I don't think many people will claim 150k is market price for a staff engineering position in NYC. But it is more than enough to live in Manhattan. Full stop.
If MoMA or another non-profit offers you a salary than fails to support your lavish lifestyle: don't accept it. Hope that helps.
Very low for a staff engineer in NYC, but 150K to work in the arts actually seems somewhat competitive to me. Wait until you hear how little most broadway actors/ensemble members make. 150K will take you pretty far if you want to live the bohemian artist life in NY, especially if you want to live in neighborhoods with other artists, e.g. Washington Heights.
I guess I don't know a lot about NYC living costs but $150k for what seems to be an entry level position seems generous to me. Even allowing $3k a month for a one bedroom apartment, that's over 70k in after tax income for other expenses. It's more disposable income that I have now as a senior developer working remotely, though granted my pay isn't great. Plus the position listed is also remote.
The median household income in NYC is $70,663. We're talking about Manhattan mainly for this job, so let's double that. That's still less than the 150k salary, and this is a single person, not a household.
I promise you, you're not going to be homeless at 150k.
On 120k you can get your own apartment in NYC outside of Manhattan and the expensive parts of Brooklyn easily. Plus that is for a new grad / jr engineer. They’ll be making north of $200k in 5 years most likely.
However, that's not a reasonable long-term salary. [..] you walk away with 100K [..] It's like making less than 50K at a job with benefits
I'm glad that there are people who believe that 50K isn't a reasonable salary, because if you get used to spending less than half that, you can deal with almost any crisis while everyone else gets into panic mode as soon as they're out of work for a month or can't pay for fancy private schools or bizarrely structured retirement funds :-)
NYC's expensive, sure, but 50K is above even the NYC median personal income (and to the best of my research, just above the median NYC household income too).
150k is perfectly liveable in NYC, even in Manhattan heart. It’s probably not feasible to have a three bedroom apt in Manhattan on that budget but it’s very doable in the less hot parts of Queens, Brooklyn and Bronx. If you think of moving to Long Island, you can even rent a house with a yard.
You will probably need a partners income if you want to live in a unit where you can raise a child, and will need significantly more for the both of you to raise multiple children.
I was referring to what that salary gets you in terms of standard of living and so on. Cost of living in all of New York, Manhattan especially, is high. $70k doesn't get you very far in Manhattan, especially if you don't have multiple roommates (which you wouldn't if you had a family).
Contrast that to what a family can do with $70k in Cleveland, San Antonio, or Raleigh. It looks closer to what $150k looks like in Manhattan, which is my point.
Is this pre-tax $150k? I'm also in NYC, but taxes alone are almost 50% of my salary. Plus ~$3k a month on an apartment, you can't really save much on $150k.
If MoMA or another non-profit offers you a salary than fails to support your lavish lifestyle: don't accept it. Hope that helps.
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