I like the city but it's not for everyone. I definitely wouldn't call it a hellhole.

had an impression it was extremely expensive but also very wealthy.

The trouble with these kinds of statements is that there are always going to be "bottom of the ladder" workers who are still poor in these cities, and being poor in am expensive city is a shit load worse than being poor anywhere else

Even then, salaries are high, but the CoL more or less cancels it out. Even the wealthy SWEs I know who live in SF are barely able to swing 2 bedroom apartments that they share with an SO. That's why you hear about new grads making $200k/year right out of college working for Meta or Google, it's true, but you'd be better off in a lot of ways working for a small company in Sacramento for $100k

What kind of hellhole is that city? I had an impression it was extremely expensive but also very wealthy. The more I hear the worse it seems.

LOL start reading about Dubai sometime.

San Francisco is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. And these tech bro pods, which are not really a thing here unlike in Japan where it's been a thing for a long time, are a gimmicky joke.

You would get more space and a better place to live in a nicer neighborhood for a similar price if you simply got roommates here. It might be $900 rather than $700 but if you were sharing a bedroom, which would STILL give you more space than these pods, you could easily get down to below $700. These things are preying on tech kids out of college who only know dorm-style life and have been hired into the new AI startups.

You definitely should have done it for the resume and networking boost. San Francisco is expensive but you can definitely find deals the more you look for them. Plus the Bay Area is bigger than just San Francisco.

And regarding the other comment, $200K in SF is definitely better than $100K in Sacramento. More money is always better, unless it's like a 10% bump. First of all, San Francisco is just more beautiful than Sacramento. Food is better. There's more to do.

Second of all, Sacramento is getting more expensive because people are moving there from the Bay Area. It's still cheaper, but prices are growing and you don't live in a major city. People are paying $500K to live next to a cornfield.

It's expensive because of the concentration of wealth, not the quality of the area. There's a ton of crime, homelessness, car break ins, etc.

People often leave their car doors unlocked or their windows down to prevent their windows from being broken, but instead they find random people sleeping in their cars.

On the plus side, the weather there is quite nice.