhere in between Miami + Fort Lauderdale cost of living)

levels.fyi shows people making $300k in Austin, TX (which as far as I know, is not a high cost of living area)

What are some areas that are comparable to South Florida that are listed on levels.fyi?

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Google has an engineering office in Austin. Could be someone who took their Bay Area salary with them. Same with Pittsburg. Uber has a presence there and SFBA transplants take their SFBA salaries with them when they move.

How is that allowed?...

It's usually not, but there's a certain logic to it: they valued your work high enough to pay you in SV, why would the same work be less valuable just because you moved offices?

because the cost of living is different? lol

The cost of living has nothing to do with the value of the work. It impacts supply and demand of labor, though.

Totally agreed. I keep trying to explain this to companies as an interviewee, but it does not go well. Even in my current job, doing the same thing/title/exp/degree as others on the team, I am paid less; because I work remotely. Yet they do not expect less of me than my coworkers, but they pay me less due to geographical region.

Brb while I move to Vatican city, I look forward to my salary going up significantly.

Austin is not SV, but rents there have jumped in the last decade. Try pricing out a 2br apt, near one of the major tech offices. First place I clicked on was $2,300 a month! Average is closer to $1,500. This is unusual for Texas =)

300k is definitely highly unusual for Austin. With that salary you can literally live like a King. Buy a house in the city AND one on Lake Travis for the weekends.

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