> devs willing to relocate to SF

It baffled me 10 years ago why a company would be willing to pay SF salaries for people who can work from anywhere and it still holds true to this day.

Unless your engineer needs to literally be next to the hardware AND "the hardware" isn't something that can be shipped to/run at their home, why TF would you want to pay Silicon Valley salaries for engineers?

I know a guy that does electrical engineering work that works from home. He makes medical devices! When he orders PCBs they get shipped to his house. He works on a team that has other people doing the same thing (the PCB testing person also gets the boards at home; but that guy's a consultant). For like $1000 (one time) you can setup a "home lab" for doing (plenty sufficient) electronics work. Why would you want to pay ~$100,000/year premium to hire someone local for the same thing?