[mindfulmore]

Neither is people piling on the maintainer of Babel based on GitHub activity and someone essentially accusing them of embezzlement. Sorry if that makes me upset.

$130k for a senior developer in the United States is nothing. People at FANG are making 3-4x that annually.

[WORMS_EAT_WORMS]

> $130k for a senior developer in the United States is nothing. People at FANG are making 3-4x that annually.

Right, hence my out of touch comment. This just doubles down.

[asidiali]

open source maintainer salary !== FAANG total comp package

E5 engineers at FB are making an avg 200k base [1]. That is not that far off what you would expect the difference to be between open source maintainer and senior engineer at Facebook.

That is not 3-4x. Even if you include stock, that will put the FB eng around 350k. You may have an argument for the 2-3x range but basically only at the very top level companies and senior roles, not mid level contributors. And by including stock or other forms of TC besides base, you begin inflating the impression of cash flow. Stock grants don’t land in your wallet like paychecks do. Your QoL or vested net worth will take time to be impacted. It’s not like all of a sudden you can now afford X% more in your daily life.

IMO HN likes to exaggerate compensation levels.

[1] https://www.levels.fyi/company/Facebook/salaries/Software-En...

[mindfulmore]

I agree that 2-3x is more appropriate. Either way, don't you think the maintainer of Babel could easily be making more money and doing easier work (individual contributor at some large org)?

The accusations that this person is freeloading off of Babel donations seem absurd (especially when you consider who is making them). The babel maintainer could be coasting at a large engineering organization with a lot less responsibility is what I am getting at it. It's exactly what the creator did...

The accusations are unjust.

[asidiali]

Oh yeah, 100% agree with you there.

I was solely commenting on the SV compensation point, but yes, you’re totally right that he could be doing less work for significantly more money elsewhere. The accusations are unjust for sure. IMO less because of the salary numbers and more because commit count is simply not a good measure of employee performance.

[mindfulmore]

Not sure what you're taking issue with here.

[endisneigh]

$130K is objectively not a joke of a salary in the United States. That's roughly 90th percentile.

[tarruda]

It seems a common trend that software engineers think their high salaries are something they can take for granted forever.

I prefer to think that we are riding in a bubble that can pop any minute now. This line of thinking allows me to be more responsible with spending and save more for rainy days.

[MandieD]

Good thinking - those of us with some grey in our hair remember when coming out of college with a CS degree into a $45-50k government contracting gig was cause for celebration rather than disappointment, after watching our slightly older friends take loans for Porsches on their snazzy dot-com salaries... and then struggle with the fallout a year or two later when said dot-coms drastically cut staff or disappeared entirely.

[mindfulmore]

Of course, it's not a joke of a salary in the United States. Is $130k a joke of a salary for an NBA player even though it's 90th percentile? Context matters.

$130k is barely over the median pay for a Senior Software Engineer in the United States. A lot of the people stewarding and maintaining these projects are talented enough to be earning wages that are much further into the outliers (i.e. FANG compensation of 300-400k+/year).

That's all I'm saying. What's much more likely to be happening here is that the maintainer of Babel took a much harder job that cannot be summarized by output metrics like GitHub activity tracking.

Attacking him and essentially tossing around accusations of embezzlement when you've just received VC funding for a competitor is just wrong.

[endisneigh]

yes, context does matter. So why are you comparing a full time OSS developer with FANG? ridiculous. I don't have any opinion on the babel drama, but 130K isn't a "joke" even for a OSS developer who is "senior".

[mindfulmore]

I'm comparing the salaries because the person is qualified to do either job. Someone turned down hundreds of thousands of dollars to maintain OSS, and then is accused of embezzlement by someone who left for FANG salaries and VC-backing.