I know what a Google (engineering) salary is, and even if you're paying half of a tech salary to rent, the other half is still a hell of a lot to have leftover for your average American.

... I've worked for Google in the bay area.

To rephrase this: For the most junior (engineering) employees, a starting salary allows you to spend under the recommended maximum of 25-30% of your salary on rent to live in a decent 1BR apartment minutes from your office. You then receive significant bonus and stock on top of this. It's...not a problem.

It is a pain to relocate from SF to South Bay, and pretty depressing at that.

I don't disagree! (I've lived in SF the entire time I've worked at Google, first it MTV, then SVL, then remote, now SVL again).

Salary doesn't mean much. Total compensation for L3 should be around 180k in the bay area these days I believe.

When I was at Google, my final salary was only half my total compensation.

I know, but OP specifically said salary and that bonus/stock would come "on top."

> $3.5k/m which is not actually all that generous. You're lucky to get a studio for that these days in Manhattan.

Pshh.

I see dozens of studios/1 bedrooms on padmapper right now in Manhattan available for ~$2,200