Comment by devonkim

I've worked both coasts equally in my career and have found that despite cost of living differences, wages for the top 25 percentile are quite compressed compared to SV or NYC. Furthermore, there is a rash of jobs that are primarily cost-cutting measures from companies based out of more expensive areas, which puts you at a kind of career positioning disadvantage. Case in point, when I was at HP in the Seattle area we had an office in Cary - it was primarily for QA, not for our platform developers that were more important to continued success of the product. I'm finding the same trend in Atlanta and even fintech jobs seem to regularly pay under $100k for senior developers here when the cost of living has gone up dramatically compared to my perception that I could get a decent place for <$1500 / month where I wouldn't have to suffer from a horrible commute - this is patently untrue I've found after spending a month searching for housing (not apartments, admittedly).