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I moved to Austin in 2012 and left in 2020. What was great back then was that salaries were almost comparable but the COL was so much lower. Until 2016 or so, Austin had the best salary to COL ratio of tech towns in the country. But that all changed when the Californians started showing up en masse.

Austin was never truly going to compete with SF on its perks, but it was a cool town that allowed people to live comfortably.

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What companies were paying these comparable-to-the-Bay 2012 salaries? I left Texas around when you moved there and was not finding "almost comparable" salaries to the Bay Area in many places at all. It was a big part of why I left - very few of my costs increased anywhere near as much as my salary did, so I was able to save and invest far more money per year.

Not going to name names but I agree with the comment you are replying to. At top tech companies in Austin I found salaries were about 10% less than SV salaries, but total COL was much lower than that.

I absolutely love that Texas has managed to convince their citizens that the states' problems are definitely most certainly all those California transplants (that they encouraged to immigrate) and not the states own self inflicted bs.

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