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Ask HN: I will work for free ...

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Re: Ask HN: I will work for free ...

#21

Post by plinkplonk »

HaltingState wrote: post #20
swombat wrote: post #3

I don't think this is a good approach. As an employer, I wouldn't want to invest the time in getting someone up to speed with my systems if they have no "lock-in" that means they'll stay with me until they've paid off for that initial ramp-up period (which would cost me time). I particularly wouldn't want to do so for someone who already has a job at a software company - I'd clearly be a distant second (if not third…

He lives in India. A programmer there makes 350,000 Rs a year. All these responses are so discouraging. "That long list makes you look unfocused and implies that you probably suck at a lot of technologies rather than being very good at a few." In my startup, we have everyone doing everything. If all someone knows is java, they are useless to us. Each of us had to learn 3 different new languages each just to get our p…

"He lives in India. A programmer there makes $1200 a year. All these responses are so discouraging."

Rubbish. The average annual pay for someone just out of school with zero experience in Bangalore is about 10,000 $. (I live in India fwiw).

The lowest salary I've heard of is about 500$/a month and this is for a "walking dead" warm body who couldn't code to save his life outsourced to dumb Western companies to pad team size. You can just about survive and live very frugally in Bangalore on this.

"you would achieve greater success and freedom by focusing your efforts on creating something that has value and which people are willing to pay for."

This is excellent advice (just discount the "burgeoise" anti employer ranty bit).

Re: Ask HN: I will work for free ...

#22

Post by shabda »

HaltingState wrote: post #20
swombat wrote: post #3

I don't think this is a good approach. As an employer, I wouldn't want to invest the time in getting someone up to speed with my systems if they have no "lock-in" that means they'll stay with me until they've paid off for that initial ramp-up period (which would cost me time). I particularly wouldn't want to do so for someone who already has a job at a software company - I'd clearly be a distant second (if not third…

He lives in India. A programmer there makes 350,000 Rs a year. All these responses are so discouraging. "That long list makes you look unfocused and implies that you probably suck at a lot of technologies rather than being very good at a few." In my startup, we have everyone doing everything. If all someone knows is java, they are useless to us. Each of us had to learn 3 different new languages each just to get our p…

> A programmer there makes $1200 a year.

Pretty sure you missed a zero there. :)

Re: Ask HN: I will work for free ...

#23

Post by HaltingState »

plinkplonk wrote: post #21
HaltingState wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He lives in India. A programmer there makes 350,000 Rs a year. All these responses are so discouraging. "That long list makes you look unfocused and implies that you probably suck at a lot of technologies rather than being very good at a few." In my startup, we have everyone doing everything. If all someone knows is java, they are useless to us. Each of us had to learn 3 different new languages each just to get our p…

"He lives in India. A programmer there makes $1200 a year. All these responses are so discouraging." Rubbish. The average annual pay for someone just out of school with zero experience in Bangalore is about 10,000 $. (I live in India fwiw). The lowest salary I've heard of is about 500$/a month and this is for a "walking dead" warm body who couldn't code to save his life outsourced to dumb Western companies to pad tea…

The average for a well paid programmer is Rb 350,000 from what I have read. At current conversion rates that would be about 4472.51 pounds and 7695.70 USD. At current exchange rates. The salary seems to be higher in Bangalore than elsewhere.

Re: Ask HN: I will work for free ...

#24

Post by swombat »

HaltingState wrote: post #20
swombat wrote: post #3

I don't think this is a good approach. As an employer, I wouldn't want to invest the time in getting someone up to speed with my systems if they have no "lock-in" that means they'll stay with me until they've paid off for that initial ramp-up period (which would cost me time). I particularly wouldn't want to do so for someone who already has a job at a software company - I'd clearly be a distant second (if not third…

He lives in India. A programmer there makes 350,000 Rs a year. All these responses are so discouraging. "That long list makes you look unfocused and implies that you probably suck at a lot of technologies rather than being very good at a few." In my startup, we have everyone doing everything. If all someone knows is java, they are useless to us. Each of us had to learn 3 different new languages each just to get our p…

In my startup, we have everyone doing everything. If all someone knows is java, they are useless to us. Each of us had to learn 3 different new languages each just to get our product to launch. We do not have the luxury of having someone with 10 years experience who only knows Java. If something needed to be done, someone had to do it. If we did not have the skills in the group, we had to learn them.

Specialising in something doesn't mean you can't do other stuff. I have done, in my time, Java, PHP, C, ActionScript, Ajax, Ruby/Rails.. hell even Basic and Pascal while I'm at it (and that's just the ones I actually built functioning software with...). But I wouldn't list those on my CV. At this point in my life, I'm primarily focused on the Rails + Flex stack, and I would be lying if I claimed that I'm proficient at all the technologies that I once was proficient at. You NEED to be able to pick up any technology required along the way, of course, but you can't be proficient in all those technologies at the same time.

I do not believe for one minute that this guy is proficient at all those technologies. It's a full time job just to keep up to date on Rails, let alone on Java and C# as well! The obvious conclusion from that list is that they're just technologies he's familiar with, rather than technologies he's good at. Therefore, the obvious conclusion from this "CV" is that he's not good at any of those technologies (or at least there's no hint as to which he might be good at), and just listed them all in a shotgun approach. That is NOT a good hiring signal.

If you want to be poor for the rest of your life and at the mercy of an employer, this is probably a good strategy. Instead of attempting to make yourself more appealing for sale to your bourgeoisie overloads you would achieve greater success and freedom by focusing your efforts on creating something that has value and which people are willing to pay for.

Bullshit. That strategy (blogging/being active in the community + copious open source contributions) will soon have you connected with more freelance work than you know what to do with. Beyond starting a start-up (which this guy is clearly not ready for yet), it's pretty much as close to freedom as you're gonna get as a programmer.

Working for YOUR start-up? That's not HIS freedom, dude, that's just slavery in service of YOUR freedom.

Re: Ask HN: I will work for free ...

#25

Post by viraptor »

shabda wrote: post #17
cousin_it wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if they used C# for a desktop app, Java for a mobile app and Rails for a webapp? In my own case, I guess having experience with PHP, Perl, Python and Ruby is the ultimate fail , because they all solve the same problems and are very similar to boot. Interesting way to look at it! What percentage of HN's audience did you just fail?

I know Java, Python, Javascript, Sql, PL/Sql quite well, and have played with a number of others including C#, and other functional language. I have used MySQL, POstgresSQl and Oracle. However, if I were looking for a JOb I will probably only list Python, Django, Mysql and company prominently and list others with a disclaimer: "Lst used 3 years ago". Listing all of them together without further info doesnot give a go…

Well... what I do to not sound like I'm just listing every technology there is, is to split them into `expert`, `good`, `ok` levels of experience. So that even if I list 10+ languages I can comfortably use, it still seems fairly obvious which are the important ones (2 on expert, 2-3 on good, rest on ok).

Re: Ask HN: I will work for free ...

#26

Post by plinkplonk »

HaltingState wrote: post #23
plinkplonk wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"He lives in India. A programmer there makes $1200 a year. All these responses are so discouraging." Rubbish. The average annual pay for someone just out of school with zero experience in Bangalore is about 10,000 $. (I live in India fwiw). The lowest salary I've heard of is about 500$/a month and this is for a "walking dead" warm body who couldn't code to save his life outsourced to dumb Western companies to pad tea…

The average for a well paid programmer is Rb 350,000 from what I have read. At current conversion rates that would be about 4472.51 pounds and 7695.70 USD. At current exchange rates. The salary seems to be higher in Bangalore than elsewhere.

"The average for a well paid programmer is Rb 350,000 from what I have read. At current conversion rates that would be about 4472.51 pounds and 7695.70 USD."

You read stuff about Bangalore. I live here. Big difference.

Even if true, 7695$ is much more than the 1200$ you claimed people were getting in your original post. That is a multiplier of 6. Exaggerate much for effect?

10k$ is an average salary for a person out of school. I guarantee you won't get a decent experienced programmer with a good degree in CS for anywhere near that amount. As a data point, my last salary (in Bangalore) was 120,000 US$ (then, I could get more today if I were to return to a 9 to 5 job) and I know many people who earn that much and more, doing technical work). Yes this is skewed towards the high end but by no means unusual, especially in product companies (vs el cheapo bodyshoppers)

Re: Ask HN: I will work for free ...

#27

Post by swombat »

plinkplonk wrote: post #26
HaltingState wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average for a well paid programmer is Rb 350,000 from what I have read. At current conversion rates that would be about 4472.51 pounds and 7695.70 USD. At current exchange rates. The salary seems to be higher in Bangalore than elsewhere.

"The average for a well paid programmer is Rb 350,000 from what I have read. At current conversion rates that would be about 4472.51 pounds and 7695.70 USD." You read stuff about Bangalore. I live here. Big difference. Even if true, 7695$ is much more than the 1200$ you claimed people were getting in your original post. That is a multiplier of 6. Exaggerate much for effect? 10k$ is an average salary for a person out…

Even if true, 7695 $$ is much lesser than the 1200$ you claimed people were getting. Exaggerate much?

You mean "much more".

Re: Ask HN: I will work for free ...

#28

Post by plinkplonk »

swombat wrote: post #27
plinkplonk wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The average for a well paid programmer is Rb 350,000 from what I have read. At current conversion rates that would be about 4472.51 pounds and 7695.70 USD." You read stuff about Bangalore. I live here. Big difference. Even if true, 7695$ is much more than the 1200$ you claimed people were getting in your original post. That is a multiplier of 6. Exaggerate much for effect? 10k$ is an average salary for a person out…

Even if true, 7695 $$ is much lesser than the 1200$ you claimed people were getting. Exaggerate much? You mean "much more".

"You mean "much more"."

Correct. Edited. thanks!

Re: Ask HN: I will work for free ...

#29

Post by HaltingState »

swombat wrote: post #24
HaltingState wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He lives in India. A programmer there makes 350,000 Rs a year. All these responses are so discouraging. "That long list makes you look unfocused and implies that you probably suck at a lot of technologies rather than being very good at a few." In my startup, we have everyone doing everything. If all someone knows is java, they are useless to us. Each of us had to learn 3 different new languages each just to get our p…

In my startup, we have everyone doing everything. If all someone knows is java, they are useless to us. Each of us had to learn 3 different new languages each just to get our product to launch. We do not have the luxury of having someone with 10 years experience who only knows Java. If something needed to be done, someone had to do it. If we did not have the skills in the group, we had to learn them. Specialising in…

If I was a programmer today, I would want to be working in the mobile space. I would do anything that was necessary to associate with people in that area and to gain expertise.

He said that he is willing to work for free for a couple of months and hopes to be paid eventually. I am assuming that he wants to learn some new technologies and find opportunities. An employer is taking on a large risk by having someone with no commitment on a project when it will take them several months to get up to speed and learn the required languages.

If he spends a few months in his spare time learning a project's technology and become effective at contributing and is eventually paid for his continued work on the project, I think that it is a good position to be in.

It reduces the risk to the employer and gives him some opportunity to learn a new technology platform. If he contributes significantly to a project, any employer would be more than happy to pay him at least twice what he is earning now. Even at $25,000 a year, he would cost less than a 1/3rd of the cost of a very competent American programmer.

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