Your fantasy about working in Cupertino probably leads you to believe the pay is good. You would be correct, but according to more than half of the developers and supervisors at Apple, even their fat paychecks aren’t not enough to afford a house in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Some 60 percent of Apple workers, as surveyed by anonymous messaging app Blind, say home prices are too spendy even with salaries that exceed the national average by more than double.
The median price of a home in the counties that make up and surround Silicon Valley averages just under $1 million. Alameda County is the most affordable at $947,000, while San Francisco is the most expensive at $1.6 million.
Apple salaries vs. housing prices
The voluntary survey drew 2,300 responses on the app last week to a single yes-or-no question: “I can afford to buy a house in the Bay Area.” The survey results appeared over the weekend on SiliconValley.com., a technology news site published by The Mercury News in San Jose, California.
Apple workers weren’t alone in the survey by Blind, an app reportedly used by thousands of tech workers at Bay Area companies. Seven in 10 workers at Cisco, eBay and Intuit reported being priced out of the market. At Apple, 63 percent reported home-buying off-limits, as did 51 percent at both Google and Facebook.
That’s despite some generous average annual salaries at places like Facebook ($240,000), Google ($197,000) and Netflix ($183,000).
Apple pays a competitive salary, according to averages compiled by Indeed.com and updated Aug. 1.
Of 30 job titles at Apple, salaries include software engineering manager ($186,049), senior software engineer ($164,046), industrial engineering manager, ($163,613), hardware engineer ($149,109) and quality assurance engineer ($130,395).
The salary range is $46,490 for a senior technical adviser to $183,940 for Counsel, according to Indeed.com. Hourly workers make from $14.07 per hour (for customer service representatives) to $90 per hour for a corporate recruiter.
More than 70 percent report satisfaction with their compensation at Apple, Indeed.com reports.
Over the last couple of years, Bay Area residents have been socked with inflation rates that spike above 3 percent, according to The Mercury News. Gasoline prices, some 80 cents higher than the national average, and housing are major drivers in the jump in consumer prices.
Source: SiliconValley.com
