6 ms·

I was horrified and humbled to see that the people making this amazing stuff are making considerably less ($2k/month) than I do... or frankly, than most of us h

I was horrified and humbled to see that the people making this amazing stuff are making considerably less ($2k/month) than I do... or frankly, than most of us here on HN do. Their impact is so much bigger and I aspire so much to have as a deep understanding of the Javascript world as they do.

jiofih 5y ago
Presumably they have jobs, that’s extra income.
- alpaca128 5y ago
  The article literally mentions full time work in the first sentence, and multiple times later.
  - genezeta 5y ago
    The one person who is full-time has a very different salary: > we settled on $11,000 per month as a baseline salary for working full-time on open source The people getting $2,000 per month are part-time: > a "part-time" rate: we could initially afford $2,000 USD per month. It is also explained that if possible, they would go full-time and the salary would then be raised to "the full-time rate". > Our hope was by announcing this plan and continuing our fundraising efforts, we would be able to increase the budget and raise them to the full-time rate.
    - roofwellhams 5y ago
      I think it's pretty good deal
    - toyg 5y ago
      There’s something to be said for those salaries being too “Valley”. $121k per year is a lot of money; you’d likely be able to find good JS developers in the UK for half that and in continental Europe for even less (in Eastern Europe you could probably get away with $30k…).
      - FiberBundle 5y ago
        $121k is not a lot of money for someone writing compilers. And I would seriously doubt that you could just take your average developer and expect them to be able to contribute to a project like Babel in an equally productive way.
        true_religion 5y ago
        120k is a wildly high salary in Europe, and contrary to popular belief Europeans don’t just cut ties to their homeland and move to Silicon Valley just because the salary is higher. You can find a lot of compiler experts sitting safely in the UK or Italy or Russia.
      - bidirectional 5y ago
        The requirement for working on Babel is being a Javascript expert and compiler engineer, not a good JS developer. It's 85k GBP, that is very reasonable for those skills.
    - IshKebab 5y ago
      > $11,000 per month I think I know why they're running out of money! Seriously that's an amazing salary in 99% of the world for working on commercial software where you don't get to decide what to do, can't remote work, probably aren't working on your passion project, etc. etc.
      - jiofih 5y ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27115721 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27115721
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  Facebook and Twitter are implementing features that warn you when you're about to share an article sight unseen. HN should do the same if you're about to comment without having skimmed the article.
  - jiofih 5y ago
    What part did I miss? The two developers making $2k were part time, only one went full time, and current all of them work part time for $6k/month.
opk 5y ago
I'm always shocked at how high these US salaries quoted on here are. I don't know if that's just FAANG companies or people inflating figures. They do quote $11k for a full-time position as others have pointed out. What I make is much nearer to the $2k figure but I am in Europe. Maybe they'd do better operating out of of somewhere cheaper. Many older open source projects including those I contribute to aren't owned by a single company, aren't trying to build a business and still manage to be popular and useful.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- swyx 5y ago
  not at all just FAANG. the US tech scene is just that competitive. most decent Series A-B startups in the US can easily pay six figures. fwiw i got 150k at netlify, about 1.5 years after graduating from bootcamp. of course, i have had an atypical career, but i dont think i have an atypical salary story.
- Ambroos 5y ago
  It's wild. I moved from Belgium (generic company) to Dublin (Facebook, 2018) to Seattle (still Facebook, 2020) and my net income more than doubled with every move. And that's as a software engineer without a degree (dropped out of college).
- mschuster91 5y ago
  > I'm always shocked at how high these US salaries quoted on here are. I don't know if that's just FAANG companies or people inflating figures. US salaries are higher than European ones, but that is mainly because Americans need to account for healthcare and (especially in SV) extremely high cost of living. I have a ~62 m² 3 room flat in somewhat center of Munich and pay only 1.000€ a month in rent, whereas in the US judging by a quick google you'll end up with 2k for a 1 BR.
  - tick_tock_tick 5y ago
    All FAANG companies pay 100% of the employee's health care in addition to the salary. When people talk about total comp for these FAANG companies they mean base pay + stock the 100% health coverage is just assumed. I will say coverage for the full family often isn't free but it's still pretty cheap.
mekkkkkk 5y ago
$2k is a part time salary, for an unknown amount of hours. The full time salary that they are going to get going forward is $6k. Still not close to competitive, but enough to make a decent living.
globular-toast 5y ago
Don't forget it's not all about money, though. Above a certain level, money doesn't make people happier (see the hedonic treadmill effect). It's not like this developer is anywhere near poverty. In fact, by all accounts, he's rich. Many people find happiness in being useful. Developing tooling that is used by thousands of programmers around the world trumps working on ads or addictive tech.

jiofih 5y ago

Presumably they have jobs, that’s extra income.

alpaca128 5y ago
The article literally mentions full time work in the first sentence, and multiple times later.
- genezeta 5y ago
  The one person who is full-time has a very different salary: > we settled on $11,000 per month as a baseline salary for working full-time on open source The people getting $2,000 per month are part-time: > a "part-time" rate: we could initially afford $2,000 USD per month. It is also explained that if possible, they would go full-time and the salary would then be raised to "the full-time rate". > Our hope was by announcing this plan and continuing our fundraising efforts, we would be able to increase the budget and raise them to the full-time rate.
  - roofwellhams 5y ago
    I think it's pretty good deal
  - toyg 5y ago
    There’s something to be said for those salaries being too “Valley”. $121k per year is a lot of money; you’d likely be able to find good JS developers in the UK for half that and in continental Europe for even less (in Eastern Europe you could probably get away with $30k…).
    - FiberBundle 5y ago
      $121k is not a lot of money for someone writing compilers. And I would seriously doubt that you could just take your average developer and expect them to be able to contribute to a project like Babel in an equally productive way.
      - true_religion 5y ago
        120k is a wildly high salary in Europe, and contrary to popular belief Europeans don’t just cut ties to their homeland and move to Silicon Valley just because the salary is higher. You can find a lot of compiler experts sitting safely in the UK or Italy or Russia.
    - bidirectional 5y ago
      The requirement for working on Babel is being a Javascript expert and compiler engineer, not a good JS developer. It's 85k GBP, that is very reasonable for those skills.
  - IshKebab 5y ago
    > $11,000 per month I think I know why they're running out of money! Seriously that's an amazing salary in 99% of the world for working on commercial software where you don't get to decide what to do, can't remote work, probably aren't working on your passion project, etc. etc.
    - jiofih 5y ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27115721 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27115721
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
Facebook and Twitter are implementing features that warn you when you're about to share an article sight unseen. HN should do the same if you're about to comment without having skimmed the article.
- jiofih 5y ago
  What part did I miss? The two developers making $2k were part time, only one went full time, and current all of them work part time for $6k/month.

opk 5y ago

I'm always shocked at how high these US salaries quoted on here are. I don't know if that's just FAANG companies or people inflating figures. They do quote $11k for a full-time position as others have pointed out. What I make is much nearer to the $2k figure but I am in Europe. Maybe they'd do better operating out of of somewhere cheaper. Many older open source projects including those I contribute to aren't owned by a single company, aren't trying to build a business and still manage to be popular and useful.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
swyx 5y ago
not at all just FAANG. the US tech scene is just that competitive. most decent Series A-B startups in the US can easily pay six figures. fwiw i got 150k at netlify, about 1.5 years after graduating from bootcamp. of course, i have had an atypical career, but i dont think i have an atypical salary story.
Ambroos 5y ago
It's wild. I moved from Belgium (generic company) to Dublin (Facebook, 2018) to Seattle (still Facebook, 2020) and my net income more than doubled with every move. And that's as a software engineer without a degree (dropped out of college).
mschuster91 5y ago
> I'm always shocked at how high these US salaries quoted on here are. I don't know if that's just FAANG companies or people inflating figures. US salaries are higher than European ones, but that is mainly because Americans need to account for healthcare and (especially in SV) extremely high cost of living. I have a ~62 m² 3 room flat in somewhat center of Munich and pay only 1.000€ a month in rent, whereas in the US judging by a quick google you'll end up with 2k for a 1 BR.
- tick_tock_tick 5y ago
  All FAANG companies pay 100% of the employee's health care in addition to the salary. When people talk about total comp for these FAANG companies they mean base pay + stock the 100% health coverage is just assumed. I will say coverage for the full family often isn't free but it's still pretty cheap.

mekkkkkk 5y ago

$2k is a part time salary, for an unknown amount of hours. The full time salary that they are going to get going forward is $6k. Still not close to competitive, but enough to make a decent living.

globular-toast 5y ago

Don't forget it's not all about money, though. Above a certain level, money doesn't make people happier (see the hedonic treadmill effect). It's not like this developer is anywhere near poverty. In fact, by all accounts, he's rich. Many people find happiness in being useful. Developing tooling that is used by thousands of programmers around the world trumps working on ads or addictive tech.