San Francisco
Eh. They can keep it.<p>• Average engineering salary in sf: 116K / year [1]<p>• Average rent for a one bedroom: $2,700 / month [2]<p>After taxes you're coming in around 72k / year - 32k / year for rent<p>You'll have roughly 40k to play with. That may sound like a lot but factor in food, health care, travel, energy, internet, phone, and numerous miscellaneous expenses and you'll be hard pressed to save anything over 10k a year. For me it would never work having 2k per month in student loans.<p>Also compare that to a place like D.C.<p>• Average engineering salary in D.C. : 105k / year [3]<p>• Average rent for a one bedroom: $1,392 / month [4]<p>After taxes you'll have around 68k / year - 17k / year for rent<p>That's 51,000 per year. About 11k more per year and a place that is significantly less expensive to live in. That can really make a difference and you may miss out on being in sf but you're in a large city with a healthy tech environment none the less.<p>1.) <a href="http://www.indeed.com/salary/q-Software-Engineer-l-San-Francisco,-CA.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.indeed.com/salary/q-Software-Engineer-l-San-Franc...</a><p>2.)<a href="http://sfist.com/2013/03/07/map_average_rent_for_1br_in_san_fra.php" rel="nofollow">http://sfist.com/2013/03/07/map_average_rent_for_1br_in_san_...</a><p>3.) <a href="http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=Software+Engineer&l1=Washington+DC" rel="nofollow">http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=Software+Engineer&l1=Washing...</a><p>4.) <a href="http://www.apartmentratings.com/rate?a=MSAAvgRentalPrice&msa=8872" rel="nofollow">http://www.apartmentratings.com/rate?a=MSAAvgRentalPrice&msa...</a>