I'm actually doing a bit of research for a future job hunt so I may be of assistance. In the bay area I'm going to assume you mean all of Silicon Valley and any other area nearby that has a lot of tech jobs.
Salaries
The salary information was taken from Glassdoor and should be pretty self-explanatory. Average salary is the average you'd make in as a plain-old Software Developer/Engineer and may or may not be representative to what you'd actually get offered. Lowest reported salary is the lowest salary reported and probably isn't representative to what you'd actually get offered, but it's still just good to know.
| Company | Metro Area | Average Salary | Lowest Reported Salary |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apple | San Jose | $110,053 | $78,000 |
| San Jose | $127,900 | $80,000 | |
| San Francisco | $125,261 | $89,000 | |
| Netflix | San Jose | $160,046 | $104,000 |
| San Francisco | $127,282 | $92,000 | |
| Tesla | San Jose | $113,153 | $105,000 |
| San Jose | $136,781 | $95,000 | |
| Salesforce | San Francisco | $121,801 | $100,000 |
| TIBCO | San Jose | $110,000 | $92,000 |
| Adobe | San Jose | $119,350 | $92,000 |
Cost of Living
This section is what the cost of living is adjusted to relative to where I live now. The average salary change is what my current salary translates to in the area. The average rent was found via RentJungle (or something like that) and the decent on Zillow is the lowest max price I could put into Zillow and still find a decent number of places.
| Metro Area | Cost of Living ($65k) | Average Salary Change | Average Rent | Decent on Zillow |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $102,053 | $84,591 | $3,000 | $2,500 |
| San Jose | $95,082 | $81,764 | $2,179 | $2,000 |
So what have I found out so far? Well, I need to make around $100,000 a year to still live comfortably. I currently make $65,000 a year in the Midwest. From what I can tell $100,000 would be a safe bet but it's completely up to that company too. Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Twitter all seem to pay well above that while others are a bit closer to it.
Hope this helps!