[traceroute66]

> 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.

[maccard]

> 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

[vGPU]

>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.

[devoutsalsa]

We were all that crappy developer at some point…

[maccard]

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.

[phpisthebest]

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]

> 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.

[mhitza]

> 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-media... and reanalyze your statement.

And also compared to 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]

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€

[mhitza]

> Are you actually in Europe?

I'm actually in Europe, and EU, but not Schengen (thank you Austria & Netherland governments for the veto vote).

> You won't get qualified devs for much less than 60k around here.

The ridiculous claim was about juniors that won't even approach the job for less than 60k, and I took that information that I found first with a Google search to illustrate that 60k euros is more than the average salary in most EU countries.

Of course you could share more precise numbers from one of your national institutions that reports this information, but on the website listed the monthly average gross salary stated for Austria is around 4540, which comes to 54480 a year.

I could count on one hand the number of junior developers I've encountered that I would call exceptional, and deserving an average salary right from the get-go.

[KeplerBoy]

I wouldn't worry too much about the average salary. Those numbers usually include people working part time.

And, stating the obvious: Software developers tend to earn above average salaries.

[signal11]

> Most people would probably name it as Europe. And you would have to go looking in Eastern Europe.

Affinity[1] is a good example, I believe that’s created in Europe and its very reasonably priced.

Pixelmator too — based in Lithuania?

[1] https://affinity.serif.com/

[hardware2win]

>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.

You realize that 60k usd after tax is 240k PLN which is like 6.6 times minimal wage?

This is good cash, not top, but good.

Junior people earn 36-120k PLN, so half of that.

[tuetuopay]

> 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.

Let me tell you that you are far off the reality. I live in Paris and junior developers don't get near as much as €60k/year. The 35-40k range is more realistic for juniors, and senior ones can get what, 90k? That's alread considered really good for an engineer here.

Of course you can make six figures, but that implies working for a silicon valley company that hires remotely in europe. And those that have offices in europe adjust their compensation accordingly.

Just for demonstration I looked at Datadog on levels.fyi for the three they accept to show me:

- Paris, $77k-$94k (so €70k-€85k)

- New York $180k (for level 1 SE, senior is through the roof)

[tsimionescu]

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]

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).

[kakwa_]

> 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).

[prakhar897]

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]

do you expect a year of 5 stellar devs will be enough to re-implement photoshop?

I am doubtful.

[hgsgm]

No, 1 stellar dev for 5 years. https://www.photopea.com/

[wiseowise]

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]

> 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

[kakwa_]

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.

[dismalpedigree]

Its not the skill of the developers thats the problem with offshoring. Its the communication breakdown and difficulty of specifying what you actually want built.

[reaperducer]

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.

If that dev can't even put a dollar sign in the right place, then I'm not sure the quality is everything you claim.

Attention to detail matters. Especially in coding.

[wiseowise]

Laughable attempt to discredit someone.

> Attention to detail matters. Especially in coding.

Let me guess, you're one of those people who think nitpicking on every small thing leads to "quality" code?

[tuetuopay]

At least Europeans put the currency sign after the number.

If a dev cannot be United States centric and condescending, I'm not sure of their worth as an engineer.

[reaperducer]

The discussion is specifically about American salaries, so yes, the position of the dollar sign matters when someone is trying to brag about the quality of their work.

[true_religion]

They are talking about American salaries so they can us that money in India. The US is in the subordinate position here.

[vGPU]

> can us that money

Can ask?

Can use?

Can what?

[hardware2win]

When discussing other cultures you arent expected to conform to their ways of doing things, are you?

[allarm]

That's just absolutely unnecessary nitpicking.

[computerfriend]

Different conventions exist. Personally, I put the unit after the quantity without exception.

[hotpotamus]

Yeah, I always found this to be an utterly strange convention. Do you say, "that'll be dollars one hundred", when you tell someone a price? Would you write, "I'm lbs200"?

I suppose it does give away the cultural difference, but this is one where the Indians (and a lot of others) get it right.

[hgsgm]

$566 is right. SI and everything else got it wrong. Most significant figures should come first. Unit is the most significant figure.

"Five hundred...." is meaningless. "dollars five hundred..." is a useful preliminary approximation.

[vGPU]

When I think about it, I have to agree.

It would make for a fast mental shortcut in preparation. For example: you need to move an item. How much does it weigh?

Grams… ok, pocket

Kilograms… might need to put it in the trunk.

[CalRobert]

Very true, but a decent salary in, say, Poland is much less than in California.

[wiseowise]

Decent salary is 100k in Europe, for example.