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> In April 2024 I confided in an Amazonian that I was "not really doing a good job of owning FreeBSD/EC2 right now" and asked if he could find some funding to s

by few 6mo ago

> In April 2024 I confided in an Amazonian that I was "not really doing a good job of owning FreeBSD/EC2 right now" and asked if he could find some funding to support my work, on the theory that at a certain point time and dollars are fungible >I received sponsorship from Amazon via GitHub Sponsors for 10 hours per week for a year For whatever reason, I remember being shocked that you were only charging $300/hr [1] which was what a mere L6 google engineer would make salaried. I hope they are paying you more nowadays [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30188512 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30188512

rcbdev 6mo ago
American hourly rates in IT are truly nuts. I wonder if the value-add to hiring American is really worth it, in German-speaking EU you'd get real top-notch engineering for 120€/h. Even less further eastwards.
- christophilus 6mo ago
  $120/hr gets you a very good developer in the US, too. Just not in the Bay Area or Seattle.
  - evantbyrne 6mo ago
    The going rate for 1099 work tends to be higher than this to account for risk, unbillable work, and increased tax rate. Agencies that lend out their developers to clients charge 2-3x this. Remember that engineers can work remotely now which makes regional rates much fuzzier.
- ignoramous 6mo ago
  > German-speaking EU you'd get real top-notch engineering for 120€/h No disrespect to German-speaking engs, but Colin isn't merely "top-notch", he's "the top". Huge salaries (like those paid to "top" athletes in "top" professional team sports) aren't unheard of in Tech anymore. For instance, Google paid $2b+ to acquihire Noam Shazeer of c.ai back. Meta was rumoured to be paying $20m+ salaries to poach OpenAI researchers based in Zurich.
- spicyusername 6mo ago
  Those pay packages are basically only on the west coast and in New York, a "small" region of the U.S. 100-200k, is what you'd expect elsewhere. Which is still pretty good, just not astronomical.
- loloquwowndueo 6mo ago
  They just want to earn at least the same as a plumber.

by few 6mo ago

rcbdev 6mo ago

American hourly rates in IT are truly nuts. I wonder if the value-add to hiring American is really worth it, in German-speaking EU you'd get real top-notch engineering for 120€/h. Even less further eastwards.

christophilus 6mo ago
$120/hr gets you a very good developer in the US, too. Just not in the Bay Area or Seattle.
- evantbyrne 6mo ago
  The going rate for 1099 work tends to be higher than this to account for risk, unbillable work, and increased tax rate. Agencies that lend out their developers to clients charge 2-3x this. Remember that engineers can work remotely now which makes regional rates much fuzzier.
ignoramous 6mo ago
> German-speaking EU you'd get real top-notch engineering for 120€/h No disrespect to German-speaking engs, but Colin isn't merely "top-notch", he's "the top". Huge salaries (like those paid to "top" athletes in "top" professional team sports) aren't unheard of in Tech anymore. For instance, Google paid $2b+ to acquihire Noam Shazeer of c.ai back. Meta was rumoured to be paying $20m+ salaries to poach OpenAI researchers based in Zurich.
spicyusername 6mo ago
Those pay packages are basically only on the west coast and in New York, a "small" region of the U.S. 100-200k, is what you'd expect elsewhere. Which is still pretty good, just not astronomical.
loloquwowndueo 6mo ago
They just want to earn at least the same as a plumber.