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What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt

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Re: What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt

#361

Post by zorked »

wtbob wrote: post #302
cbhl wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pay discrepancy between teachers and programmers in San Francisco is really bad. - School districts in SF and Oakland are short dozens of teachers -- imagine having sixty classrooms on the first day of school where there is no teacher. (e.g. http://www.sfgate.com/education/article/Bay-Area-school-dist... from last year) - San Francisco is basically building "dorms" for teachers to give them a place to live: http:…

> The pay discrepancy between teachers and programmers in San Francisco is really bad. I'd say, 'reflects the distribution of skills and positions available' rather than 'is really bad.' There is at least an order of magnitude more people capable of being minimally-acceptable public-school teachers than are capable of being minimally-acceptable Silicon Valley programmers.

Why is it a given that teachers "must" have low salaries? The sixty classrooms without teachers show otherwise.

SF teachers clearly need raises, and those can be funded by taxes from all those programmers that presumably benefit from having schools in their communities.

In fact there is no reason why teacher wages shouldn't keep up with the general state of the community where they live in.

Re: What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt

#362

Post by plopilop »

mirages wrote: post #353
zeveb wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think $200K/person is fine, but I do quibble with this: > They are in Silicon Valley and have to compete with everyone else in Silicon Valley Why? Why compete for talent in Silicon Valley when there are people all over the country who'd love to work on something like this? I can get why they might prefer not to do remote teams (it's a challenge), but there are cities like Seattle, Boston, Denver, Dallas, Kansas Cit…

I'm a 3 years software engineer in France and I'm getting 29k€ (tax excluded) per year. With current exchange rate that makes SV guys getting paid 10 times more than me. Where's the onion ?

Hi fellow French engineer. You are paid 29k€, which already covers for your health insurance, retirement plans, unemployment insurance, education, and so on. It is often said that in France, the employer pays 2x what he pays you (look up "salaire super-brut"). In America, you often have to cover your ass by yourself --and from what I understand, you absolutely don't want to get cancer or any serious illness there, no matter your health insurance. Also, living in these areas is fucking expensive -- a friend in NY made $5k a month during his internship, but had to pay $2k just for his apartment. The same holds in SV, I'd say.

However, I don't know your job but 29k€ seems a bit at the lower end of the scale to me, at least for IT. Have you looked at websites like glassdoor.fr what's the mean salary for your position? From what I know the first years are highly dependent on your diploma, but after a few years it shouldn't be effective anymore.

Edit: and as @chrischen says, IT engineers are not much valued in France. I'm pretty sure you've heard about the expression "pisseur de code" (literally, someone who pees code). I'm also pretty sure you've met "entrepreneurs" who had a "great idea" and who "only need" an intern to implement it --but surely they got the idea, the IT guy is just an operating man so he shouldn't get credit, even though is idea is 100% about IT services (and, probably, shitty).

Re: What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt

#363

Post by jahnu »

nappy-doo wrote: post #49

Fascinating. Everyone here is complaining that 2M for 8 employees seems steep, but I think this seems really cheap. Admittedly, I work at Google, but we bat around the number of 400-500k per employee when discussing them here. 250k/ in SV seems really reasonably priced in comparison.

> I work at Google, but we bat around the number of 400-500k per employee

That sounds astronomical even by SV standards. Perhaps I'm completely out of touch.

Re: What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt

#364

Post by vostok »

ryandrake wrote: post #323
Swizec wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has thousands of engineers. How many "senior staff software engineers"? "This estimate is based upon 18 Google Senior Staff Software Engineer salary reports" "This estimate is based upon 1 Dropbox Engineer salary report" "This estimate is based upon 1 Facebook Staff Software Engineer salary report" So we're looking at salaries of 20 engineers. There are how many thousand engineers in the Bay Area? I don't thin…

Yea, I always understood those Super Senior Staff Software Engineer roles at these top companies are for the rare "I invented the TCP in TCP/IP" people, not the more common "third average software engineer from the left".

This is an incorrect understanding. I personally know someone at Google who is nowhere near "I invented the TCP in TCP/IP" and they make >$300k (but not much more) with just a few years of experience.

Re: What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt

#365

Post by calgoo »

metafunctor wrote: post #346
jedberg wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As covered elsewhere, most of the team is remote. But they still get SV salaries because great people get those salaries no matter where they are.

I'm guessing part of the negative reaction you're getting is because great people don't just "get SV salaries" no matter what. To get an SV salary, you need to find employment at a company able and willing to pay an SV salary. Being a great engineer does help a lot, but you need to chase the salary, it won't just fall into your lap. It's much harder if you want to be remote, and very hard if you want to live in a cou…

Yea, those SV salaries are what a lot of CEOs make over here in Southern Europe. Of course, this might say more about Southern Europe, but for most of the world, when we see 200K a year paychecks, its hard to imagine that its for an engineer (especially for a programmer or sysadmin).

Re: What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt

#366

Post by gbuk2013 »

jedberg wrote: post #37

To everyone complaining about the $250K (see edit, it's actually 200K) per person in salary (which seems to be everyone at the moment), a few things to keep in mind: 1) That includes benefits 2) They are in Silicon Valley and have to compete with everyone else in Silicon Valley 3) Given what they have accomplished with such a small team, these are probably high caliber people. 4) In SV there is a good 25% premium you…

There is an "Executive Director" mentioned in the list of employees. I wonder if that persons's salary is really the same as the engineers'? ;-)

Re: What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt

#367

Post by pc86 »

eropple wrote: post #276
sidlls wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That really depends on very much more than your skill as an engineer, and the ability to "present a business case for being paid like it" simply does not apply to the majority of employment negotiation scenarios--even ones involving the very best of the best engineers. Most, in fact almost all employers have fixed salary schedules for their positions and they simply will not deviate from these as a rule, nor will the…

> Most, in fact almost all employers have fixed salary schedules for their positions and they simply will not deviate from these as a rule, nor will they entertain negotiation around them. Most employers will happily tell you that this is the case. That does not mean that it is so. If you rate it, those doors will, at many companies, open. But you have to rate doing something that is Not Normal, and you have to be ab…

I've worked at 20k+ employee companies where these are split into entire separate decision-making structures. Salaries are set by HR and approved far up the chain, and hiring decisions are made by people who do not share supervisors until you're a level below the CEO.

When you're hiring a "Programmer II" in a company like that, the salary is not going to change. You might be able to negotiate work-from-home a day or two a week, or an extra week of vacation or something, but you're simply not going to make more than the upper bound of that schedule, and being at the upper bound of that schedule will negatively impact raises until you get promoted.

The CEO or COO or CIO is not going to approve a $100k salary for a Programmer II when the band is $60-75k. It just won't happen.

On an extremely related note, there is zero ambition and very little technical skill at that company. The vast majority of folks with skill and ambition leave after 2-3 years.

Re: What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt

#368

Post by nkassis »

Fogest wrote: post #335
nkassis wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you gotta admit a lot of recent grads end up leaving. I'm another Canadian who left given I was offered doubled my salary in one move.

But isn't the cost of living also higher and you have medical expenses and things? Are you actually taking home double as much, or does a lot of that extra have to go to living expenses that you wouldn't have in Canada?

I do take home a lot more than I would in the Canada. Cost of living in the US isn't 2x Canada but salaries for tech jobs are (And keep in mind that was a while back, it's now more than that). Health is covered by my employer, I pay nothing directly for it. (Definitively not the majority of cases, most people have some amount of contributions to it). But if I had stayed in Quebec I'd have been in the top bracket and paying a huge chunk in taxes. Even as I live in a state with high social programs (MA).

So to conclude, if you are in a field like tech, medicine, finance you will be significantly better off in the US than Canada. Other fields with similar income levels between Canada and the US I'd say Canada will offer a better standard of living.

Re: What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt

#369

Post by Johan-bjareholt »

lazyjones wrote: post #360
mirages wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a 3 years software engineer in France and I'm getting 29k€ (tax excluded) per year. With current exchange rate that makes SV guys getting paid 10 times more than me. Where's the onion ?

> I'm getting 29k€ (tax excluded) per year. Ask your employer first how much it costs to pay you that. It's probably much more than you think. The LE people get paid <=3x as much as you and that's easily justified with SV salaries in general and their expertise.

Lets be generous and say the employer pays 45k, its still way over 5x more.

Re: What It Costs to Run Let's Encrypt

#370

Post by wtbob »

zorked wrote: post #361
wtbob wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The pay discrepancy between teachers and programmers in San Francisco is really bad. I'd say, 'reflects the distribution of skills and positions available' rather than 'is really bad.' There is at least an order of magnitude more people capable of being minimally-acceptable public-school teachers than are capable of being minimally-acceptable Silicon Valley programmers.

Why is it a given that teachers "must" have low salaries? The sixty classrooms without teachers show otherwise. SF teachers clearly need raises, and those can be funded by taxes from all those programmers that presumably benefit from having schools in their communities. In fact there is no reason why teacher wages shouldn't keep up with the general state of the community where they live in.

> Why is it a given that teachers "must" have low salaries?

I explained why: at least an order of magnitude more people are capable of meeting the minimal requirements to be teachers than are capable of meeting the minimal requirements to be developers, thus the former will always be less-well-paid than the latter.

> The sixty classrooms without teachers show otherwise.

They may not be due to pay but due to union rules. And, of course, even if teachers should make more that doesn't mean that they should make much

> In fact there is no reason why teacher wages shouldn't keep up with the general state of the community where they live in.

Are you saying that teachers should make a mean or median wage? I think that's a little silly, as it's hardly a profession requiring high innate talent and intensive study, unlike engineering, medicine, law, religion. Frankly, I think a welder or a plumber should be paid more than a teacher.

But it shouldn't matter what you & I think teachers should be paid: their wages should be set by the market, as should everyone's. That's the closest thing to fair we'll ever be able to get.

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