3 ms·

The dude lives in Indonesia. Not sure he ever saw much of a reward for writing software, sadly.

by k33n 6y ago

czechdeveloper 6y ago
I see Boston, MA on his github profile
101008 6y ago
If you get a remote job living in a 3rd world country you are in the top 1%.
- glaberficken 6y ago
  That is an exaggeration. Don't forget that most "3rd world" countries also have their own pornographically wealthy elites blocking out the top 1%. The differences are in the distribution of the middle/bottom tiers. A remote job gets you at most into what should be a confortable middle class position.
koolba 6y ago
Doesn’t his profile say he works (worked?) for Teradata. I doubt he was doing that for tips.
W4ldi 6y ago
> saw
vbezhenar 6y ago
From my experience, writing software in 3-rd world country is a reliable way to get out of the poverty. Some example numbers for Kazakhstan: average salary for many low-skilled labour workers is around $100-$200 per month. Average salary for junior software developer is at least $500 and you would quickly reach $1000 and very skilled developers might get $2000+ per month. The same is true for Russia or Belarus or Ukraine, AFAIK. Wages are even higher there. And I'm talking about building software for internal clients. Outsourcing or remote work allows for even higher salaries. I'm not entirely sure why the market works this way. It's not like any random software developer can go remote and compete with the rest of the world. But it works. I'd really be interested to learn whether Indonesian situation is similar or not.
- sbarre 6y ago
  > It's not like any random software developer can go remote and compete with the rest of the world This is actually becoming more and more of an option. At my last (small) company, we hired several individual remote developers from various parts of the world that most would consider "third world". We were introduced to them via referrals from contract work done elsewhere, and we did a paid trial period at first. Not all of them worked out, but the ones that did were quite good, and we were paying them an excellent wage for their cost of living.
  - seanwilson 6y ago
    > > It's not like any random software developer can go remote and compete with the rest of the world > This is actually becoming more and more of an option. To do this though, you generally have to know how to market yourself, put together proposals, gather requirements, design and project manage, on top of coding. Not every coder is good at this or wants to be.
    - sbarre 6y ago
      This is not necessarily true. In a large enough organization you can have a lot of that done for you, and you just basically "pull tickets" (to be reductive about it) and deliver the work. You have to be able to interview well of course, but do design and project management? I'm not talking about a freelancer who delivers an end-to-end project here, I'm talking about hiring a remote developer to join an existing team and deliver features.
- AmericanChopper 6y ago
  It would be a bit higher in Indonesia, but not too far off. FWIW somebody earning $1500 USD/month, living in Jakarta, would be very comfortably middle class.
- SXX 6y ago
  There is a lot of people from US here on HN so you should clarify that you talking about salaries after tax. E.g $1000 in Russia would be the same as $2000 in the US since employer pays 33-49% of salary as taxes. In my home town called Rostov-on-Don (10th largest city in Russia) I have friends who make $2500-3000 after tax for their software engineer and devops positions. Some of these people are far from being a rockstar developers, just have well-paid positions at large companies. Average salary is somewhat lower, but it's still good money here since living costs are low. PS: Family of 3 can basically live there for $1500 / month with rent, food and entertainment and if you single even $600 is quite sufficient.
raverbashing 6y ago
Even at CoL "corrected" salaries, a remote position usually pays very well in 3rd world countries.
princekolt 6y ago
From personal experience moving from South America to Europe for a developer position: Not true. A developer making even a small salary working remotely from a "third-world" country is still making much more money than the average person. Just as an example, on my first remote position I was making as much money as each of my parents who were on 10+ years careers in corporate sales. It's nuts. Of course the quality of life outside work made it worth moving to Europe, but to this day I still wonder if I should move back to stay closer to family while keeping a great salary.

The dude lives in Indonesia. Not sure he ever saw much of a reward for writing software, sadly.

by k33n 6y ago

The dude lives in Indonesia. Not sure he ever saw much of a reward for writing software, sadly.

czechdeveloper 6y ago

I see Boston, MA on his github profile

101008 6y ago

If you get a remote job living in a 3rd world country you are in the top 1%.

glaberficken 6y ago
That is an exaggeration. Don't forget that most "3rd world" countries also have their own pornographically wealthy elites blocking out the top 1%. The differences are in the distribution of the middle/bottom tiers. A remote job gets you at most into what should be a confortable middle class position.

koolba 6y ago

Doesn’t his profile say he works (worked?) for Teradata. I doubt he was doing that for tips.

W4ldi 6y ago

> saw

vbezhenar 6y ago

From my experience, writing software in 3-rd world country is a reliable way to get out of the poverty. Some example numbers for Kazakhstan: average salary for many low-skilled labour workers is around $100-$200 per month. Average salary for junior software developer is at least $500 and you would quickly reach $1000 and very skilled developers might get $2000+ per month. The same is true for Russia or Belarus or Ukraine, AFAIK. Wages are even higher there. And I'm talking about building software for internal clients. Outsourcing or remote work allows for even higher salaries. I'm not entirely sure why the market works this way. It's not like any random software developer can go remote and compete with the rest of the world. But it works. I'd really be interested to learn whether Indonesian situation is similar or not.

sbarre 6y ago
> It's not like any random software developer can go remote and compete with the rest of the world This is actually becoming more and more of an option. At my last (small) company, we hired several individual remote developers from various parts of the world that most would consider "third world". We were introduced to them via referrals from contract work done elsewhere, and we did a paid trial period at first. Not all of them worked out, but the ones that did were quite good, and we were paying them an excellent wage for their cost of living.
- seanwilson 6y ago
  > > It's not like any random software developer can go remote and compete with the rest of the world > This is actually becoming more and more of an option. To do this though, you generally have to know how to market yourself, put together proposals, gather requirements, design and project manage, on top of coding. Not every coder is good at this or wants to be.
  - sbarre 6y ago
    This is not necessarily true. In a large enough organization you can have a lot of that done for you, and you just basically "pull tickets" (to be reductive about it) and deliver the work. You have to be able to interview well of course, but do design and project management? I'm not talking about a freelancer who delivers an end-to-end project here, I'm talking about hiring a remote developer to join an existing team and deliver features.
AmericanChopper 6y ago
It would be a bit higher in Indonesia, but not too far off. FWIW somebody earning $1500 USD/month, living in Jakarta, would be very comfortably middle class.
SXX 6y ago
There is a lot of people from US here on HN so you should clarify that you talking about salaries after tax. E.g $1000 in Russia would be the same as $2000 in the US since employer pays 33-49% of salary as taxes. In my home town called Rostov-on-Don (10th largest city in Russia) I have friends who make $2500-3000 after tax for their software engineer and devops positions. Some of these people are far from being a rockstar developers, just have well-paid positions at large companies. Average salary is somewhat lower, but it's still good money here since living costs are low. PS: Family of 3 can basically live there for $1500 / month with rent, food and entertainment and if you single even $600 is quite sufficient.

raverbashing 6y ago

Even at CoL "corrected" salaries, a remote position usually pays very well in 3rd world countries.

princekolt 6y ago

From personal experience moving from South America to Europe for a developer position: Not true. A developer making even a small salary working remotely from a "third-world" country is still making much more money than the average person. Just as an example, on my first remote position I was making as much money as each of my parents who were on 10+ years careers in corporate sales. It's nuts. Of course the quality of life outside work made it worth moving to Europe, but to this day I still wonder if I should move back to stay closer to family while keeping a great salary.