The median income in San Francisco is ~70K per year, so even just looking at SF this is more than double the median. The median household income is ~120k per year in SF. No idea what the author's family situation is but assuming their spouse works then the household income is probably 3-4x the median income of SF households. Everybody's financial situation is different and you certainly have to take that into account, but my only point is that if you are looking at a job change that involves a pay cut but to a level where you can still be financially secure then it makes total sense to evaluate it based on other factors like job satisfaction.