I've suffered so much wage theft in southern california tech scene that despite all my skills I wind up with employers telling me to pay myself off a credit card, well after being an engineer in la for 18 years I'm so impoverished I can't get a credit card, in 2012 I literally nearly died from starvation due to severe wage theft. Unlike the bay area engineers in Los Angeles are essentially treated as slaves and disposable labor, as much as the dude standing in front of Home Depot.
> ...employers telling me to pay myself off a credit card
That sounds terrible and I've certainly heard the last part of your comment echoed many times before (about the slave labour in tech positions in California) but I'm not understanding the first part about wage theft and paying yourself with a credit card.
I've been in a bad spot where my employer used her credit card to cover payroll and then did immediate layoffs (and I think she put her house against the debt too in case she didn't pay up). Are you talking about that, or a situation where your boss refuses to pay you for labour completed and so you dip into debt on your own with the promise of a (soon) coming payday?
Either way it sounds to me like if you've got a trade (you mention engineers) you should be able to find work online from around the world and not have to work for the employers in LA. Is your job something you can freelance or contract?
I'm really sorry about your experiences as an engineer in LA.
I also live in LA and as a sysadmin/network engineer my experiences have been completely different. There are some great companies in LA that do pay well, maybe not as high as in the bay area, but if you're a capable engineer you shouldn't have any problems getting a well paying stable engineering job.
