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Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

babeljs.io

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Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#151

Post by pferdone »

cycomanic wrote: post #87

I find the comments here fascinating. So the lead developer was paid $11k a month, and somehow many start calling this a problem. Apparently, if you work on OSS you should be working for something slightly above the poverty line. People are comparing it to other salaries, but seem to forget that this salary likely does not include any other benefits (health insurance, stock options ...). I mean he is the lead develop…

I don't even get how his salary is an argument here, when babel is one of most critical parts in almost all web applications. His knowledge and skillset is way above any average "lead dev" and he's still doing "grunt" work. Sorry, but this is a very reasonable salary.

Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#152

Post by mattmanser »

mssundaram wrote: post #91
tmsbrg wrote: post #88

Sorry, but as someone who doesn't live in the USA, I have a hard time feeling bad for someone for not being able to earn "$11,000 per month as a baseline salary for working full-time on open source." Sure, it's nice to be able to make a living from open source based on donations. That doesn't have to be comparable to Silicon Valley salaries that are fueled by huge ad money and other dubious sources. I know many peopl…

132k is not that much for a US salary. And besides, I'd rather see the engineers of such an important project be well paid.

The median salary for a senior software engineer in the US is $133k.

And that'll be heavily skewed upwards by SV, so yes, it is actually quite a big figure, given that it's a charity-type job which generally pay less.

Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#153

Post by zelphirkalt »

throwaway8709 wrote: post #133
dandellion wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I seriously doubt the lead developers of a team of 4 make more than $11k in most of Europe.

Are you kidding me? FANG has lots of offices in Europe.. I work at one of those at around 20-35k USD / month, depending on stonk prices :) Making 11k USD is not uncommon for contractors in northern Europe, Switzerland or Germany. Sure, you can find many who are paid less. But talent is expensive.

That's how much is needed to be paid for getting people to do unethical work. It is not directly comparable to working on a compiler used by many people.

Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#154

Post by tren »

Can someone explain to me what I'm missing with regards to how much they're currently earning? Looking at their base support sponsors (of which there are 4), they are each paying a minimum of $24,000 each ($96,000/year). There are 5 gold sponsors of at least $1000/month ($60,000/year) and 24 silver sponsors of at least $500/month ($120,000/year). That's already $276K without including the bronze/backer tiers.

Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#155

Post by vagrantJin »

cycomanic wrote: post #87

I find the comments here fascinating. So the lead developer was paid $11k a month, and somehow many start calling this a problem. Apparently, if you work on OSS you should be working for something slightly above the poverty line. People are comparing it to other salaries, but seem to forget that this salary likely does not include any other benefits (health insurance, stock options ...). I mean he is the lead develop…

I would say companies with a revenue above a certain number should be compelled to pay an annual subscription for any and all Open source projects they use. Even if it means projects have to include that in their licenses.

Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#156

Post by pjerem »

throwaway8709 wrote: post #133
dandellion wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I seriously doubt the lead developers of a team of 4 make more than $11k in most of Europe.

Are you kidding me? FANG has lots of offices in Europe.. I work at one of those at around 20-35k USD / month, depending on stonk prices :) Making 11k USD is not uncommon for contractors in northern Europe, Switzerland or Germany. Sure, you can find many who are paid less. But talent is expensive.

At 20k USD / month, you are either incredibly good and/or lucky or you are not saying that you are working in Switzerland, in which case you forgot to say that your cost of living is higher than SV and you have no public health insurance. (but 20k/month is comfortable anyway, even in Switzerland)

Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#157

Post by arp242 »

fxtentacle wrote: post #4

Because it is too easily replaced with something else [1]. I'd say it's the exact same reason why almost nobody can make a living wage off self-publishing app store apps. There's always an endless stream of volunteers who will clone your idea for next to nothing. Plus the homepage doesn't explain at all WHY one would want to use this. So from a marketing point of view, you need to better demonstrate your value, i.e.…

That project hasn't seen any updates in almost five years.

I'm not a JS guy and familiar with Babel, but I find it hard to believe that the amount of investment required to replace Babel is less than $10/month? You can fund Babel for ~40 years for the same costs as one month of developer time.

Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#158

Post by exdsq »

golergka wrote: post #113
cycomanic wrote: post #87

I find the comments here fascinating. So the lead developer was paid $11k a month, and somehow many start calling this a problem. Apparently, if you work on OSS you should be working for something slightly above the poverty line. People are comparing it to other salaries, but seem to forget that this salary likely does not include any other benefits (health insurance, stock options ...). I mean he is the lead develop…

Other comments are right, $11k a month is a very high engineering salary anywhere in Europe. However, during the last year there's been more and more american companies that offer these kind of rates remotely. So, a good developer could make this, and even more, while living in Europe, although you might have not consider him "working" here (whatever this means in terms of remote work anyway).

Yeah I see dozens on the Braintrust platform literally daily. Some remote roles have gone up to $240ph which would be absolutely insane in Europe (or most of the US).

Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#159

Post by jeltz »

golergka wrote: post #113
cycomanic wrote: post #87

I find the comments here fascinating. So the lead developer was paid $11k a month, and somehow many start calling this a problem. Apparently, if you work on OSS you should be working for something slightly above the poverty line. People are comparing it to other salaries, but seem to forget that this salary likely does not include any other benefits (health insurance, stock options ...). I mean he is the lead develop…

Other comments are right, $11k a month is a very high engineering salary anywhere in Europe. However, during the last year there's been more and more american companies that offer these kind of rates remotely. So, a good developer could make this, and even more, while living in Europe, although you might have not consider him "working" here (whatever this means in terms of remote work anyway).

Yeah, $11k is a very high salary in Sweden. Almost the only way to make that as a developer is to be an independent contractor.

Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#160

Post by uncomputation »

axguscbklp wrote: post #79
PaywallBuster wrote: post #63

Good work so far but why does an OSS tool have to be supported by Silicon Valley salaries? USA and it's biggest cities are already hugely competitive even for profit making enterprises. Even a company like Mozilla with real commercial partnerships and solid income every year can struggle, let alone a tool which is barely noticeable by 90% of users.

Babel is one of the most popular and widely-used tools in the history of web development. Why should its developers and maintainers not make at least as much money as entry-level Silicon Valley developers?

What entry level SV dev makes 11,000 x 12 = 132,000 x 1.25 (tax) = $165k/year pre-tax? I know the salaries here are high but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. If they are that high for entry level then I’m being seriously underpaid :/
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