Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money? • Hacker News Board

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

#701

Post by indemnity » Wed, May 12, 2021, 11:08 AM UTC

MetallicCloud wrote: post #484

indemnity wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand why salaries are so low in Europe. I work in New Zealand, not exactly a tech hub, and I’m on $220k p.a. (mid career). $160k US, 130k EUR. 39% top tax. I wouldn’t say I am significantly above average and I’m not in management (architect/principal engineer). Similar story in Australia. Not quite US levels but decent compensation, I don’t feel taken advantage of.

Really? Maybe that sort of money is available in Sydney. I never saw anything close to that level in Melbourne, particularly for a mid level developer. I've had to move to the US to make a decent wage.

Mid-career (architect/principal engineer).

I am 41.

Next step would be management, but I've done that before, and will be staying IC as long as I can make this kind of money for it.

But I have a year left before I am mortgage free anyway, so that will change the risk calculus a lot, probably go contracting for more $$.

Probably laughable comp for the Bay Area at this stage of my career, but I am not in the Bay Area...

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

#702

Post by nsonha » Wed, May 12, 2021, 12:09 PM UTC

bjornjajeja wrote: post #602

rhacker wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> TEST AGAINST VARIOUS BROWSERS I mean, how does that not just push all of this towards companies and open source solutions that provide access to old browsers and what not? I mean no matter what direction you push, it's going to be someone else's open source code that needs money.

You’re right that was an off topic note. I guess what I’m getting at is that most current browsers support very nice JavaScript features anyway. And instead of adding yet another layer between our code and the browser—embrace the current generation of (at this point very robust) language features available. And if that’s not good enough use something like TypeScript!

> most current browsers support very nice JavaScript features anyway

Maybe that's true for users in the western world. However, if you are in the asian market, there are popular browsers you've nerver heard of (some localized fork of chromium that's way behind). That is not to mention the poorer populace of the world still uses whatever that runs on WinXP or something, if they have Internet at all.

As software engineers it's not our job to use technology to dictate (control) how people access information, telling them to use newer browsers and newer hardware and what not, our job is to support as many people out there as we can.

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

#703

Post by bjornjajeja » Wed, May 12, 2021, 2:40 PM UTC

nsonha wrote: post #702

bjornjajeja wrote: post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re right that was an off topic note. I guess what I’m getting at is that most current browsers support very nice JavaScript features anyway. And instead of adding yet another layer between our code and the browser—embrace the current generation of (at this point very robust) language features available. And if that’s not good enough use something like TypeScript!

> most current browsers support very nice JavaScript features anyway Maybe that's true for users in the western world. However, if you are in the asian market, there are popular browsers you've nerver heard of (some localized fork of chromium that's way behind). That is not to mention the poorer populace of the world still uses whatever that runs on WinXP or something, if they have Internet at all. As software engine…

Well put... However, the unfortunate thing about web technology is that websites no longer support NOSCRIPT. If we want true global compatibility, it’s HTML + CSS and ZERO JavaScript. That has immense privacy benefits too.

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

#704

Post by CRConrad » Wed, May 12, 2021, 3:48 PM UTC

tijl wrote: post #687

johannes1234321 wrote: post #622

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparing salaries isn't easy. Europeans get more vacation, more sick days, other (better?) Health care, retirement funds, unemployment insurance ... also they eventually pay less rent etc. Compering this objectively ain't easy.

What also doesn't help, is that, at least in my experience, Americans usually mention pre-tax wages, while Europeans usually talk about their wages after tax (not sure if that is the case here, since nobody in this thread mentions taxes). $11k is roughly €9k. With Belgian tax rates, you'll have about €4.4k left after tax. (Belgium is where I live, so those are the rates I know. In Easter Europe, tax rates are lower)

> Americans usually mention pre-tax wages, while Europeans usually talk about their wages after tax

Some Europeans. AFAIK all the Nordic countries are similar in discussing salaries as pre-tax. Dunno for sure how it's done around the Mediterranean, but I wouldn't jump to the assumption that it's net-in-the-hand there either. Could well be that this "European norm" is just a German and perhaps French (and apparently Belgian?) thing.

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

#705

Post by toomanybeersies » Wed, May 12, 2021, 3:56 PM UTC

Too wrote: post #685

GianFabien wrote: post #678

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't understand why there are 117 million downloads every month. I doubt there are 117 million programmers using Babel and why download it every month?

I'm sure 99% of all CI systems out there are just blindly doing npm install without any cache or pinned packages. Multiplied with microservices so that every run has to rebuild not just one service.

For the savings in data transfer, it's not worth the time to set up and kind of caching for package dependencies.

To mitigate the risk of supply chain attacks, on the other hand...

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

#706

Post by morelisp » Wed, May 12, 2021, 4:07 PM UTC

CRConrad wrote: post #704

tijl wrote: post #687

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What also doesn't help, is that, at least in my experience, Americans usually mention pre-tax wages, while Europeans usually talk about their wages after tax (not sure if that is the case here, since nobody in this thread mentions taxes). $11k is roughly €9k. With Belgian tax rates, you'll have about €4.4k left after tax. (Belgium is where I live, so those are the rates I know. In Easter Europe, tax rates are lower)

> Americans usually mention pre-tax wages, while Europeans usually talk about their wages after tax Some Europeans. AFAIK all the Nordic countries are similar in discussing salaries as pre-tax. Dunno for sure how it's done around the Mediterranean, but I wouldn't jump to the assumption that it's net-in-the-hand there either. Could well be that this "European norm" is just a German and perhaps French (and apparently B…

Everyone I know in Berlin (including Germans, French, and Belgians) talks about pre-tax salary.

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

#707

Post by CRConrad » Wed, May 12, 2021, 4:08 PM UTC

eterevsky wrote: post #698

ahD5zae7 wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to give one data point I'm in Poland and I'm earning around 3500€ in a fully remote senior developer/engineer position working on AI tech in a company of around 1k employees. I'm one of the best paid people among my colleagues. The absolute top range job offers in this field in my country would be somewhere around 5000€ but that may be available only to a few developers in the entire 40 million country. I'm sure…

I work for Google in Switzerland and I have plenty of polish colleagues. The salaries here start around 150k per year, including bonus.

150k what, CHF? How much is that in currencies anyone knows anything about, and is it pre- or post-tax?

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

#708

Post by Siira » Wed, May 12, 2021, 4:51 PM UTC

jgwil2 wrote: post #676

FiberBundle wrote: post #300

This whole thread is basically a testament as to why the OSS model, unfortunately, is broken. Very competent people are expected to write widely used software for a salary that basically merely guarantees subsistence. It never ceases to amaze me how great software engineers allow themselves to be exploited in such a way. If you consider the societal impact that some of these projects have and the skill set that some…

> pretty much dwarfs the skill sets of people in other well paid professions such as lawyers or doctors I don't know how you could possibly measure this except by years of training, which would put both doctors and lawyers ahead of software developers. But really, it's apples and oranges.

Doctors, for one, work to fiddle essentially a blackbox, under intensive regulation, and the results of their work is very hard to measure. This has led to a model where artificial processes are introduced that select for the privileged and the smart to become doctors. The artificial education does not mean these people have more skillsets. Like most education, it just signals conscientiousness and intellect.

On the other hand, software design is probably the single best domain for humans to build new skills, with its fast feedback loop, transparency, ease of measuring results, and the fact that the whole system is more or less documented and obeys human intuitions.

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

#709

Post by BerislavLopac » Wed, May 12, 2021, 5:20 PM UTC

ThalesX wrote: post #461

ianbutler wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the flip side, Silicon Valley isn't the only expensive place and 132k was well below my full time salary in New York as a senior eng before I jumped into my own work. Actually I don't think I know any full time engineers right now in my personal network making lower than 150k and they're all very talented people who wouldn't be able to hop on something like this for various reasons related to that being too low. M…

I'm on the other side of the boat, and presumably the ocean. In Eastern Europe, part of the EU and have a lot of connections working in outsourcing. Some senior level engineers can end up making 4000 - 5000€ per month, which would translate to ~$65.000 per year. I know of very few that make 6000€ or more. Giving the benefit of the doubt and saying that any engineer here will be half the value of one from SV (which, I…

> making 4000 - 5000€ per month, which would translate to ~$65.000 per year

I don't know what is the situation in your location, but in one country which fits your description it is customary to talk about the _net_ salary, i.e. after all national and local taxes; in the US, the UK and in many other places the salary is always discussed on pre-tax bases.

To make things worse, in that particular country even the official figure - the one that is put on a contract - is not what the company is actually paying (for) you, as there are some taxes that are added _on top_ of that figure, effectively making them taxes for taxes. :/

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

#710

Post by CRConrad » Wed, May 12, 2021, 7:35 PM UTC

qPM9l3XJrF wrote: post #654

GlobalFrog wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contrarily to the common claim of capitalism, this wouldn’t be an optimal solution. Let’s say there are ten shepherds sharing the fields. You privatize it and in a short amount of time, there will be one shepherd left, ultra rich, and nine unemployed shepherds. So capitalism is a good system to optimize the value of the field, not its value for society.

If that actually happens, it will be because one of the shepherds is substantially better at flock management than the others, and their financial success allows them to buy fields from the other shepherds. The other shepherds will only sell their field if the good-flock-manager shepherd makes them an attractive offer (probably enough money such that they can live off the interest for the rest of their life). Not to…

> If that actually happens, it will be because one of the shepherds is substantially better at flock management than the others, and their financial success allows them to buy fields from the other shepherds.

IFF all the other shepherds even got a cut in the privatisation, then perhaps.

But there's no guarantee of that. That's certainly not how things went down in the last major privatisation the world has seen, that of post-Soviet Russia in the 1990s.