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I promise that my reply below is not intended to be abrasive, but bear with me here because your question is both a reasonable one to ask and a sobering one to answer.

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200+ utils e.g. water, power, cell, potentially separate internet, all required to live and work considering you'll probably work remote outside office hours as well while you're vesting that sweet, sweet equity.

300+ commuting (yes that's within the city of SF)

- OR AT LEAST double that for even the most basic car/gas/insurance/parking (consider parking at both home and work can cost 200-400 monthly for each)

300+ food (outside FANG you'd be surprised how uncommon free-food-culture actually is)

820+/mo student loans going by the 10% rule on debt payoff, which also assumes a sadly-reasonable debt of 75,000 on a 10 year note by graduation.

We're now at a floor of 1620 dollars/mo gone to expenses which are effectively mandatory. And that's not including invisible costs of living like walmart-tier clothing on the clearance rack or the fact that I budgeted for a single human. Throw a dependent human in the mix and this becomes impossible, and seeking cheaper rents e.g. eastbay adds substantial hidden costs e.g. gas and tolls (6 dollars per day on tolls eastbay to the peninsula, easily 15 dollars extra per day on gas).

Start stressing your engineers out with cost decisions and see how productive they'll actually be. It's one thing to budget. It's another thing to force serious compromises. Not life-threatening, certainly, but as an engineer you'll definitely be doing that Uber hustle on the side if you make only 98k a year, which most assuredly means I'll be getting lower-quality work from them when they show up with <6hrs sleep.

If I'm forced to hire engineers at <100/y in SF, I'm quitting that job as a manager. The cost pressures on engineers hired at these rates will result in a drastic reduction in quality work product.

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Edit: revised some numbers



Just wanted to point out your numbers are pretty realistic except for $200 utilities. My power bill alone is usually over $300. Basic no channels cable + internet around $100. Water around $50. Cell cheapo plan around $50. So we are up to $500 for no frills utilities.

This is for a basic ranch starter home, though, not an apartment.




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