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Good work so far but why does an OSS tool have to be supported by Silicon Valley salaries? USA and it's biggest cities are already hugely competitive even for

Good work so far but why does an OSS tool have to be supported by Silicon Valley salaries? USA and it's biggest cities are already hugely competitive even for profit making enterprises. Even a company like Mozilla with real commercial partnerships and solid income every year can struggle, let alone a tool which is barely noticeable by 90% of users.

axguscbklp 5y ago
Babel is one of the most popular and widely-used tools in the history of web development. Why should its developers and maintainers not make at least as much money as entry-level Silicon Valley developers?
- kuschku 5y ago
  Why should they make more than senior engineers with decades of experience in Berlin? Why should customers/users of the project have to pay/donate twice or thrice as much for the same result, just because the devs want to live in the US instead of e.g. Paris?
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    Why should users of babel feel enttitled not to pay anything at all in contrast with other professions?
    - _dibly 5y ago
      Because it's free?
      - pjmlp 5y ago
        Until it is gone as developers look for a proper source of income. https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/10/untangling_open_sources_sustainability_problem/ https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/10/untangling_open_sourc...
    - matkoniecz 5y ago
      Why current Babel maintainers (not the main author who gets nothing!) would be entitled to donations? They need to convince people/corporations to donate, default is that they get nothing.
      - pjmlp 5y ago
        Why does the backer feel entitled to be paid for their bread? They need to convice people to stop taking it from the expositor. Why does the mechanic feel entitled to be paid for their repairs? They need to convice people to stop driving away. Why does the .... feel entitled to be paid for their work?
  - bidirectional 5y ago
    A handful of people doing highly technical compiler work relied upon by much of the industry, while also being experts in JS probably do deserve to be paid more than the average senior in Berlin. These aren't cheap skills, the people who are this good can probably get remote work at well-paying US companies wherever they live.
  - shados 5y ago
    Because one of the primary "competing" project (TypeScript) is developed on payroll of a FAAMG. With that said, nothing stopping those people in Berlin from stepping up to other high profile open source projects that are looking for maintainers, raise the same amount of money, and essentially be twice as well off.
- uncomputation 5y ago
  What entry level SV dev makes 11,000 x 12 = 132,000 x 1.25 (tax) = $165k/year pre-tax? I know the salaries here are high but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. If they are that high for entry level then I’m being seriously underpaid :/
  - axguscbklp 5y ago
    I am assuming that in the article the $11k/month figure is pre-tax. It is higher than Silicon Valley entry-level, I think, but I had thought that it is not higher by much. However, I just did a bit of Googling that made me realize that maybe I am significantly overestimating entry-level Silicon Valley salaries.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - sdevonoes 5y ago
    Everybody who is not working for FAANG-level/SV is underpaid. That's like 90% of the developers in the world (I include myself), so don't feel bad :)
  - Mc91 5y ago
    In 2020, here are some companies paying $195k-$230k for entry level programmers - https://www.levels.fyi/2020/ https://www.levels.fyi/2020/ FAANG is not on the list, FAANG pays $180k-$190k for entry level (Netflix does not recruit entry level much though). So total compensation, entry level at some places is $15k higher, or more.
    - uncomputation 5y ago
      A little off-topic I suppose but TC being nearly $200k but salary being $130k always feels disappointing to me, especially since RSUs rarely vest within year 1.
  - ZephyrBlu 5y ago
    I thought the 11k/mo was pre-tax but regardless, with stock they can be higher than $165k.
madeofpalk 5y ago
I know HN isnt a single hive mind, but its funny seeing these responses all in contrast to "devs shouldnt take a pay cut if they move to a cheaper state/country"
- Chris2048 5y ago
  Sure, but then you have a much larger hiring pool. Focusing on SV limits that pool and ups the price.
- imtringued 5y ago
  If babel was a commercial product it wouldn't have trouble getting enough funding to pay these salaries. 10000 users paying $100 would get you $1 million revenue.
- larzang 5y ago
  Working for a for-profit company is a completely different labor relationship than working for an OSS org or other non-profit. You absolutely should fight to prevent management from extracting more of the value you generated just because you cut your personal costs, but you may be able and willing to accept less income in order to contribute to an organization that you believe in that isn't profiting off your labor. One is adversarial theft, the other is the willing donation of your time to a cause.
  - elliekelly 5y ago
    > but you may be able and willing to accept less income in order to contribute to an organization that you believe in that isn't profiting off your labor. But there are plenty of organizations profiting off of the dev’s labor. Why is it different just because those organizations are users and not their employer?
shados 5y ago
> but why does an OSS tool have to be supported by Silicon Valley salaries? Because these high profile OSS tools generally have trouble finding core maintainers/contributors. It's easy enough to find people who will contribute a couple of PRs, it's another to get people to handle the ownership and product/project management responsibilities. Even rarer on a reasonably complex project (not that many people find working on something like Babel "fun". It's not sexy like some of the other high profile OSS projects in the JS ecosystem). Core-js' maintainer has begged for someone to help forever (dunno if he finally found someone). The JS minifier space was nearly abandoned until significant issues brought them back in the spot light. Webpack was struggling until someone stepped up to be their de facto marketer. If someone wants to do the work for half the money, go ahead. It's just...rare.

axguscbklp 5y ago

Babel is one of the most popular and widely-used tools in the history of web development. Why should its developers and maintainers not make at least as much money as entry-level Silicon Valley developers?

kuschku 5y ago
Why should they make more than senior engineers with decades of experience in Berlin? Why should customers/users of the project have to pay/donate twice or thrice as much for the same result, just because the devs want to live in the US instead of e.g. Paris?
- pjmlp 5y ago
  Why should users of babel feel enttitled not to pay anything at all in contrast with other professions?
  - _dibly 5y ago
    Because it's free?
    - pjmlp 5y ago
      Until it is gone as developers look for a proper source of income. https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/10/untangling_open_sources_sustainability_problem/ https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/10/untangling_open_sourc...
  - matkoniecz 5y ago
    Why current Babel maintainers (not the main author who gets nothing!) would be entitled to donations? They need to convince people/corporations to donate, default is that they get nothing.
    - pjmlp 5y ago
      Why does the backer feel entitled to be paid for their bread? They need to convice people to stop taking it from the expositor. Why does the mechanic feel entitled to be paid for their repairs? They need to convice people to stop driving away. Why does the .... feel entitled to be paid for their work?
- bidirectional 5y ago
  A handful of people doing highly technical compiler work relied upon by much of the industry, while also being experts in JS probably do deserve to be paid more than the average senior in Berlin. These aren't cheap skills, the people who are this good can probably get remote work at well-paying US companies wherever they live.
- shados 5y ago
  Because one of the primary "competing" project (TypeScript) is developed on payroll of a FAAMG. With that said, nothing stopping those people in Berlin from stepping up to other high profile open source projects that are looking for maintainers, raise the same amount of money, and essentially be twice as well off.
uncomputation 5y ago
What entry level SV dev makes 11,000 x 12 = 132,000 x 1.25 (tax) = $165k/year pre-tax? I know the salaries here are high but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. If they are that high for entry level then I’m being seriously underpaid :/
- axguscbklp 5y ago
  I am assuming that in the article the $11k/month figure is pre-tax. It is higher than Silicon Valley entry-level, I think, but I had thought that it is not higher by much. However, I just did a bit of Googling that made me realize that maybe I am significantly overestimating entry-level Silicon Valley salaries.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- sdevonoes 5y ago
  Everybody who is not working for FAANG-level/SV is underpaid. That's like 90% of the developers in the world (I include myself), so don't feel bad :)
- Mc91 5y ago
  In 2020, here are some companies paying $195k-$230k for entry level programmers - https://www.levels.fyi/2020/ https://www.levels.fyi/2020/ FAANG is not on the list, FAANG pays $180k-$190k for entry level (Netflix does not recruit entry level much though). So total compensation, entry level at some places is $15k higher, or more.
  - uncomputation 5y ago
    A little off-topic I suppose but TC being nearly $200k but salary being $130k always feels disappointing to me, especially since RSUs rarely vest within year 1.
- ZephyrBlu 5y ago
  I thought the 11k/mo was pre-tax but regardless, with stock they can be higher than $165k.

madeofpalk 5y ago

I know HN isnt a single hive mind, but its funny seeing these responses all in contrast to "devs shouldnt take a pay cut if they move to a cheaper state/country"

Chris2048 5y ago
Sure, but then you have a much larger hiring pool. Focusing on SV limits that pool and ups the price.
imtringued 5y ago
If babel was a commercial product it wouldn't have trouble getting enough funding to pay these salaries. 10000 users paying $100 would get you $1 million revenue.
larzang 5y ago
Working for a for-profit company is a completely different labor relationship than working for an OSS org or other non-profit. You absolutely should fight to prevent management from extracting more of the value you generated just because you cut your personal costs, but you may be able and willing to accept less income in order to contribute to an organization that you believe in that isn't profiting off your labor. One is adversarial theft, the other is the willing donation of your time to a cause.
- elliekelly 5y ago
  > but you may be able and willing to accept less income in order to contribute to an organization that you believe in that isn't profiting off your labor. But there are plenty of organizations profiting off of the dev’s labor. Why is it different just because those organizations are users and not their employer?

shados 5y ago

> but why does an OSS tool have to be supported by Silicon Valley salaries? Because these high profile OSS tools generally have trouble finding core maintainers/contributors. It's easy enough to find people who will contribute a couple of PRs, it's another to get people to handle the ownership and product/project management responsibilities. Even rarer on a reasonably complex project (not that many people find working on something like Babel "fun". It's not sexy like some of the other high profile OSS projects in the JS ecosystem). Core-js' maintainer has begged for someone to help forever (dunno if he finally found someone). The JS minifier space was nearly abandoned until significant issues brought them back in the spot light. Webpack was struggling until someone stepped up to be their de facto marketer. If someone wants to do the work for half the money, go ahead. It's just...rare.