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Actual is going open-source

actualbudget.com

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Re: Actual is going open-source

#131

Post by noobermin »

mellosouls wrote: post #48
codegeek wrote: post #25

"I completely underestimated how much work it takes to build a business. There's so much overhead. I'm always figuring out why a build failed, taxes, how to triage issues, responding to support, designing UIs, responding to Apple's complaints, and more. There's so much that goes on behind the scenes. There's no way a single person can possible do this alone, especially as a side project." This is the part that resona…

you can have a cushy tech job making 200K relatively easy Some of these claims seem to come from people living on a different planet to me. Yes you can make that, but only if you are in a tiny (and normally very privileged) set. The way it's breezily posted on this forum at times shows perhaps just a leeetle disconnect with the mainstream tech world

The keyword I'm assuming is "relatively," I'm hoping it's not absolutely an easy job because that would just be wasted money, which I don't put as being above some people's intelligence but still.

Re: Actual is going open-source

#132

Post by shankr »

sciurus wrote: post #125
rglullis wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, what part of the world are you on? Even in Berlin, with all the talks about it becoming a top destination for tech people, I'm yet to hear any 6-figures offer. Even the blockchain companies that were flush with cash were paying 90-95k€ to their top people, maybe a 10-20% performance bonus. Mind you, we are talking about Germany where the tax is ~42% of your income at this bracket if you are single. When I was…

I've personally worked with people who I know made 6-figures of total comp in Germany. Checking the relatively-new https://techpays.eu/ , there are plenty of 6-figure entries for Germany. I'm not saying this means it's the norm, just that it's achievable for people whose posts make it to the front page of Hacker News. You mentioned taxes. When people talk about comp in the US, we aren't taking out taxes. Effective ta…

I think the parent above you is talking without taking out taxes. For 90K, you would pay (taxes+health insurance + pension+unemployment benefit) ~42%. So at the end, what you see in your account ~52K/year. This is as a single person. For family/kids, you can make little bit more.

Re: Actual is going open-source

#133

Post by noobermin »

rglullis wrote: post #116
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes you can make that, but only if you are in a tiny (and normally very privileged) set If we're talking about people talented enough to actually build and ship their own apps independently, a $200K or more compensation package should be easy to come by remotely or in any medium size city. For the truly average developer, $200K is definitely not the norm according to any compensation data I've seen.

I've built and shipped my own apps independently. I have almost 20 years of professional experience in Web, some Machine Learning and Data Science. I also led teams distributed around the world. I also got into blockchain development in 2019 and now I am working on a slow-but-steadily-growing open source project [0] to make payments with crypto easier. I'm living in the hot "tech center of Europe" (Berlin) and I'm ye…

Best not to make a job proposal over a Hacker News comment.

Re: Actual is going open-source

#134

Post by drc500free »

nerdjon wrote: post #89

I am curious, what do people use for budgeting? Mint seems like the most feature rich, but not only do I not want to support their parent company because of their Tax lobbying... but I don't trust them from a privacy standpoint (Considering its free). YNAB and Monarch both seem like really good options. But I have not looked into them much yet. I currently use Copilot (iOS only... really just iPhone, no iPad app). I…

I used to use Mint, moved to Truebill a couple years ago. It's easier to split out and budget discretionary spending and track it over the month. They also do a good job of automatically identifying bills and other repeat charges for review.

Re: Actual is going open-source

#135

Post by rglullis »

y4mi wrote: post #121
rglullis wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, what part of the world are you on? Even in Berlin, with all the talks about it becoming a top destination for tech people, I'm yet to hear any 6-figures offer. Even the blockchain companies that were flush with cash were paying 90-95k€ to their top people, maybe a 10-20% performance bonus. Mind you, we are talking about Germany where the tax is ~42% of your income at this bracket if you are single. When I was…

I am pretty sure they're saying $200k before taxes. It's equivalent wage in Germany would be 150k€, as the employer has to pay about 21% on top of the salary for social securities. I agree that these numbers always sound outlandish (I'm from Germany too), but they do seem to be true. Do keep in mind that while the wage gap is bad here, its several times worse in the USA.

I know it is pre-tax. I also know that there are benefits in Europe that simply do not exist in the US - minimum of 25 days of actual vacation and not that "you may travel for a few days, but you are still on-call" thing that people in the US call "holidays", Elternzeit, etc...

But still, no one would claim that is easy to get a 90k€ salary in Germany, or that "if you are not asking that much then what are you doing". For 150, you have to be way above average or you have to running your own business.

Re: Actual is going open-source

#136

Post by bern4444 »

nerdjon wrote: post #89

I am curious, what do people use for budgeting? Mint seems like the most feature rich, but not only do I not want to support their parent company because of their Tax lobbying... but I don't trust them from a privacy standpoint (Considering its free). YNAB and Monarch both seem like really good options. But I have not looked into them much yet. I currently use Copilot (iOS only... really just iPhone, no iPad app). I…

I use YNAB, I tried Monarch and I found it less intuitive. I truly think YNAB is the best player in the budgeting personal finance space.

I wish they did more (see my other comment about investing)

Re: Actual is going open-source

#137

Post by beberlei »

rglullis wrote: post #96
daenz wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My read on that is that it is total comp, so it includes bonuses/RSUs/options. If you're not negotiating for those things, what are you doing. Though $200k base salary is not a crazy salary for a staff/principle/high-level engineer. I don't think people realize how corrosive to mental health a $200k engineering job can be though. I was making very close to that as a base salary, and the amount of responsibilities I h…

Again, what part of the world are you on? Even in Berlin, with all the talks about it becoming a top destination for tech people, I'm yet to hear any 6-figures offer. Even the blockchain companies that were flush with cash were paying 90-95k€ to their top people, maybe a 10-20% performance bonus. Mind you, we are talking about Germany where the tax is ~42% of your income at this bracket if you are single. When I was…

To clarify, 42% of every euro earned above 57919€. Weighted average tax rate is still "just" 27% when earning 100.000€

Re: Actual is going open-source

#138

Post by [deleted] »

shankr wrote: post #128
y4mi wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am pretty sure they're saying $200k before taxes. It's equivalent wage in Germany would be 150k€, as the employer has to pay about 21% on top of the salary for social securities. I agree that these numbers always sound outlandish (I'm from Germany too), but they do seem to be true. Do keep in mind that while the wage gap is bad here, its several times worse in the USA.

No 200K doesn't include say things like 401K contribution or health contribution from employer's side. So if you are going to top German salary with employer contribution, you need to do the same with USA salary.

[deleted]

Re: Actual is going open-source

#139

Post by Dig1t »

mellosouls wrote: post #48
codegeek wrote: post #25

"I completely underestimated how much work it takes to build a business. There's so much overhead. I'm always figuring out why a build failed, taxes, how to triage issues, responding to support, designing UIs, responding to Apple's complaints, and more. There's so much that goes on behind the scenes. There's no way a single person can possible do this alone, especially as a side project." This is the part that resona…

you can have a cushy tech job making 200K relatively easy Some of these claims seem to come from people living on a different planet to me. Yes you can make that, but only if you are in a tiny (and normally very privileged) set. The way it's breezily posted on this forum at times shows perhaps just a leeetle disconnect with the mainstream tech world

I grew up in the US, my parents are very blue collar, neither of them went to college, and they worked hard to give me and my sibling a decent childhood. I went to the cheapest college I could (a local university you've never heard of) to get a BS in Computer Science.

I worked my ass off, grinding on interview studying, working internships and jumping companies whenever I could get a better offer. I'm about to turn 30 and I made 430k (200k of which is salary) in 2021 working at a big company in the US.

I would not consider my background to be particularly privileged and I don't consider myself to be all that smart, but I managed to get here just by working hard and never getting comfortable. Yes, if you get comfortable in the first tech job you land and just sit around enjoying your life, then you probably won't naturally end up in a place making lots of money.

Obviously being privileged and getting everything handed to you makes landing a nice cushy job much easier, but there are still plenty of paths to these high paying jobs if you're willing to work hard.

Also, as mentioned by another person in this thread, this totally does take a toll on your mental health and you absolutely have to sacrifice things. I gave up a lot of things that would have given me a better quality of life, but those were choices I was willing to make.

Re: Actual is going open-source

#140

Post by lkrubner »

mellosouls wrote: post #48
codegeek wrote: post #25

"I completely underestimated how much work it takes to build a business. There's so much overhead. I'm always figuring out why a build failed, taxes, how to triage issues, responding to support, designing UIs, responding to Apple's complaints, and more. There's so much that goes on behind the scenes. There's no way a single person can possible do this alone, especially as a side project." This is the part that resona…

you can have a cushy tech job making 200K relatively easy Some of these claims seem to come from people living on a different planet to me. Yes you can make that, but only if you are in a tiny (and normally very privileged) set. The way it's breezily posted on this forum at times shows perhaps just a leeetle disconnect with the mainstream tech world

A lot of people on Hacker News are in the USA, so we see a lot of USA salaries posted here. Obviously you'll make a bit less in Europe, that is a different system, salaries are lower but social services are higher. And outside of the West, I think we all understand that salaries are lower. We could adopt the habit of stating which country we are in, with every comment that we post. Would that help?
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