7 ms·

This type of attitude is exactly why silicon valley is primed for failure The bloat and the expense of silicon valley is going to be their downfall. plenty of

This type of attitude is exactly why silicon valley is primed for failure The bloat and the expense of silicon valley is going to be their downfall. plenty of regions in the US and other nations have many talented developers that are willing to work for far less and make a far better product than what you get for silicon valley wages

traceroute66 3y ago
> other nations have many talented developers Yes there are other nations that have talented developers. But anywhere that has genuinely talented developers, the developers will still want a decent salary. I'm not going to name names, but if you are thinking about the "outsourcing nations", then I don't know about you, but I think most of us here have experienced the poor quality coding output from those developers. The Quality Control simply is not there, normally because the company doing the outsourcing is too cheap to pay for proper supervision and quality control.
- phpisthebest 3y ago
  Sure but a decent salary is far different from "235k/year. (And consume another $100k/year in lobster, shrimp, smoothies, and snickers bars.)" If You can't see that there is a middle ground between impoverished wages and what was quoted above that I can't help you
  - traceroute66 3y ago
    > If You can't see that there is a middle ground between ... I can see a middle ground. Most people would probably name it as Europe. And you would have to go looking in Eastern Europe. And I think you would find, if you are lucky, that a competent European junior-ish developer would not get out of bed for less than 60k Euros (65k USD), a more senior developer would demand more. And you need more than one or two developers on your team if you're going to be competing against Adobe. And then you need to pay taxes, pensions, accountants and lawyers. And then you need to pay other business expenses. And if you decide you need an office, then god help you ... The numbers soon add up .... $235k will disappear within the year, probably within a single quarter. Software development is capital intensive.
    - tsimionescu 3y ago
      I'm not sure why you're comparing the cost of one SV dev with the cost of a while business unit in Europe.
      - eastbound 3y ago
        Located in France. A senior developer who performs bad work with a wage of 65k€ costs 100k€. Plus the office, wfh, computer, etc. So $235k is 200k€ so one developer and one PM, because the dev alone has a brownian behavior concerning progress (unable to take initiative).
    - mhitza 3y ago
      > And I think you would find, if you are lucky, that a competent European junior-ish developer would not get out of bed for less than 60k Euros (65k USD), a more senior developer would demand more. That's a very much extreme statement I think you confabulated. Take this developer median data from back in 2020 https://www.statista.com/statistics/1222324/developers-median-salaries-europe-cities/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1222324/developers-media... and reanalyze your statement. And also compared to https://www.reinisfischer.com/average-monthly-salary-european-union-2022 https://www.reinisfischer.com/average-monthly-salary-europea... where 60k euros a year tends to be above the average monthly salary in many EU countries. And if a junior doesn't get out of bed for less than that, well I have some bad news for them and their expectations.
      - KeplerBoy 3y ago
        Are you actually in Europe? You won't get qualified devs for much less than 60k around here. Especially since that is the amount of money people expect on their payslips before taxes. On top of that employers have to pay additional stuff, that won't even make it on the payslip, like parts of the health insurance which are not considered to be parts of the compensation. Quick Example from Austria: * Cost to Employer 77k€ * Employee's Taxable Income: 60k€ * Income After Taxes: 40k€ * Childcare and University: 0€
        3y ago
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- prakhar897 3y ago
  I'll name it. You need at least 25000$ to hire a "decent" Software Dev and 50k for Senior Dev in India. They can produce much better output compared to US counterparts both in terms of Quantity and Quality. The hiring needs to be direct or else the "agency" will eat most of the money and give you 3000$/yr "senior" devs further perpetuating the stereotypes. With 235k, you can make an incredible 5 people team + cloud costs for an year.
  - riffraff 3y ago
    do you expect a year of 5 stellar devs will be enough to re-implement photoshop? I am doubtful.
    - hgsgm 3y ago
      No, 1 stellar dev for 5 years. https://www.photopea.com/ https://www.photopea.com/
      - wiseowise 3y ago
        Photopea dev hasn't worked a day in your run of the mill company. You won't find devs like that on a market.
        vGPU 3y ago
        > Master's degree in theoretical computer science / artificial intelligence Yeah, that’s definitely not your standard coder. Previous thread where he posts: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26768550 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26768550
        kakwa_ 3y ago
        In Europe at least, developers having a Master's degree (~5 years of tertiary education) or equivalent is fairly common. From the stats I could find, that's roughly 50% of developers.
  - 3y ago
- CalRobert 3y ago
  Very true, but a decent salary in, say, Poland is much less than in California.
- wiseowise 3y ago
  Decent salary is 100k in Europe, for example.
- maccard 3y ago
  > I'm not going to name names, but if you are thinking about the "outsourcing nations", then I don't know about you, I hate this crap. Some of the absolute worst code I've seen in my career was written by US programmers working out of tech hubs, as is some of the best code. > But anywhere that has genuinely talented developers, the developers will still want a decent salary. You're assuming that all "genuinely talented developers" are motivated solely by money and will move away from home, friends and family for a "decent salary". A salary of £80k in the UK (ignoring london just for a moment), or $100k USD is reasonable for a senior level engineer in the UK, will give you a very comfortable standard of living, and is less than you'd pay a junior in many parts of the US. > The Quality Control simply is not there That's not because of an "outsourcing nation", it's because you paid for a shitty outsourcer. See healthcare.gov [0] for a textbook example. Similarly, I've worked with "outsourcing nations" via EPAM with contractors in Mexico, Belarus, California, Hyderabad Romania and Bangkok, and the quality of code has not been tied to the location, it's been tied to QC at the relationship level. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HealthCare.gov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HealthCare.gov
  - devoutsalsa 3y ago
    We were all that crappy developer at some point…
    - maccard 3y ago
      That's one way of looking at it. Another is that someone who has 5+ years professional experience writing C++ shouldn't be writing `auto buf = new std::vector<int>()` to avoid heap allocations.
  - vGPU 3y ago
    >some of the worst Sure, but code put out by US coders I’ve hired has been consistently better than code that has been outsourced outside of the US. Obviously, there are “diamonds in the rough” occasionally, but skilled people tend to get snapped up by a recruiter willing to file an immigration form for them very quickly.
- kakwa_ 3y ago
  > I'm not going to name names, but if you are thinking about the "outsourcing nations", then I don't know about you, but I think most of us here have experienced the poor quality coding output from those developers. I've experienced "poor quality coding outputs" caused by outsourcing in general... regardless if it was abroad or not. With properly hired employees, in my experience, what they output is actually quite impressive both qualitatively and quantitatively. And their average salary is a fraction of mine, which is in turn a fraction of a US one (I'm West European).

traceroute66 3y ago

> other nations have many talented developers Yes there are other nations that have talented developers. But anywhere that has genuinely talented developers, the developers will still want a decent salary. I'm not going to name names, but if you are thinking about the "outsourcing nations", then I don't know about you, but I think most of us here have experienced the poor quality coding output from those developers. The Quality Control simply is not there, normally because the company doing the outsourcing is too cheap to pay for proper supervision and quality control.

phpisthebest 3y ago
Sure but a decent salary is far different from "235k/year. (And consume another $100k/year in lobster, shrimp, smoothies, and snickers bars.)" If You can't see that there is a middle ground between impoverished wages and what was quoted above that I can't help you
- traceroute66 3y ago
  > If You can't see that there is a middle ground between ... I can see a middle ground. Most people would probably name it as Europe. And you would have to go looking in Eastern Europe. And I think you would find, if you are lucky, that a competent European junior-ish developer would not get out of bed for less than 60k Euros (65k USD), a more senior developer would demand more. And you need more than one or two developers on your team if you're going to be competing against Adobe. And then you need to pay taxes, pensions, accountants and lawyers. And then you need to pay other business expenses. And if you decide you need an office, then god help you ... The numbers soon add up .... $235k will disappear within the year, probably within a single quarter. Software development is capital intensive.
  - tsimionescu 3y ago
    I'm not sure why you're comparing the cost of one SV dev with the cost of a while business unit in Europe.
    - eastbound 3y ago
      Located in France. A senior developer who performs bad work with a wage of 65k€ costs 100k€. Plus the office, wfh, computer, etc. So $235k is 200k€ so one developer and one PM, because the dev alone has a brownian behavior concerning progress (unable to take initiative).
  - mhitza 3y ago
    > And I think you would find, if you are lucky, that a competent European junior-ish developer would not get out of bed for less than 60k Euros (65k USD), a more senior developer would demand more. That's a very much extreme statement I think you confabulated. Take this developer median data from back in 2020 https://www.statista.com/statistics/1222324/developers-median-salaries-europe-cities/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1222324/developers-media... and reanalyze your statement. And also compared to https://www.reinisfischer.com/average-monthly-salary-european-union-2022 https://www.reinisfischer.com/average-monthly-salary-europea... where 60k euros a year tends to be above the average monthly salary in many EU countries. And if a junior doesn't get out of bed for less than that, well I have some bad news for them and their expectations.
    - KeplerBoy 3y ago
      Are you actually in Europe? You won't get qualified devs for much less than 60k around here. Especially since that is the amount of money people expect on their payslips before taxes. On top of that employers have to pay additional stuff, that won't even make it on the payslip, like parts of the health insurance which are not considered to be parts of the compensation. Quick Example from Austria: * Cost to Employer 77k€ * Employee's Taxable Income: 60k€ * Income After Taxes: 40k€ * Childcare and University: 0€
      - 3y ago
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
prakhar897 3y ago
I'll name it. You need at least 25000$ to hire a "decent" Software Dev and 50k for Senior Dev in India. They can produce much better output compared to US counterparts both in terms of Quantity and Quality. The hiring needs to be direct or else the "agency" will eat most of the money and give you 3000$/yr "senior" devs further perpetuating the stereotypes. With 235k, you can make an incredible 5 people team + cloud costs for an year.
- riffraff 3y ago
  do you expect a year of 5 stellar devs will be enough to re-implement photoshop? I am doubtful.
  - hgsgm 3y ago
    No, 1 stellar dev for 5 years. https://www.photopea.com/ https://www.photopea.com/
    - wiseowise 3y ago
      Photopea dev hasn't worked a day in your run of the mill company. You won't find devs like that on a market.
      - vGPU 3y ago
        > Master's degree in theoretical computer science / artificial intelligence Yeah, that’s definitely not your standard coder. Previous thread where he posts: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26768550 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26768550
        kakwa_ 3y ago
        In Europe at least, developers having a Master's degree (~5 years of tertiary education) or equivalent is fairly common. From the stats I could find, that's roughly 50% of developers.
- 3y ago
CalRobert 3y ago
Very true, but a decent salary in, say, Poland is much less than in California.
wiseowise 3y ago
Decent salary is 100k in Europe, for example.
maccard 3y ago
> I'm not going to name names, but if you are thinking about the "outsourcing nations", then I don't know about you, I hate this crap. Some of the absolute worst code I've seen in my career was written by US programmers working out of tech hubs, as is some of the best code. > But anywhere that has genuinely talented developers, the developers will still want a decent salary. You're assuming that all "genuinely talented developers" are motivated solely by money and will move away from home, friends and family for a "decent salary". A salary of £80k in the UK (ignoring london just for a moment), or $100k USD is reasonable for a senior level engineer in the UK, will give you a very comfortable standard of living, and is less than you'd pay a junior in many parts of the US. > The Quality Control simply is not there That's not because of an "outsourcing nation", it's because you paid for a shitty outsourcer. See healthcare.gov [0] for a textbook example. Similarly, I've worked with "outsourcing nations" via EPAM with contractors in Mexico, Belarus, California, Hyderabad Romania and Bangkok, and the quality of code has not been tied to the location, it's been tied to QC at the relationship level. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HealthCare.gov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HealthCare.gov
- devoutsalsa 3y ago
  We were all that crappy developer at some point…
  - maccard 3y ago
    That's one way of looking at it. Another is that someone who has 5+ years professional experience writing C++ shouldn't be writing `auto buf = new std::vector<int>()` to avoid heap allocations.
- vGPU 3y ago
  >some of the worst Sure, but code put out by US coders I’ve hired has been consistently better than code that has been outsourced outside of the US. Obviously, there are “diamonds in the rough” occasionally, but skilled people tend to get snapped up by a recruiter willing to file an immigration form for them very quickly.
kakwa_ 3y ago
> I'm not going to name names, but if you are thinking about the "outsourcing nations", then I don't know about you, but I think most of us here have experienced the poor quality coding output from those developers. I've experienced "poor quality coding outputs" caused by outsourcing in general... regardless if it was abroad or not. With properly hired employees, in my experience, what they output is actually quite impressive both qualitatively and quantitatively. And their average salary is a fraction of mine, which is in turn a fraction of a US one (I'm West European).