Whats the take-home after housing and expenses tho? It's the same in CA... massive salaries, but also massive taxes+housing expenses.

At least in my experience, having worked in both Florida and California, that's more of a wash than people imagine it's going to be -- and more so than the "cost of living calculators" tend to demonstrate, at least if you're a renter.

I actually ran a few numbers based on current costs. If you're making $120K/yr in Florida and paying the average cost for a 1-bedroom rental in Tampa ($1,642/mo, as of April 2026 according to Apartments.com), your after-tax take home is $98 (24% federal tax bracket, no state tax) and you have $78.4K after rent. If you're making $180K/yr in California and paying the average cost for a 1-bedroom rental in San Jose ($2,705/mo), your after-tax take home is $130.5K (24% federal tax bracket, 9.3% CA state tax bracket) and you have $98K left after housing.

You can keep fiddling with the numbers, but in most cases, the premium for getting a tech job in Silicon Valley is sufficiently high that you really are making more in absolute dollars despite the higher cost of living.