[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.