7 ms·

I devour indiehacker's interviews and I love the transparency - thanks to both sides of the table. According to the numbers here, 42% of the 17,000 monthly rev

by rfrey 10y ago

I devour indiehacker's interviews and I love the transparency - thanks to both sides of the table. According to the numbers here, 42% of the 17,000 monthly revenues are spent on 6 people. That's $1190 per person per month if everyone is paid equally. Is everyone in Romania, and is that a living wage there? If not, how are your employees making ends meet? Edit: that last sentence sounds accusatory - I don't mean it to. I just mean: do you have a strategy of part-timers who have other income streams, do you take side contracts, etc.

eugeneionesco 10y ago
>Is everyone in Romania, and is that a living wage there? It's a very good living wage for Romania but low for what other IT people are earning, ~$2k monthly.
- emilburzo 10y ago
  > It's a very good living wage It's a very good wage for _surviving_. After taking care of rent/utility bills there's not much left to go around for actually living.
  - hueving 10y ago
    >After taking care of rent/bills there's not much left to go around for actually living. Are you implying rent/bills in Romania are $1k/mo?
    - user5994461 10y ago
      The rent in UK (not London), Germany, France (not Paris), Italy, Spain, Portugal, etc... are under $1k a month. Romania is eastern Europe. It should be way cheaper than that.
      - emerongi 10y ago
        Rent most likely ~200, food ~100-200, misc ~100. You can get by with 300-500/month in eastern Europe, but you will have to monitor your expenses really closely. 300 if you live with friends/parents, cook at home and don't really do much else other than eat, sleep and work. Get a decent apartment, have some fun in your free time and 1000 does turn into a "barely getting by"-wage. 1.5k-2k is comfortable wage, but median is around 500-600 in most of eastern Europe afaik.
        webmaven 10y ago
        How much for a decent high-speed Internet connection?
        pilsetnieks 10y ago
        In Romania? $5 for 1Gbps, I'd wager. That is really not the problem there.
        GoToRO 10y ago
        9$. VAT, 24%, included.
        em500 10y ago
        Around 7 to 8 dollar/month https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/Bucharest?displayCurrency=USD https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/Bucharest?displayCu...
        user5994461 10y ago
        It seems that your 1000 may be rather comfortable, compared to the major tech cities. Different places have different standards for "barely getting by".
        hueving 10y ago
        >1000 does turn into a "barely getting by"-wage That's a very privileged view of "barely getting by". All you've described is someone spending everything they make on luxuries (nicer apartment, "having fun" - whatever that implies). By that token, someone could easily be "barely getting by" in San Francisco on an income of $400k by getting a nice 2 bedroom apartment to themselves in a hot location.
    - bogdanu 10y ago
      $1k/mo is the budget for an employee. Based on an salary app I've found online, an employee will receive around 680$/month after all taxes. It's a bit under-average for entry level devs in Romania but it's enough to live decent (the average national wage is around 460$ per month after taxes).
  - usaphp 10y ago
    One could say the same for Bay Area salary of $150k.
- kkt262 10y ago
  Why don't Romanians just get remote jobs?
  - alexbanks 10y ago
    Do you believe it to be that easy to get a remote job, such that all Romanians can simply just "get" one?
    - ianai 10y ago
      Jobs grow on trees after all /s
    - elbear 10y ago
      It's not easy, but you can do it. Source: I'm Romanian and I work remotely. I found the job here in the monthly Who's Hiring thread.
      - alexbanks 10y ago
        My point was not "Romanians can't get remote jobs," but rather "It's not so easy to get remote jobs that all Romanians can simply get a remote job."
        elbear 10y ago
        It's as easy or as difficult as getting any other programming job. The more you know your stuff and good English, the better the job you'll find.
  - antisthenes 10y ago
    Why isn't everyone just born a rich programmer, so we can finally eliminate that pesky poverty and start enjoy the libertarian utopia?
  - tedmiston 10y ago
    I've noticed many of the dev marketplaces (even the more expensive ones) are dominated by international developers. It's definitely a popular path.
thesimpsons1022 10y ago
from the article it seems like they are a consulting company and that this is a side project for them almost. So im sure they make money from their clients on top of the money from this
- axelut 10y ago
  Thank you for reading it. We used to be a consulting agency, then when our side project (creative-tim) started to generate enough to pay our office and salaries for 3 persons we switched to it and then it was growing so we could get more people onboard.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
axelut 10y ago
Glad that you like it! In Romania, the minimum monthly wage is 250$, then programmers start with 400$/month. Depending on experience and what they do inside a company they can grow to 2-3k/month in a couple of years. We are growing the salaries according to the experience and the position inside the company too. 100% of our employees started with 0 experience because it was their first job. Everything was learned inside our company.
- tedmiston 10y ago
  Totally was not expecting the answer to be "yes".
  - withdavidli 10y ago
    Some countries in Europe is very low wage. There is an article about Italy millennia generation the 1000 Euro generation because that's how much many of them make per month. That isn't to say it's a living wage, but it's what a lot get. Tech isn't paid much compared to Bay Area either, look at London or Spain, dramatic wage differences (London especially since cost of living isn't different from Bay Area). $1k Euro/month is decent living in Eastern Europe, Romania, Hungary, almost any place closer to Russia.
20years 10y ago
That stood out to me too. Not great at this stage but if they can continue to grow it, I suppose the pay will increase too. They started 2 years ago though. 17k in 2 years for 6 people is pretty low imo unless they are very part time.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
angry-hacker 10y ago
While this is Romania and one of the poorest in EU, one thing Americans tend to forget is that all the good things you like about EU like healthcare etc. come with a cost. It's not like only super rich put the money in :) The Silicon Valley wages are here utopia, even in the most expensive cities. Ask a Swiss about the salary your dev makes in Valley and he or she will have an heart attack.
tudorconstantin 10y ago
I wrote a blog post back in 2013 regarding how much I should make in more expensive cities of the world (London, SF, NY, etc) in order to have the same standard of living as in Romania for 1700 eur/month: http://programming.tudorconstantin.com/2013/10/why-ill-never-leave-romania-as-software.html http://programming.tudorconstantin.com/2013/10/why-ill-never...
rocgf 10y ago
Romanian here, living in the UK though. Romania is a lot cheaper than any much any other place in the Western world. Granted, $1.2k a month wouldn't be enough to go on shopping sprees every weekend, but it's enough for quite a good life. You can also take a look here to get an idea: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=United+States&country2=Romania&city1=San+Francisco%2C+CA&city2=Bucharest https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou... I think a good senior software engineer makes around $2.5k per month, but I think that's sort of on the higher end unless you're really a hot shot, and for Romania, that's an awesome salary, way above the average.
- biztos 10y ago
  It's probably worth noting to the US audience that salaries in Europe are almost always quoted as net, with (usually) no further taxes due. So if someone's getting $2.5K per month it's not the same as an American getting 12x that in annual salary, because it's (presumably) the after-tax number in Romania while it'd be the pre-tax number in the US. Still, I get that tech talent is a great value in Romania. I wonder if there's a problem finding good people because so many would go to the West to make more money. But it seems the OP solves that problem by hiring beginners, which is probably what I'd do.
  - rocgf 10y ago
    Yeah, generally salaries in Romania (any maybe other Eastern European countries) are quoted as net, per month. In the USA/UK it's almost always yearly-based, with hourly rates for contractors. In Romania people mainly talk about how much they take home from their salary every month. With regards to the tech talent, I definitely think there is some truth to that. I'm no expert, but I'd say it might have something to do with the education system, or maybe even culture, which is quite heavily focused on maths and physics. With that said, we always rank quite low on most international education indices and the like. I think it might be some sort of educational inequality where children in the cities get quite good education and are pushed by their parents to study, while the ones in rural areas get the short end of the stick. Also, something that really pisses me off is how many Romanians overstate our IT prowess. "Romanian is the second language spoken at Microsoft" is now part of folk wisdom, despite being proved to be false and just a media hoax in the '00s. We have many big companies with offices in Bucharest (and other cities), but they aren't really flocking to get all of this "enormous talent" just laying around. Don't get me wrong, we do have many reputable engineers and university professors, but nothing that would warrant this common perception about how incredibly skilled Romanians are in IT.

by rfrey 10y ago

eugeneionesco 10y ago

>Is everyone in Romania, and is that a living wage there? It's a very good living wage for Romania but low for what other IT people are earning, ~$2k monthly.

emilburzo 10y ago
> It's a very good living wage It's a very good wage for _surviving_. After taking care of rent/utility bills there's not much left to go around for actually living.
- hueving 10y ago
  >After taking care of rent/bills there's not much left to go around for actually living. Are you implying rent/bills in Romania are $1k/mo?
  - user5994461 10y ago
    The rent in UK (not London), Germany, France (not Paris), Italy, Spain, Portugal, etc... are under $1k a month. Romania is eastern Europe. It should be way cheaper than that.
    - emerongi 10y ago
      Rent most likely ~200, food ~100-200, misc ~100. You can get by with 300-500/month in eastern Europe, but you will have to monitor your expenses really closely. 300 if you live with friends/parents, cook at home and don't really do much else other than eat, sleep and work. Get a decent apartment, have some fun in your free time and 1000 does turn into a "barely getting by"-wage. 1.5k-2k is comfortable wage, but median is around 500-600 in most of eastern Europe afaik.
      - webmaven 10y ago
        How much for a decent high-speed Internet connection?
        pilsetnieks 10y ago
        In Romania? $5 for 1Gbps, I'd wager. That is really not the problem there.
        GoToRO 10y ago
        9$. VAT, 24%, included.
        em500 10y ago
        Around 7 to 8 dollar/month https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/Bucharest?displayCurrency=USD https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/Bucharest?displayCu...
      - user5994461 10y ago
        It seems that your 1000 may be rather comfortable, compared to the major tech cities. Different places have different standards for "barely getting by".
      - hueving 10y ago
        >1000 does turn into a "barely getting by"-wage That's a very privileged view of "barely getting by". All you've described is someone spending everything they make on luxuries (nicer apartment, "having fun" - whatever that implies). By that token, someone could easily be "barely getting by" in San Francisco on an income of $400k by getting a nice 2 bedroom apartment to themselves in a hot location.
  - bogdanu 10y ago
    $1k/mo is the budget for an employee. Based on an salary app I've found online, an employee will receive around 680$/month after all taxes. It's a bit under-average for entry level devs in Romania but it's enough to live decent (the average national wage is around 460$ per month after taxes).
- usaphp 10y ago
  One could say the same for Bay Area salary of $150k.
kkt262 10y ago
Why don't Romanians just get remote jobs?
- alexbanks 10y ago
  Do you believe it to be that easy to get a remote job, such that all Romanians can simply just "get" one?
  - ianai 10y ago
    Jobs grow on trees after all /s
  - elbear 10y ago
    It's not easy, but you can do it. Source: I'm Romanian and I work remotely. I found the job here in the monthly Who's Hiring thread.
    - alexbanks 10y ago
      My point was not "Romanians can't get remote jobs," but rather "It's not so easy to get remote jobs that all Romanians can simply get a remote job."
      - elbear 10y ago
        It's as easy or as difficult as getting any other programming job. The more you know your stuff and good English, the better the job you'll find.
- antisthenes 10y ago
  Why isn't everyone just born a rich programmer, so we can finally eliminate that pesky poverty and start enjoy the libertarian utopia?
- tedmiston 10y ago
  I've noticed many of the dev marketplaces (even the more expensive ones) are dominated by international developers. It's definitely a popular path.

thesimpsons1022 10y ago

from the article it seems like they are a consulting company and that this is a side project for them almost. So im sure they make money from their clients on top of the money from this

axelut 10y ago
Thank you for reading it. We used to be a consulting agency, then when our side project (creative-tim) started to generate enough to pay our office and salaries for 3 persons we switched to it and then it was growing so we could get more people onboard.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

axelut 10y ago

Glad that you like it! In Romania, the minimum monthly wage is 250$, then programmers start with 400$/month. Depending on experience and what they do inside a company they can grow to 2-3k/month in a couple of years. We are growing the salaries according to the experience and the position inside the company too. 100% of our employees started with 0 experience because it was their first job. Everything was learned inside our company.

tedmiston 10y ago
Totally was not expecting the answer to be "yes".
- withdavidli 10y ago
  Some countries in Europe is very low wage. There is an article about Italy millennia generation the 1000 Euro generation because that's how much many of them make per month. That isn't to say it's a living wage, but it's what a lot get. Tech isn't paid much compared to Bay Area either, look at London or Spain, dramatic wage differences (London especially since cost of living isn't different from Bay Area). $1k Euro/month is decent living in Eastern Europe, Romania, Hungary, almost any place closer to Russia.

20years 10y ago

That stood out to me too. Not great at this stage but if they can continue to grow it, I suppose the pay will increase too. They started 2 years ago though. 17k in 2 years for 6 people is pretty low imo unless they are very part time.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

angry-hacker 10y ago

While this is Romania and one of the poorest in EU, one thing Americans tend to forget is that all the good things you like about EU like healthcare etc. come with a cost. It's not like only super rich put the money in :) The Silicon Valley wages are here utopia, even in the most expensive cities. Ask a Swiss about the salary your dev makes in Valley and he or she will have an heart attack.

tudorconstantin 10y ago

I wrote a blog post back in 2013 regarding how much I should make in more expensive cities of the world (London, SF, NY, etc) in order to have the same standard of living as in Romania for 1700 eur/month: http://programming.tudorconstantin.com/2013/10/why-ill-never-leave-romania-as-software.html http://programming.tudorconstantin.com/2013/10/why-ill-never...

rocgf 10y ago

Romanian here, living in the UK though. Romania is a lot cheaper than any much any other place in the Western world. Granted, $1.2k a month wouldn't be enough to go on shopping sprees every weekend, but it's enough for quite a good life. You can also take a look here to get an idea: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=United+States&country2=Romania&city1=San+Francisco%2C+CA&city2=Bucharest https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou... I think a good senior software engineer makes around $2.5k per month, but I think that's sort of on the higher end unless you're really a hot shot, and for Romania, that's an awesome salary, way above the average.

biztos 10y ago
It's probably worth noting to the US audience that salaries in Europe are almost always quoted as net, with (usually) no further taxes due. So if someone's getting $2.5K per month it's not the same as an American getting 12x that in annual salary, because it's (presumably) the after-tax number in Romania while it'd be the pre-tax number in the US. Still, I get that tech talent is a great value in Romania. I wonder if there's a problem finding good people because so many would go to the West to make more money. But it seems the OP solves that problem by hiring beginners, which is probably what I'd do.
- rocgf 10y ago
  Yeah, generally salaries in Romania (any maybe other Eastern European countries) are quoted as net, per month. In the USA/UK it's almost always yearly-based, with hourly rates for contractors. In Romania people mainly talk about how much they take home from their salary every month. With regards to the tech talent, I definitely think there is some truth to that. I'm no expert, but I'd say it might have something to do with the education system, or maybe even culture, which is quite heavily focused on maths and physics. With that said, we always rank quite low on most international education indices and the like. I think it might be some sort of educational inequality where children in the cities get quite good education and are pushed by their parents to study, while the ones in rural areas get the short end of the stick. Also, something that really pisses me off is how many Romanians overstate our IT prowess. "Romanian is the second language spoken at Microsoft" is now part of folk wisdom, despite being proved to be false and just a media hoax in the '00s. We have many big companies with offices in Bucharest (and other cities), but they aren't really flocking to get all of this "enormous talent" just laying around. Don't get me wrong, we do have many reputable engineers and university professors, but nothing that would warrant this common perception about how incredibly skilled Romanians are in IT.