I see the same ~10 people every Monday morning doing the commute. Back Thursday evening. It was super tough the first two years but now is routine. The customer picks up all expenses, so it is relatively easy. I am an independent contractor.

One of my colleagues just took a full time position with the client. I don't know how much he is getting paid, but my guess is around $200 k. We work in an office in Walnut Creek. He moved his wife and two kids into an apartment so the kids could be in a nice school and his wife could feel comfortable in a great neighborhood. Buying a house in Walnut Creek on that salary is out of the question. Concord is next door, but then you go downhill quickly in quality of schools. Tracy is an option but houses out there are now going for $500 k (which I find way more crazy than the $1 M I see for a cracker box in the Oakland Hills) and you are living out in the sticks. That is the trap everyone finds themselves in the Bay Area and the reason why the LDS population has imploded since I grew up there in the 1980s.