> No amount of salary would have made me able to afford housing near work
Everyone who sells themselves short also sells everyone else short too by comparable TC.
I was hired IC5 $280k TC at Meta in 2020 with the help of a salary negotiator/coach and had an EDTX IP lawyer do due-diligence and walkthrough with me the hiring document terms. That would just barely qualify me for 50% D/I for the house I grew up in. It'd take a minimum of $470k to afford the house my grandparents bought in 1968 for $30k. And, unlike my parents and grandparents who pulled up the ladder behind them, I wouldn't get CA Prop. 13 like they did. But what's crazy is I could instead live in a car or on a boat for about 6-8 years and then buy an SV house with liquidated proceeds of investments outright.
> I cared much more that my employer fire the incompetent
This is magical thinking and not your problem. I don't understand why you think you're not worth being paid a livable salary.
As an alternative, move somewhere cheaper rather than futility compete with a surplus of rich people and NIMBYs whom prevent development.
Everyone who sells themselves short also sells everyone else short too by comparable TC.
I was hired IC5 $280k TC at Meta in 2020 with the help of a salary negotiator/coach and had an EDTX IP lawyer do due-diligence and walkthrough with me the hiring document terms. That would just barely qualify me for 50% D/I for the house I grew up in. It'd take a minimum of $470k to afford the house my grandparents bought in 1968 for $30k. And, unlike my parents and grandparents who pulled up the ladder behind them, I wouldn't get CA Prop. 13 like they did. But what's crazy is I could instead live in a car or on a boat for about 6-8 years and then buy an SV house with liquidated proceeds of investments outright.
> I cared much more that my employer fire the incompetent
This is magical thinking and not your problem. I don't understand why you think you're not worth being paid a livable salary.
As an alternative, move somewhere cheaper rather than futility compete with a surplus of rich people and NIMBYs whom prevent development.