Here's a reality check for anyone still clinging to the narrative that San Francisco's tech economy is humming along just fine: a local job seeker with 3-4 years of experience — including stints at both big tech companies and startups — just shared that they've spent seven months applying to over 200 jobs in operations, go-to-market, and strategy roles. They've made it to multiple final rounds. They've landed zero offers.

And they're not holding out for a cushy six-figure gig with kombucha on tap. Their floor is $80K and in-person work. That's it. In a city where a one-bedroom apartment averages north of $3,000 a month, asking for $80K isn't ambitious — it's survival math.

So what's going on?

The short answer: SF's tech sector shed tens of thousands of jobs over the past two years, and those roles haven't come back at the same pace or the same pay bands. Companies that once hired aggressively for ops and strategy positions have consolidated those functions, automated parts of them, or simply decided they can run leaner. The roles that do get posted attract an avalanche of applicants — many of them overqualified people who got laid off from senior positions and are now competing downward.

The result is a brutally competitive market where getting to the final round means almost nothing. You're not losing to unqualified candidates. You're losing to someone with eight years of experience who's willing to take the same $80K.

As one local put it, platforms like Indeed have become "such garbage lately with all the fake postings" — meaning job seekers aren't just competing against other humans, they're wasting precious time on listings that don't even represent real openings. Ghost jobs, evergreen postings designed to collect resumes, roles that were filled internally before the listing went live — it's a minefield.

Here's our unsolicited fiscal take: City Hall loves to trumpet San Francisco's "economic recovery" and pour money into innovation grants and tech-adjacent programs. But when someone with legitimate big-tech experience can't find any job paying $80K after 200 applications, maybe the recovery narrative needs an asterisk.

If you're in a similar boat, it might be time to broaden beyond tech. Finance, healthcare operations, logistics — these sectors actually need the same skill sets and aren't sitting on a glut of laid-off applicants. San Francisco's over-reliance on a single industry has always been a vulnerability. For individual workers, diversifying isn't giving up. It's being smarter than the market.