[_hao]

I'm from Bulgaria and the article is pretty good for the most part. I'm from the so called "children of democracy" generation which is basically the first generation(s) after the communist regime fell in '89 (I was born in 1993).

One thing I have to say is that IT in Bulgaria succeeds right now not because of the government or some historical acumen, but despite of it. I think there might be some inertia from back then, but that's gone if we look things as of today. Taxes are low (relatively) to other EU countries, while the quality of work being done is very high. With that said Bulgaria is still mainly an outsourcing destination. There are some innovative homegrown companies like Chaos Group (creators of V-Ray) and others, but relatively to the size of the market they are few and far between.

I'm based in London now, but on my recent trip back a month ago I met with some ex-colleagues and we talked about how there's potentially a salary bubble forming. There are positions for new grads without any experience starting from 5000 BGN (2500 EUR) which is absolutely insane. Given that the average gross salary for Sofia (the capital and most well paid/expensive city in Bulgaria) is 1976 BGN[1] that's not normal. Another case was for a German company so desperate to find people that they paid a friend of mine net 6000 EUR a month as a front-end. That's even crazier. Companies like VMware that created big campuses pay around 7000-9000 BGN a month for devs (not seniors/team leads). You can live like a king with those kinds of salaries in Bulgaria, but you'll be surrounded by shitty infrastructure, non-existing government and all other types of shit that people like me that have left don't want to deal with.

[1] https://www.nsi.bg/en/content/3930/statistical-regions-distr...

[merpnderp]

New graduates in computer science start out at about 2x the median household income in my small US state.

I don't know if it is a bubble or the world economy is changing faster than people can be educated.

[beckman466]

> the world economy is changing faster than people can be educated

how can people learn if large parts of humanity's scientific and technological feedback/learning loops are commoditized and made artificially scarce by our economic system? especially now that we have digital technology available that could make the storing and transmitting of informational artifacts super cheap.

so i think neither of the two reasons you stated, but because we are living in a black box society. we are being forcefully disinherited by the propertied class.

knowledge laborers who get 2x median income have just been less victim to capitalist gatekeeping, since a few are needed to generate more intellectual property for the propertied class. [2]

[1] Aaron Swartz, Guerilla Open Access Manifesto: https://archive.org/stream/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/Goamj...

[2] Wendy Liu, Gatekeeping in the tech industry: https://dellsystem.me/posts/fragments-50

[kongin]

scihub, libgen, you now have the keys to the kingdom.

Hilariously enough in my current gig I have access to pretty much all the journals out there, yet scihub is still easier to use and libgen has more books. The only place I think that has libgen beat is the British Library and that's only because they haven't digitised most of their old books yet.

[merpnderp]

There is no scarcity at all in access to scientific knowledge, technology, investing in the market, or access to guidance on how to get ahead in life. And the only capitalist gatekeeping is some few formalized online schools ask for a pittance in tuition in order to receive credentials. But no one can say there's a scarcity in access to knowledge when MIT offers most of their catalog online for free.

The problem is how few people take advantage of this wealth of access and knowledge.

[beckman466]

> The problem is how few people take advantage of this wealth of access and knowledge.

The problem is how a profit-seeking knowledge-enclosing/commoditizing capitalist economy and education system allows the propertied class to control the supply of technical labor.

The problem is that many in the working class don't have a methodological literacy.

"The researchers note that it’s tough for lay audiences to fully understand complex topics [...] They suggest a more sustainable solution for curbing misinformation is helping the public develop a type of scientific literacy known as methodological literacy. People who understand scientific methods and research designs can better evaluate claims about science and research, they explain."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28658946

imo we won't see many positive changes until we abolish silicon valley and the western-led intellectual property regime. liberate science and technology from capitalism.

https://tribunemag.co.uk/2019/01/abolish-silicon-valley

[kongin]

>Another case was for a German company so desperate to find people that they paid a friend of mine net 6000 EUR a month as a front-end. That's even crazier.

Wait how much? At flat 10% tax that's competitive with non-CA salaries in the US. Throw in that healthcare is top notch and a 20th of the price and some CA positions start looking worse.

Do you have more information on this?

[yakshaving_jgt]

I broke my wrist in Bulgaria earlier this year and spent a night in a hospital in Varna.

It is not top notch.

[baybal2]

> You can live like a king with those kinds of salaries in Bulgaria, but you'll be surrounded by shitty infrastructure, non-existing government and all other types of shit that people like me that have left don't want to deal with.

No roads? Why not to build one?

Road building was synonymic with mafia from even before the USSR collapse in Russia.

So, my father, back in mid-late nineties simply imported equipment from China, hired labourers, built the road for our village for 1/8th of what the mafia asked, and then sold the equipment on the open market.

Money is power. Don't be ashamed to use it for the right cause.

[pdabbadabba]

I hate to say it but, if this is really what happened, it is only because the local mafia was ineffective. Normally, mafias have a lot of well known and often unpleasant ways of keeping rivals off their turf.

[codeisawesome]

I think one would run into trouble with the local hard-power gatekeepers in most places with this approach. I believe South Africa had a problem where activists tried to improve water supply infra but got blocked by the local government (which was and is doing a terrible job).

[baybal2]

Why not then just buy off these local bureaucrats to make them f... off and let you do their job?

Second, if it comes to "hard-power gatekeepers," $1000-$2000 a months buys you employment of a local toughboy ready to receive punches, and deliver punches for you.

A successful IT business can probably really throw its weight around when it comes to somebody trying to "наехать"

[pdabbadabba]

> Second, if it comes to "hard-power gatekeepers," $1000-$2000 a months buys you employment of a local toughboy ready to receive punches, and deliver punches for you.

Sure, but at this point isn't your advice just "why not bribe government officials and go to war with the mafia"? Sure, someone could do that. But...maybe we can imagine reasons why they would be reluctant to do so?

One notable failure mode of this strategy would be: mafia guy shows up at your house and hits you with a hammer until you're no longer able to/interested in continuing to pursue this strategy.

[heavenlyblue]

Well or you could just migrate to a country where you don’t need to наехать

[tamiral]

I always thought my grandpa was making these numbers up but apparently it's true...