4 ms·

A decent developer is ~$15,000/mo after taxes and benefits, give or take. Does the toolkit provide you capability or efficiency gains at 1/30th that which an ex

A decent developer is ~$15,000/mo after taxes and benefits, give or take. Does the toolkit provide you capability or efficiency gains at 1/30th that which an extra developer would? If so, then it would seem to be well worth it.

exikyut 8y ago
Define "decent". I'm very curious to hear this. (Completely out of touch with the field.)
- im_down_w_otp 8y ago
  Doesn't bring ego into their work, can flexibly learn things quickly to identify and then use the right tools for the job, isn't driven by the fad-of-the-day unless there's legitimate (not contribute) merit to said fad applied to their problem, decreases the amount of immutable calcified process/design/implementation debt over time rather than increasing it, and knows on their own how & when to balance being a framer vs. a finisher.
trymas 8y ago
> decent developer Working in (or for a company from) a very expensive/rich technological hub of the world, i.e. couple of places in US, couple in Europe and couple in Asia. At least in Europe "decent" would mean "top 1%" - because it translates to ~300k€+ before taxes.
- distances 8y ago
  I think you read the parent wrong, they meant $15k total expense to employer, so $180k per year. I don't know how large are the US employment costs in addition to the salary, but assuming 40%, the employee would see ~$130k before taxes. Way above "decent" engineer salary for the rest of the world, but I guess that's plausible in US?
  - im_down_w_otp 8y ago
    The common rule of thumb is to estimate ~16% over the top of salaray for taxes, benefits, etc. in the U.S. So I was estimating roughly a $150k engineer. That's high in some places and low in others. But at least in the U.S. in any significant metro area, that's not an unreasonable marker for a senior engineer. However, it hardly seems meaningful to squabble over where $150k sits in the range of software engineer pay scales when we're comparing it to a $495/mo potentially productivity boosting alternative. $6k is a lot less than $50k, $100k, or $150k.

exikyut 8y ago

Define "decent". I'm very curious to hear this. (Completely out of touch with the field.)

im_down_w_otp 8y ago
Doesn't bring ego into their work, can flexibly learn things quickly to identify and then use the right tools for the job, isn't driven by the fad-of-the-day unless there's legitimate (not contribute) merit to said fad applied to their problem, decreases the amount of immutable calcified process/design/implementation debt over time rather than increasing it, and knows on their own how & when to balance being a framer vs. a finisher.

trymas 8y ago

> decent developer Working in (or for a company from) a very expensive/rich technological hub of the world, i.e. couple of places in US, couple in Europe and couple in Asia. At least in Europe "decent" would mean "top 1%" - because it translates to ~300k€+ before taxes.

distances 8y ago
I think you read the parent wrong, they meant $15k total expense to employer, so $180k per year. I don't know how large are the US employment costs in addition to the salary, but assuming 40%, the employee would see ~$130k before taxes. Way above "decent" engineer salary for the rest of the world, but I guess that's plausible in US?
- im_down_w_otp 8y ago
  The common rule of thumb is to estimate ~16% over the top of salaray for taxes, benefits, etc. in the U.S. So I was estimating roughly a $150k engineer. That's high in some places and low in others. But at least in the U.S. in any significant metro area, that's not an unreasonable marker for a senior engineer. However, it hardly seems meaningful to squabble over where $150k sits in the range of software engineer pay scales when we're comparing it to a $495/mo potentially productivity boosting alternative. $6k is a lot less than $50k, $100k, or $150k.