4 ms·

I'm out of the loop, I knew they were in trouble but Mozilla is carving up the talent pool? I really wish we could come up with sustainable models for not for

I'm out of the loop, I knew they were in trouble but Mozilla is carving up the talent pool? I really wish we could come up with sustainable models for not for (much) profit tech companies that was beyond our current systems of volunteer and "strategic partnerships" (as in, it's a side effect of a larger business strategy). Basically in this model, engineers would make maybe 80-160k. No options, no equity, no "going public". No fancy offices or amenities. Just a reasonable pay, a mission for the public good, and sincere dedicated people. I've looked hard and searched for jobs like that. Maybe wikimedia and internet archive. But yeah, can't get my emails returned so maybe that's not who they are.

marcinzm 6y ago
I suspect the few companies like what you describe have a list of applicants longer than the golden gate bridge. So unless you're well known or well connected enough to get their attention they're not interested. Why settle for a random engineer when they can get a world renowned expert with two PhDs and four 5000+ star git repos?
- kissickas 6y ago
  For $160k?
  - marcinzm 6y ago
    More for the helping the world part of things. Many people will give their all to causes they consider worthy for minimal personal gain. Not like they can't move to a regular corporate job after 10 years when they need to support a family.
    - temp43t453 6y ago
      such companies with salaries under average market level wont work well due to 1. corporate bureacracy - managers usually are undercompetent and tend to ignore personal matters so team members might bully eachother 2. idealistic people usually have a couple of nuts loose in their heads, combine two or more such persons and you get problem for entire team - linux's coc is one example. so nearly every org without really focused goal and means of it's following will go the mozilla way, the marissa meyer and such... it will happen every time if managerial part ignore specifics of programmer work.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
wayfromeast 6y ago
Sounds like government work
- kristopolous 6y ago
  I have friends at JPL and NASA. You're not that far off. I want a more general version
nanagojo 6y ago
Mozilla already announced their new strategy, they are shifting into a "Product" focused company. Which why is they laid off all these teams. The browser is no longer the focus. Indeed they laid off the Servo team.
- ChrisSD 6y ago
  The browser is absolutely their focus which is why they laid off the Servo team. Servo is a research project, Gecko/Firefox is their browser. It's also a massive money sink. Firefox itself has zero income and yet keeping up with Google is fantastically expensive (even Microsoft decided to throw in the towel). So they cut teams that a) weren't directly working on their core browser and b) doesn't make money for spending on their browser.
  - dblohm7 6y ago
    As a Mozilla employee, I can say that this is a fairly accurate assessment.
    - glandium 6y ago
      Except for the part about Firefox not making any money. Firefox is making most of the money.
      - ChrisSD 6y ago
        It gets a fixed amount of money from Google for using them as the default search engine. But what I meant was Firefox has no means to actual generate an income in its own right. Mozilla have tried. The reactions have not been good. The money from Google is practically a donation at this point. It's not exactly an altruistic one but it's not exactly a pure business transaction either given Firefox's current market share.
        geektips 6y ago
        What will happen to this donation if the outcome of the anti-trust is against Google ?

marcinzm 6y ago

I suspect the few companies like what you describe have a list of applicants longer than the golden gate bridge. So unless you're well known or well connected enough to get their attention they're not interested. Why settle for a random engineer when they can get a world renowned expert with two PhDs and four 5000+ star git repos?

kissickas 6y ago
For $160k?
- marcinzm 6y ago
  More for the helping the world part of things. Many people will give their all to causes they consider worthy for minimal personal gain. Not like they can't move to a regular corporate job after 10 years when they need to support a family.
  - temp43t453 6y ago
    such companies with salaries under average market level wont work well due to 1. corporate bureacracy - managers usually are undercompetent and tend to ignore personal matters so team members might bully eachother 2. idealistic people usually have a couple of nuts loose in their heads, combine two or more such persons and you get problem for entire team - linux's coc is one example. so nearly every org without really focused goal and means of it's following will go the mozilla way, the marissa meyer and such... it will happen every time if managerial part ignore specifics of programmer work.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

wayfromeast 6y ago

Sounds like government work

kristopolous 6y ago
I have friends at JPL and NASA. You're not that far off. I want a more general version

nanagojo 6y ago

Mozilla already announced their new strategy, they are shifting into a "Product" focused company. Which why is they laid off all these teams. The browser is no longer the focus. Indeed they laid off the Servo team.

ChrisSD 6y ago
The browser is absolutely their focus which is why they laid off the Servo team. Servo is a research project, Gecko/Firefox is their browser. It's also a massive money sink. Firefox itself has zero income and yet keeping up with Google is fantastically expensive (even Microsoft decided to throw in the towel). So they cut teams that a) weren't directly working on their core browser and b) doesn't make money for spending on their browser.
- dblohm7 6y ago
  As a Mozilla employee, I can say that this is a fairly accurate assessment.
  - glandium 6y ago
    Except for the part about Firefox not making any money. Firefox is making most of the money.
    - ChrisSD 6y ago
      It gets a fixed amount of money from Google for using them as the default search engine. But what I meant was Firefox has no means to actual generate an income in its own right. Mozilla have tried. The reactions have not been good. The money from Google is practically a donation at this point. It's not exactly an altruistic one but it's not exactly a pure business transaction either given Firefox's current market share.
      - geektips 6y ago
        What will happen to this donation if the outcome of the anti-trust is against Google ?