Want good programmers? Then pay them. - <AUTHOR> http://www.irrlicht3d.org/pivot/entry.php?id=1295 <comment><USER2> So true. I get calls from startup recruiters all the time. They don't seem to realize there's this thing called rent. They want to pay with equity. Might as well pay me with lottery tickets.

Here's the minimum I need to even bother talking to a recruiter. That means that for me to accept the offer, it probably needs more than this.

Six figures, 30 vacation days, full benefits, infinite sick days, convince me that you won't be out of business in any short span of time and you won't bounce a check. Also, under no circumstances do I work more than 40 hours a week.

The other thing that gets me is how companies expect you to really want to work for them. The fact is you need me more than I need you. I'm not going to spend my time solving your cute little puzzles and what not. My experience speaks for itself. If you want to hire me, you should be the one jumping through hoops to convince me I should quit my job and work for you. Only the past naive college version of myself thought otherwise.

TL;DR: if you want to hire me, pretend that I am a doctor and you are a pharmaceutical company.

<comment><USER3> I agree with a lot of what you said; but stating that you will under no circumstances work more than 40 hours a week bothers me. I try to get out of the office every day on time - but shit happens, and there are instances where someone needs to fix something or else the company is losing revenue. You want financial stability with a high salary - but aren't willing to help make the company stable. Yes, a healthy work/life ratio is very important to me, but I won't walk out that door in the middle of a crisis.

<comment><USER4> Crisis mode is addictive.

It was fun to play the hero and get 'That One Critical Feature' out of the door for an important demo. It is a rush. Investors like it. Engineers like it. Soon a company is always in crisis mode; pushing hard to get the next great thing out. It becomes the culture.

At one company I worked at the VP of Engineering was the hardest, longest working person I'd ever met and a driver of that culture. No matter how hard or long you worked, he could beat you at that metric without breaking a sweat. There was a lot of pressure to live up to that example. Mostly I didn't mind because solving problems on a deadline is fun. Mostly.

Eventually, inevitably, that lifestyle started catching up to us. Nerves were frayed. Small technical disagreements started to stretch on into weeks long religious cold wars. We started losing good people who had the good sense to see what was happening.

Those of us who believed in the company and product stayed on, even thrived at some level.

After a few years of this something drastic changed. Our VPoE mother died unexpectedly. It hit him hard. He realized that he had been ignoring absolutely everything but the business. Everything. And the culture shifted on a dime. Engineers were no longer /allowed/ to be called on weekends whereas before we had to respond in 20 min. He would make it a point to go out with us after the workday, or even during the workday, to chat about life, the direction of the company, whatever. Most importantly, he ran interference when it came to the clients and laid down and enforced very sane timetables for completion of projects and features. And if there was a delay, it was ok...not the end of the world.

The product did not languish. Things still got done. Turns out clients, for the most part, could not care less how hard and fast we worked. Having good information for when something would be complete was sufficient. Sometimes better because we were not breaking ourselves trying to impress them with impossible deadlines that we would sometimes miss. Good information was better than fast information.

On top of that, the quality of the product improved. Crises mode was used too often as an excuse for shipping half baked product.

Creativity blossomed. Several revenue generating products were conceived and executed in the breathing space we all now had.

People started recommending talented friends to fill positions again...

Altogether, it was just a much better scene.

Now our criteria crisis is much more strict. It is basically "Will someone (client) die or lose their house if this is not done by some certain time?" If the answer is no, go home.

If you are managing people and part of your evaluation criteria, formally or informally, is "does that person work a lot of hours" or if your 'business stability' requires that kind of sacrifice on any kind of regular basis you are doing it wrong.

TL:DR Unless a client is going to die or go bankrupt if you or your employees don't work extra hours, go home.

<comment><USER5> "The product did not languish. Things still got done. Turns out clients, for the most part, could not care less how hard and fast we worked. Having good information for when something would be complete was sufficient. Sometimes better because we were not breaking ourselves trying to impress them with impossible deadlines that we would sometimes miss. Good information was better than fast information."

This. After years of working at shops where putting out fires was the norm I took a position with a company that handles their client deliverables in the manner you describe. For the first six months I was constantly jumpy, waiting for crunch time to hit and slinking home at 5:00pm feeling vaguely guilty that I was done for the day.

I just couldn't famthom how we could be working on all of the large project initiatives in our pipeline with no screaming clients and no marathon code sprints.

After a year in a sane environment it'd take more than six figures to get me to go back to the soul-eating grind that is so typical in small dev shops.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Some context/perspective on the Austrian employment situation:

* Salaries are typically quoted per month, but there is a bonus of 2 months's salary paid per year, so yearly gross is 14 x monthly. The bonus is taxed at a lower marginal rate (6%, no social security contribution, IIRC, vs 37.5% lowest marginal rate).

* There is no fixed minimum wage in Austria. Instead, there is a collective bargaining system, which sets minimum salaries for each industry. Within each industry there are defined categories of jobs, education and levels of experience, along with minimum employment contract conditions and payment for each. This has some bizarre consequences, such that equivalent jobs (e.g. secretary) have different minimum wages in different industries.

* Employers are required to pay a _lot_ of social security/tax on top of what the employees themselves pay. (just checked this: 21.83% social security, communal tax 3%, about 6% other "social" contributions according to [http://www.gruendungswissen.at/gruendungswissen/blog-post/20...](http://www.gruendungswissen.at/gruendungswissen/blog-post/2011/04/06/gruenderlexikon-lohnnebenkosten/) )

* Employees are almost impossible to fire. If that programmer ends up doing negative work, he's going to be on your books for a while.

I've never been anything but self-employed in Austria (we get screwed in entirely different ways) but culturally I think there is an expectation that you won't negotiate on your salary. This is further reinforced by the built-in graduated minimum pay: why permit the employee to negotiate a raise if they'll legally be due a raise anyway?

<comment><USER7> _Salaries are typically quoted per month, but there is a bonus of 2 months's salary paid per year, so yearly gross is 14 x monthly._

Interesting. During the recent Euro crisis, when journalists discovered that some workers and officials in Greece enjoy a similar "extended year" of extra salary months, there was wide uproar across Europe about how the corrupted Greeks are being overpaid in ridiculous ways.

In the EU it's nowadays easy to see the speck in your brother's eye, but not notice the log in your own...

<comment><USER8> The Press wrongly just focus on one issue at a time. Other problems become side-notes or explicitly ignored.

Any solution to the current focus problem is paraded as a global solution.

But when the long ignored problems finally burst, the Press simply say 'the problem resurfaced' as if it had gone away somehow.

Relating to Austria, their banks were all wiped out lending to Hungary (more than 80% of loans to Hungary were Austrian)

There will be no mention of these zombie Austrian banks until one goes under. (Like Dexia)

\---

 _from 2008:_

<http://www.economist.com/node/12564042?story_id=12564042>

[http://www.moneyweek.com/investments/stock-markets/the- plagu...](http://www.moneyweek.com/investments/stock-markets/the-plague-heads- east-14050)

[http://www.moneyweek.com/personal-finance/credit-default- swa...](http://www.moneyweek.com/personal-finance/credit-default-swaps-how-to- spot-the-riskiest-banks)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Well this looks like the story of nearly developer community no matter which part of the world you are in. Lets face it 'monthly salaries' suck.

Programmers are a unique lot, Well last few weeks I've been pulled up for work on weekends. Almost 18 hour schedules a day. And what do I get in return? Not even a thank you. Its presumed to be a part of my job. Any other profession and unions would be up in arms about bonuses and pay for extra time. But not here, not in our profession. We don't have any work hours, we don't have holidays and vacation, we don't have a concept of over time pay. What we get in return are stupid certificates, mementos and some bravos(as though somebody cares about them).

Compensations in the software world are a huge rip off. There is no co relation between the work and pay that we get.

And please don't tell me about start up's. If you are lucky by any means to end up with good amount of stock, and an another round of luck if the start up is successful then you are OK. But most of us fail ingloriously, spend best years of lives burning through crazy hours, without vacations for peanuts in return. The Start up lottery is what it is, its a lottery.

Over the years my net learning's are:

1\. Corporate/Company loyalty is JackCrap.

2\. Work only as much as your paid, use rest of your time for personal projects and other ways of making money.

3\. Save money, and invest for your early retirement. Never having to depend on employment to make a living post 40's.

4\. Make people pay, never do anything for free. Cash counts.

5\. Your biggest asset is time. Use your time well to make money, and invest it over large periods of time to make more of it.

<comment><USER10> Sir ... I tip my hat to you.

Can you elaborate on #3? Are you in the US? Did you move to a cheaper location? I don't understand how the future's going to play out with respect to retirement. I'm in my early 30s if that helps. I looked for a financial planner ... but could not find any in my area. Just financial advisers wanting to sell me the latest "product". Any books/tips?

Funny story: my fiance and I got went to the local Barnes and Noble to check out their personal finance section. Over half the books were on how to make a fortune in foreclosures. The other half was the rich dad/poor dad crap. We ended up getting a very very simple book called "the smartest money book you'll ever read". It was saying the right things but still - very high level. I wish someone wrote a book on how to retire for intelligent people with jobs in the private sector. I'm beginning to suspect the math is so bleak that it isn't possible :(

<comment><USER11> _I'm beginning to suspect the math is so bleak that it isn't possible :(_

I'm starting to come to that conclusion myself. They say you need $1M to retire today. With inflation, we're probably talking at least $2M by the time I'm ready to retire.

Given that you and I are of similar age, these are critical times for compounding our retirement funds. With so little investment opportunity right now for the average investor, it is very difficult to keep your savings up with inflation, let alone increase your wealth. Unless you want to turn virtually all of your income into retirement savings, $2M seems pretty much out of reach.

This is, perhaps, another reason why the startups are so hot right now. Given the current financial climate, it seems like the only hope of seeing a decent retirement for the average person without a lot of capital to start with.

<comment><USER12> > it seems like the only hope of seeing a decent retirement for the average > person without a lot of capital to start with

not on a risk-adjusted basis

<comment><USER11> The odds are low, sure, but the odds are essentially zero if you take any other route. Granted, a lot can change with time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The comparison to equity being getting paid in lottery tickets is apt (IMHO).

Nevertheless there has never been a short of pioneering spirits willing to risk it all to strike it rich (just look at the gold rushes in the Dakotas, California and elsewhere). This is really the modern day equivalent.

There was a thread here last year where people talked about their exits. A common story was "worked my ass off for X years, ended up with $10k". It's survivor bias.

There is something to be said for getting paid well. I work for Google, I'm not high-level and I haven't been here forever (~1.5 years) and, honestly, you get paid--and _treated_ \--really well. Now you'll never strike it rich but you can live incredibly well and, if you prove yourself, have an awful lot of freedom to pursue your goals with an amazing amount of resources and latitude.

Some of the comments in this thread bother me, particularly the 30 days paid vacation a year. In Europe maybe. In the US? Good luck. Never working more than 40 hours a week nor staying late? It just smacks of entitlement. I'm not saying you need to kill yourself for the company but it really is a two-way street.

I tried pursuing that once. The end result of that is what Chris Dixon calls "transactional" work [1]. You owe them nothing. They owe you nothing. I've worked in banking and finance and that's as good as it gets there. It's really soul-destroying actually.

So I work more than I should. Thing is, I'm never looking at my watch because _I enjoy what I do_. And if I want to go off for a nap or wander off and see a movie or do something else to relax or recharge I can.

Now someone will inevitably bring up that not everyone can do that. Fine. Whatever. You've made other life choices. I get it.

The biggest problem startups are facing in hiring (IMHO) is that there is a disconnect between equity offered to early employees and the risk. Last cofounder? 33% or 50% typically (before dilution). First employee? 1-2%. Maybe 3%.

We're not in 1999 anymore. You don't need $5-10 million to launch a startup anymore. What used to take $5 million now takes as little as $50,000. The lowering of the barrier to entry means talented engineers are nearly always better off starting their own startup rather than working for yours, unless you have an _amazing_ track record.

[1]: <http://cdixon.org/2009/10/23/twelve-months-notice/>

<comment><USER14> Is there something intrinsically wrong with giving someone 30 days' holiday per year? Surely this is the same kind of freedom to spend your time as you wish that Google (with its 20% time) is famous for?

As you said, in Europe this is common, and the viewpoint that it "smacks of entitlement" is puzzling. Is it just a cultural difference? I'm don't think there is any evidence either way that this affects productivity.

<comment><USER15> In my experience Europeans have a different view of life than North Americans. Especially East coasters. In work I find they are more interested in perfection and creativity, and less so on productivity, output, and efficiency.

Thirty days of holiday a year is affordable if North Americans would be fine with houses that were 13% less spacious, but most North Americans I met _heavily_ optimize living space, where Europeans outsource their after hour times to pubs and social atmospheres. An "excellent" amount of vacation in North America is 20 days + 7 or so Government mandated days off. I've yet to meet someone under 35 that has a better deal than that, even in tech, and for most workers it is 10 days + 7.

<comment><USER16> I am a 31 year old programmer working 40 hour weeks in the US. I get 21 days PTO + 2 floating holidays + 7 Government holidays + 5 days training days + 3 months sick leave at full pay + unlimited sick leave at 60% pay (long term disability). I also pay 2k/month in rent for a small, but nice apartment in the DC area.

Ignoring sick-leave and training that works out to 30 days / year off, they don't let you cash it out and there is a 25day cap designed to get you to actually use that time off. (Most people end up taking a month off every other year or so, they also let you go a little negative to encourage longer vacations.)

PS: They also do maternity / adoption leave, and give separate time off for funerals etc.

<comment><USER17> Where is this?:)

<comment><USER16> <http://www.boozallen.com/> they start you at 16 or 17 days PTO after 5 years it's bumped to 21, but all the other benefits stay the same.

PS: I know plenty of people who work insane hours there. But, it's not 'required' just useful for promotions etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> _In Austria, an entry level programmer with high level university training will usually get offered 2200 Euro gross. I'm not kidding._

I think employers should be cut a little slack with entry-level, straight-out- of-school programmers. They regard them as having no proven value, which is fair, and in most cases they will have to sink a significant amount of time and effort into making them productive in a business environment. The world is more than 19-year-old open source celebrities and wizard start-up coders. There are a lot of regular people with CS degrees and no experience beyond school projects. Entry-level positions exist for people like that. (Even programmers with a history of open-source contributions are an unknown quantity when it comes to their ability to contribute to projects they didn't choose, that don't scratch their own itch, that don't come with public bragging rights, etc.)

Not providing an exceptional starting point for exceptional kids is forgivable, because exceptional contributors have their own contacts already that they are presumably working. If you don't have contacts and are stuck looking at normal entry-level jobs, then forgive the corporate world for being a little skeptical. If we want corporations to hire and train normal graduates (and we do, if we care about unemployment, and our future pool of skilled tech workers) then we should accept them being payed a fair guess at what they'll be worth in their first year of employment. If you think you're worth more, then maybe you should forgive employers for not being psychic enough to take you at your word. If you think you're worth more _and_ you have better options, then why do you think entry-level positions are intended for you? You have your path, and these jobs are for someone else.

</comment><comment><USER19> _most_ companies don't know how to value the contributions of software developers. i'm not actually sure they know how to value the contributions of most employees, period, except for salespeople. However as a dev, I'm biased some. I do think the potential for high value contributions, and the ability to avoid even costlier mistakes, is higher in the IT/dev dept vs other corporate departments.

Several years ago I was offered $60k at a company as a developer. I was coming to them with, at that point, 12 years of web development (backend, php, etc). I pointed out that $60k was not something I thought was reasonable for what I was bringing. "This is what everyone starts at here," was the reply, and I learned that was their starting salary for 'just out of college' devs. They hadn't hired any senior-level devs before (but had dozens of devs), and didn't even know how to put a value on the skills one brought to the table.

I've learned they've since changed their policies some, but that policy actually did a lot of damage to their rep in the local scene, and it was hard for them to get _good_ devs for a while. The few I knew who were really good generally didn't start there, or started, then left after a bit. But... because I knew people there, I learned about their internal stuff. I was (sort of) shocked at how many basic dev mistakes they made, which ended up costing them extreme time/money to fix months or years later. These were rather elementary mistakes in most cases - I'd made them 10 years earlier myself in some cases.

How does one put a value on the savings experienced devs bring to a company, in terms of simply _not_ making bone-headed decisions which cost a lot to fix later on? This is not saying I'm perfect - of course I'd make some mistakes. But mine would be harder to detect ;)

Lastly, somewhat relatedly, devs just coming out of school are almost _never_ taught a few basic skills which are nearly universally required - how to break down a project in to smaller parts, debugging techniques (how to think about debugging, not particular tools), testing (including how to think about making code testable the first time), and version control concepts (again, not a particular tool, but the importance of version control). I'm seeing devs come out of school with degrees who have never heard of git/svn/cvs, nor understand why they need version control ("it's just me on a project").

<comment><USER20> > How does one put a value on the savings experienced devs bring to a company, > in terms of simply not making bone-headed decisions which cost a lot to fix > later on? This is not saying I'm perfect - of course I'd make some mistakes. > But mine would be harder to detect ;)

Learning how to translate your value as a developer into dollars is an extremely useful skill that will help you gain a lot of respect and earn more. Speaking from experience, people are a lot more impressed when I say "I saved my last company $3MM in 8 months" than if I say something like "I set up a reporting architecture which allowed us to automate a lot of work and greatly reduce the number of errors, plus create new reports faster."

So how do you actually figure out your value? Here are some methods:

1\. Time savings. Almost everything a developer does reduces the need for other people to spend time working on any given project. Ask a few people how much time they save per week thanks to your software, and multiply that by the number of people using what you've created.

2\. Sales increases. Compare companies in the industry that have great development practices to companies that have terrible practices. Find out what features have helped increased sales, and point out how these features couldn't have been created without fantastic developers available. You'll find that a case for hiring good programmers. almost writes itself.

3\. If you want to get really advanced, take (1) and (2) and actively seek projects where you'll be make major contributions to the company's bottom line.

<comment><USER21> #3 is the center of patio11's usual advice for programmers who want to make more money[0]. It boils down to "find a part of the company that is making money, go there, and show them how your contribution helped make more money."

[0] [http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a- pro...](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-programmer/)

<comment><USER20> The one thing I would add is you don't _need_ to be in a profit center of the company, though it helps. Even administrative roles have a lot of ways to contribute to the bottom line (the $3MM example I gave was in a reporting department!)

<comment><USER22> You don't need to be in the profit center of the company, but, and this is a big but, when you are not in the profit center of the company you, your colleagues and your department are seen by the CFO and accounting side as an expense and not a cost.

Being seen as an expense in many companies means that there are budgets and less perceived room for negotiating by those deciding your salary. They have a budget to meet. It's not like they can easily go to their superior and say "Hey, if you increase my budget for salaries X, I can reduce the company's expenditures by 2X". Unfortunately budgets for most non-core departments only go down, unless the demand for the service that non-core department by the core departments go up, i.e. "In order to offer 2X capacity, I need 2X the budget"

Plus, you generally never want to be in the non-core part of any company/industry because the quality/talent of the people you work with in the profit center of a company/industry. It's simply much harder to surround yourself with good people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> There are two sides behind this story. In small, not very competitive markets, like the one in Austria, companies are not expecting the programmers they hire to be great; not being very bad would be enough. All they will be asked to do is to support the legacy accounting system -- what's the point of hiring a ninja for that? This, combined with the typical CFO mentality ("That's all the budget I can allocate and I don't care about the position not being filled because it's the IT director who will be affected by that, not me. Frankly, I don't even think that accounting system needs rewriting. When's the lunch?") drives the offer side down.

On the other side, as an "entry level programmer", are you absolutely sure you worth more than 2200 EUR? Care to prove it to a Google recruiter, speaking in your native language just across the border, in Munich? Care to prove to the free market that you can run your own business and earn more? Great. That's what we have free markets for.

EDIT: Just want to add that I'm all for "pay well to hire great developers" approach, but I think this advice mostly applies to companies operating in highly competitive environments: think London startups competing with the salaries paid in the City, or startups in SV trying to lure people away from Facebook. Apart from that, your average employer don't care about what you think you worth and probably doing it for the right reason.

<comment><USER19> The OP didn't mention 'entry level' with respect to that post. The post was looking for someone with 5 years of experience in tech X. That's probably not 'entry level' anymore, no matter how you slice it.

<comment><USER23> From the original post:

 _In Austria, an entry level programmer with high level university training will usually get offered 2200 Euro gross_

That's what I was referring to.

<comment><USER19> Sorry - missed that. I saw his reference to 5+ years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _Wake up, people: Are you serious? You want highly specialized people with actual skills, and expect them to be OK with that comparable low payment? If the same person sits down and starts creating his own software, he will probably earn much more one year later by himself already._

Probably not. Most programmers don't have any idea what software sells and how to sell it.

<comment><USER24> I seriously doubt that. It's not like most programmers live in a bubble and never have contact with other people.

As a programmer you usually accumulate detailed domain knowledge in a variety of industries. You often end up knowing more about the core business of a company than their individual stakeholders and employees. Programming requires specifications, and often, an IT project forces companies to identify and formulate business processes for the first time. Often this leads to the realization that existing processes are simply broken.

On top of that, you get a feel for how companies work. As an example: internal politics, warring departments battling each other. You see good and bad examples of leadership and management.

In meetings with clients I often feel more like a management consultant than a programmer.

<comment><USER25> Running a successful business isn't about knowledge. It's about skill. The first time I started a business, I thought, "Hell, I understand all the technical stuff, and the rest looks simple. How hard could it be?"

The joke was on me, for sure. It turns out it is very hard. Extremely rewarding, certainly, even if not financially: almost every entrepreneur I know could have made much better money in some bullshit corporate job.

But the notion that if "an entry level programmer [...] sits down and starts creating his own software, he will probably earn much more one year later by himself already"? I'm confident saying that's arrogant youthful idiocy, because that's exactly what I was full of when I started out on my own.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Sometimes small and medium businesses simply don't have the money to pay the big bucks that we think we are worth.

I've worked with a number of companies turning over in the low £millions, and it's very rare that the founder is taking lots of money off the table whilst low balling the staff on salaries.

These businesses simply don't have the margins and the runways to let salaries get out of hand.

As most of the economy is made up of these kinds of businesses, many of which have IT as the cost centre providing some non-remarkable CRUD development, this is probably a big factor that holds down average salaries.

Turn it around a little and image you are the small-medium sized business owner. You need a person, but can can only sensibly offer a salary of 75% of the market rate.

Are you best just not to offer the job for fear of exploiting someone or looking like a cheapskate, or do you put it out there and hope to find someone who is happy to work for that price?

[I'm a developer who agrees with the OP so I'm playing devils advocate slightly, but there are two sides to this.]

<comment><USER27> _can can only sensibly offer a salary of 75% of the market rate_

I'd happily consider working for 75% of market rate, if I could work a 60% week. Add to that the ability to work remotely and things can start to look really enticing. If on the other hand you expect someone to work 100%, plus unpaid over time, plus be in the office every morning by 8 am, plus being on call, plus an absolute minimum of vacation days, and still only want to pay them 75%, then hiring will be almost impossible.

If you really can only afford 75% of market rate, you can probably still get good people if you're willing to be flexible on all the other non-salary aspects of the job.

<comment><USER28> Oh how I wish this would be considered more! I'd be willing to take quite a beating on the rate for even a 4 day work week (4 8 hour days, not dressed up 40 hour weeks).

>and still only want to pay them 75%, then hiring will be almost impossible.

Oh hiring will still be possible, you're just going to get really crap people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Smart individuals don't relish the thought of being saddled by hustlers who intend to ride them to the top of the mountain. Granted, you can't make everyone a co-founder, but there is quite a bit of leeway between that and token equity.

I get contacted all the time by start-up hustlers who tell me in detail what they expect or want. When I compare their "wild desires" to what I estimate they will contribute to building something from nothing, I am left with only one conclusion: They believe engineering/programming/technology is as trivial as blogging about your dream of becoming the next Mark Zuckerberg.

Sorry, fellas, but coding and talking are not the same thing. Coding and hustling are not the same thing either.

Another pet peeve of mine is people who contact me claiming they are looking for a technical co-founder. I go along and quickly learn they have already made all technical decisions and claim they have "90% of the code in place". In the back of my mind, I know why they say that: They just don't want to admit my contribution would be worth more than a single-digit percentage of their unborn company.

In the end, I can see through all that and I am not about to let anyone take advantage of me.

I am not alone either and all those smart individuals you need to build a successful company can see through it all as well.

Conclusion: 90%+ of all start-ups fail lamentably. Because too many entrepreneurs just want to get rich before anything else and it's hard to convince people to join you when you are so obviously self-centered.

<comment><USER30> _Granted, you can't make everyone a co-founder_

Yes, you can. It's called a collective, or a cooperative. There are some functioning software cooperatives, Galois Systems being one of the more lucrative examples.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> On occasion I have long complicated discussions with companies about how hard it to find developers. Assuming they're actually asking for a sane skill-set the problem is usually down to two factors:

1) Not paying enough

2) Not doing interesting work

(with the very occasional 3 of "having a bloody awful reputation")

The trick is, of course, finding a non-blunt way of getting this across :-)

<comment><USER32> I think companies can get away with both those things if they have a good engineering culture. That is to say, if they respect the engineers enough to let them have a higher problem solving role than simply implementing what some non-technical manager passes down.

<comment><USER31> Surely "let them have a higher problem solving role" == doing interesting work? :-)

<comment><USER32> Yes I would agree with that, though it's non-obvious. I mean the best solution could be a CRUD app that would be the very epitome of boring to many seasoned programmers, and yet I think there will always be some smart programmers who will find it interesting if for no other reason then that they personally haven't done that type of thing before.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> German dev here. Here, you hear companies complain about qualified laborer scarcity("Fachkräftemangel") and the politicians eat it up. It's not true though; it's just that the companies have totally wrong ideas of what they can demand/offer. There are a lot of unpaid internships, entry-level pay with senior-level experience jobs and a lot of the companies file much more job offers than they actually need, just so they can get more applications.

According to simple market rules, less supply with more demand should increase the price/salary, but it doesn't.

<comment><USER34> Quite; allowing for inflation, developer salaries have been flat since 2001. There is _not_ a shortage of developers, and that is provable.

<comment><USER35> Provable how? Not raising developer salaries might be _indicative_ of there being no shortage of developers, but it's not proof by any stretch of the imagination.

In markets of asynchronous information, supply and demand fails. It's quite possible for developer salaries to remain constant or even decrease _at the same time_ as demand for good developers goes through the roof.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> "If the same person sits down and starts creating his own software, he will probably earn much more one year later by himself already."

I think people really underestimate what a small portion of a successful business the ability to code well is. I am not saying it isn't helpful, but I would put my money on someone that is an average coder with great business, marketing, customer service skills over a great coder that lacks those any day.

This isn't to downplay a developers role in business, I am a developer myself, it's just that a great developer can't turn that into money without working for someone else, or having the other business skills that are required.

</comment><comment><USER37> And the sad part is that recruiters are going to keep talking crap about "motivation" and how gamification makes working "fun".

Pay up: there's an actual deficit of coders in the market, know why? because years ago people who were grade-A material for programming decided to go into finance instead, because those guys actually get paid

You know who makes the most money in the gaming industry? not the artists, they are actually among the worst paid. The coders? they are above the artists that's for sure, but still not even close to the highest tier: business.

Yeah, the beancounters, the guys that take 1/3 of the game and sell it separately as a DLC, they are the best paid in the gaming industry, not the guys that you know, actually make the games...

<comment><USER38> > because years ago people who were grade-A material for programming decided > to go into finance instead, because those guys actually get paid

That's not just "years ago", that's very current.

<comment><USER37> OK I meant when it started

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I think companies forget the concept of compensation and its relation to attracting talent. You don't pay a person necessarily what they _deserve_ because you'll often fall short. You pay what is _necessary_ to secure the talent you require.

I'm from the Canadian Prairies; a lot of our industry here is oil. Rig workers don't require much skill, the job is physically demanding yes but almost anyone can pick it up and do it should they wish to do so. This is a low skilled labour job but its extremely high demand because oil is a massive industry. Guess what? They earn $75,000+ per year in some cases. That's more than entry level programmers who require degrees. I don't think its unfair as a programmer because their jobs are in demand. If you want me to work as a programmer in the area then you better make it worth my while. Shortage of programmers? Attract them with incentives!

</comment><comment><USER40> This reflects my experience (UK) - I get recruiters asking me on a regular basis why they can't find any PHP developers, when I look at the job ad it's because the offers are things like 'experienced mid-level developer, 20-24k'.

</comment><comment><USER41> I've seen crap programmers get paid insane amounts of money and incredibly good ones get paid peanuts...

If only there was a strong correlation between programmers self-assessment with respect to their value and what they're actually being paid. That would help everybody and would make salary negotiations a lot easier.

<comment><USER9> Programmer salaries are decided most of the times by people, who don't know a jack about programming.

I know a lot of people make money just by being the manager's 'best man', Just polish the managers boot and he will give you the title of 'best team player' around.

On the other most good programmers tend to concentrate on their work, poor social skills and merely delivering stuff that doesn't get highlighted. You can do a lot of fire fighting at work, no body above your immediate manager will even know about it. There are a lot of people around you who are known to level above you manager just because they can make more noise and blow their trumpet louder than anybody else.

Perceptions drive a lot of things in this world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Remember the USA has had 50 years of Silicon Valley. The rest of the world is playing catchup. While developers may understand the what creates a successful software product/company, the businesses adopting software development have no idea what they are doing.

There isn't the 50 years of collective physique at play. They haven't seen software giants rise and fall. And they haven't been exposed to the inputs that create a successful software company. As time goes on things will improve.

Just avoid these companies like the plague.

<comment><USER43> To be honest, the US companies probably have also more money to throw at the problem than those of any other country.

Everytime I see someone speak about the absurdly high salaries around Silicon Valley and saying that they are too low, I cringe a bit inside.

<comment><USER10> Why do you cringe? Do you know what the average price of a house is in MV/Palo Alto/Sunnyvale? Cheapest housing I could find that was decent (not fancy but descent by my personal definition) was just over 2K/month in rent. 6 figures in Silicon Valley isn't the same as it is in most parts of the world.

That said, what I find strange is that experience in software doesn't seem to be rewarded. I keep hearing about fresh grads getting offered nearly a 100K right out of school. How much does a veteran developer make? Almost the same as far as I know.

<comment><USER43> A naive search shows you get a 1000 sq feet house for 2K$ in MV/Sunnyvale. If it's really true, that doesn't exactly sound a _huge_ amount. Look at the rents in Paris or Stockholm, and imagine you're paid 50k$.

<comment><USER10> In the US, you are responsible for your own retirement (in most of the private sector). If you lose your job for a prolonged period of time, you also need to have funds saved up (generally, the safety net is thin). You're comparing apples and oranges.

Take Stockholm as an example. I found it to be ridiculously to be expensive .. even to eat out! That just means people don't eat out as much as they do in NYC or SF. However, the wait staff were wearing far better clothes than me and didn't seem to care about tips ... I believe they get paid better wages than the US. That's good for them. I don't think they should get paid any less. I'm just saying it is a different social structure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I am a Vienna-based programmer and am looking at job adverts regularly. I fully agree with what you have written, sometimes I feel they mus be joking. There is no appreciation for hackers and what they are worth. Take this advert for example: [http://derstandard.at/anzeiger/derjob/d/155533/c-senior- soft...](http://derstandard.at/anzeiger/derjob/d/155533/c-senior-software- entwickler-%28m-w%29) 5 years experience in C++ and only 2,500 EUR gross? Seriously?

<comment><USER45> I'm in Vienna and work for a local startup in the mobile application development scene .. and yeah. Pay-rates are definitely not what they should be, here in Austria. I think it has a lot to do with the "Kollektiv-vertrag" prices being set too low by the government itself ..

<comment><USER46> one way to think of it: with your average salary you are propping up all the people not as good as you who still get the same salary. if you cannot feel good about this you then move away from your socialist country. I did.

<comment><USER47> Well, I've been thinking about moving from Vienna to somewhere more competetive for some time (though its not about the money, I'm paid really well here - just about competition, which I happen to enjoy a lot), but the reasons for not doing it are some of the features you get when living in a more "socialist" (though I wouldn't call Austria socialist) country.

Security, low crime rate, very few homeless people, drug addicts etc.. I can basically go to a party, get drunk there and take a walk after that in any part of the city during night without being afraid that some homeless person will attack me. If you ask me, thats a big pro for staying here. Sure, I would probably earn more if I did the same job in San Francisco, but then I would have to deal with a much worse social situation, and I would have to be more cautious.

<comment><USER48> _Sure, I would probably earn more if I did the same job in San Francisco, but then I would have to deal with a much worse social situation, and I would have to be more cautious._

Does the crime rate actually differ much between SF and Vienna? A quick google search provides very little info, but suggests there is not much difference. I haven't been to SF lately, but crime is a negligible issue in NYC.

Though SF may be a special case - I've heard they have extremely generous benefits and the homeless move to SF to collect them. Can someone with more knowledge comment?

<comment><USER47> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentiona...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_cities_by_crime_r...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_cities_by_crime_rate)

San Francisco has more homicides with its population of ~800k than all of Austria combined with a population of 8,5 million.

<comment><USER49> Almost all of them are gang related--YAY drug war! As an upper middle class software engineer it's not really a good argument.

Though the poverty and hopelessness can be a little sad if you walk through the bad areas.

<comment><USER47> I'm not saying life is bad in San Francisco, those statistics are just one part of the equasion. (the other parts: leaving behind family, friends, the good life I already have etc)

I am just against the notion that propping up that random incompetent guy (at least to some degree, so he wont roam the streets doing crazy stuff) is always a bad decision.

Preventing those people from failing miserably (and the negative side effects that come with it) - thats basically why we have a lower income over here.

And my pricetag for giving up all that is higher than just doubling my income.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I see people getting low salaries who do not assert themselves. I know of friends and employees who are capable of sticking up for themselves getting over twice the amount the ones get who do not. Employees who don't ask for a raise don't get one as apparently they don't want one.

One of my best friends (developer) gets FAR too little for his experience, intelligence etc, but when I tell him to ask for more he says that he's happy like this and he doesn't care. Most devs (I met here and I met a lot) are like that; of the 100s of devs we employed we had maybe 30 asking for a raise directly. The rest (and we are talking a period of 12 years now) are just happily plodding along. People rather have the boss not whine when they don't turn up after a boozer or when they want to suddenly out with the family than more money. Fine.

I'm from EU, the Netherlands. Most people are know are not very money focused; quality of life is the word. A lot of them work less to spend time with their kids/family and most are happy making nice money to live, go on vacation twice a year (and the trend here is to go inside of EU because 'there is enough beauty, why go further?', which is often much cheaper than flying to the other side of the world) and have a good pension.

</comment><comment><USER51> I wouldn't compare European salaries with US so quickly. I have a cautionary tale to tell: when in 1990 the USSR collapsed, many Russian physicists decided to move abroad, some to western Europe, some to the USA. At first the European ones were complaining about their lower salaries, but once they started having kids and needing more medical care, they realized that they were actually much better off than their American counterparts. The lesson here is: you might even make much less, but in Europe there are much much better public schools which are free, hospitals are (mostly) free and in general Universities are either free or at least one order of magnitude less expensive than in the US. Should I go on? Most contracts in the US do not have unlimited sick leave, whereas in Europe we get that and 20 days of holiday; the US are one of the four countries in the world with no national law on maternity leave (who are the other three is left as an exercise to the reader…). But I agree with the general point that salaries of developers should not be so low compared to managerial positions.

<comment><USER52> I see this argument (Europe is superior) made again and again. Let me try to clear the misconceptions. Please note i am a immigrant in US and somewhat qualified to compare it with the other countries.

1, Public education is free in US. Of-course the quality varies depending on which school district you live. But in most metros (other than NYC/Bay area/north east) you will be able to buy a 4 bedroom house in a good school district for around $250k.

2, Healthcare - Health Insurance is paid by the company in almost 99% of the cases. Depending on the insurance plan sometime you will have some out of pocket costs (lke $20 copay per doctor visit etc).

3, Vacation - Most companies offer around 2 weeks of paid vacation a year (in addition to sick leaves). Yes its less than in europe but you can always take non paid vacation.

So the bottomline is US offers 2x the salary with 1/2 the cost of living and 3/4 the social benefits as Europe. If you do the math its better to work in IT in US compared to any part of the world.

<comment><USER28> You're not clearing any misconceptions, you're making them. It would take a lot of research and work to discover what a "good district" is, while in western Europe you can just send your kids to school and not worry about it. Lots of states don't have any good districts at all.

Healthcare paid for by the company is the stupidest thing ever. The company is trying to save money and having them pay for health care means (a) you have little or no choice of what provider they choose and (b) you cannot be without a job ever due to the insane exposure that would put you and your family under and keeping the insurance plan you had with your employer will usually be prohibitively expensive.

Many employers just give you "catastrophic" coverage which will leave you with something like a $10k deductible (I'm serious) and if you do manage to go over that expect to take the company to court for not paying. Anecdotal but I only know two people who tested this (I'm one of them) and in both cases the insurance companies refused to pay. I sued them to get my bills paid. The other guy wasn't so lucky. Shame, he would have retired by 40 if it weren't for a surprise illness.

You can't "always" take non paid vacation. In many companies if you do that make sure you take all your stuff with you and polish your resume before you leave.

2x the salary? Not where I live. I'm above all but a Facebook/Google salary (but those are within view) and I don't know what 3/4 the social benefits you're talking about are. The US has worse roads, hostile public services (e.g. DMV, police, etc.), a horrible health care system and poor worker protections (compared to Europe). Could you break down your social benefits because I literally cannot imagine what you could possibly mean with this.

<comment><USER52> 1, 10k deductible?, thats unheard of unless if they worked for a startup with funding issues :)

2, It takes about an hour to find out the good school districts in any metro!.

3, 2x salary is real, Just compare the 2200 euro beginner salary ($35k yearly) mentioned in the post with US. An beginner american programmer can easily start at $60k. After tax it will be really 2x than in europe.

Anyway with so many downvotes i think its not a good idea to argue further :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> I think this is a consequence of the corporate mentality that prevails in Europe. We're still (or at least many of the big players) at the stage at which developers are seen as easily replaceable, as "mere code writers". People do not value our contribution as they should, it's like we're doing something that in a couple of years will be done by robots. While it's still true that it's easier to find a job in IT than somewhere else, the pay is quite limited in some countries, and unless you are willing to sell your soul to the devil, your career aspirations too.

</comment><comment><USER54> This is like saying, "Want diamonds? Pay for them!" which, I agree, is an entirely valid statement. But the reason the diamonds/good programmer are so expensive has little to do with their inherent value. It has more to do with lack of supply. A B level player will not suddenly graduate to A level if you start paying him higher.

<comment><USER55> Who is DeBeers in this analogy?

<comment><USER54> I don't have a very good answer to that but in India, our education system is certainly a big shareholder. And the job security afforded even at low skill levels due to outsourcing, another.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Same thing in Germany and Portugal, too markets I know very well.

The sad thing is then watching the outsourcing taking place, and how the money "saved" in outsourcing, is then spent repairing the work from bad deliveries.

So development cost actually increases, but since now two cost centers are being used, the business costs look nicer on the spreadsheets.

</comment><comment><USER57> From my own experience of comparing my salary to those of friends in this industry, a lot of the discrepancy I see is largely based on very poor negotiation skills. In my case, my dad taught me how to negotiate salary on my first real job the way some guys dad's teach them how to box. I'm horrible in a fight but have proven to be a fairly good negotiator.

And I can understand why people compare software engineers to doctors and attorneys: Cases of highly trained "knowledge workers". But one big difference is that doctors are most often hired by other doctors. And lawyers are most often hired by other lawyers. Most engineers are hired as support-staff in an unrelated field. The ones that do work for software companies and startups are usually paid more. These are all just a few correlated data points but I think there's something to it.

<comment><USER58> Excellent points. Your typical doctor or lawyer is in a revenue generating function (doctors, in fact, are THE revenue generators of hospitals), and are therefore hired by other revenue generators and paid accordingly. But your typical programmer is writing some access database for the HR department to throw away in a year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> "we're having trouble finding people" is a familiar refrain from people looking to hire developers.

if you're having trouble finding people you are, by definition, not paying enough.

<comment><USER60> Or there is a shortage of developers in your area.

My previous company was offering competitive salaries, good environment, challenging work, and we had trouble filling position with decent developers...

<comment><USER61> Raise salaries and attract developers from outside your area.

The problem was that you weren't actually offering "competitive" salaries, you were merely offering what may have been standard for your area but no longer was sufficient, by your own report.

<comment><USER62> When someone says "there is a shortage of oil" it is indeed true that oil costs skyrocket. It is also true that there is a shortage of oil. Shortages cause prices to increase, so much so that many people might not be able to afford a resource at all. It's a bit silly to say "there are no shortages! Only cheap consumers!"

<comment><USER61> The point here is that if you can't find programmers at a given salary, that salary is not in fact "competitive".

You can decide that you can't afford actual competitive salaries, but calling your salary offers competitive when they are not will not help you in any way.

<comment><USER62> That is certainly true and I am not taking issue with that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> Its pretty similar in germany. I know quite alot of people that do some more or less simple work for some of the big german industrial companies (cars, food stuff etc) and work 9-5, have alot of holidays and earn more than the average software developer that works his butt off. If you throw in a couple of late/night shifts at those jobs you will get a very good extra pay as well... as a developer ? you wish...

I think its because competition for dev jobs is much lower in europe because there is no Google, no Facebook, no Microsoft etc.

That said, if you work as a contractor for some of the big companies in cities like Berlin, Hamburg, Munich etc you can easily make 100K EUR, even as a bread and butter PHP dev.

</comment><comment><USER64> As a 28 year old, developing part-time since 15, full-time since 22, and always self-learning in my own time i've seen lots of people in other industries with just 4 years full-time experience, not self-learning, doing nothing in their own free time getting offered a lot more for job positions. The strange thing is, often these people have trouble finding work as most industries aren't as easy as ours. I guess supply and demand is just skewed in the jobmarket. I also guess it-work is under appreciated but it's all our own fault. B.t.w. I started as a freelancer so I have only myself to blame for my income.

</comment><comment><USER65> There's another way of looking at this. Do you want to work with smart colleagues and good management? Work for a company that pays you & the other developers well. It'll be much more enjoyable to go to work each day.

<comment><USER66> There may be a correlation, but it takes a lot more than good pay to foster an enjoyable company.

<comment><USER67> It's more of an indicator of negatives rather than positives; A company that pays comparatively shit (€2200/month comes out to about $35000, seriously!?) will probably not be a place that respects developers and attracts talent.

<comment><USER32> It's actually $40,000+ because they get paid 14 salaries. Given the other benefits of living in Europe, this is competitive with the US in general (not Silicon Valley) for entry level programmers.

<comment><USER67> $40k entry level is competitive? That's a whole factor of three away from the $120k people volley around here for entry level jobs in the valley. It's really that much of a difference?

<comment><USER32> Yes.

First of all, where are you getting this $120k number for entry level people from? Very few actually get $120k right out of school. According to WSJ we just surpassed $100k as _average_ , and remember that includes senior people making $200-400k at Google et al. Top companies who are selecting the cream of the crop can afford to pay this because they know how to get great talent and make the most of it.

If startups are paying $100k+ to people straight out of school (mine certainly isn't) then it's an unfortunate symptom of easy money and does not bode well on the fiscal responsibility of founders which is key to early-stage success. Bubble or not, money will not stay this easy indefinitely and that will have a direct impact on low-end salaries.

Finally, European benefits are not to be underestimated when put up against US salaries. 2-3x vacation, free healthcare, inability to be fired, cheaper education, etc, etc.

<comment><USER67> This might be something I've conjured up in the back of my head, but I'm certain I've seen people talking about $100k+ as a salary for an MIT grad. It's always seemed crazy exuberant to me so I'm glad to hear different.

In the comparison with Europe, it's always good to keep in mind that benefits differ wildly between Austria, Portugal, the UK, Sweden, Estonia, …. But yes, there is much to be said for at least the Swedish benefits. A five week vacation, free universities, free healthcare, _harder_ to be fired (complete inability is more of an italian thing), etc.

I'm definitely not complaining, but with a comparable entry level salary ($40k vs $55k for me when I started), something close to comparable taxation (I paid a total income tax of about ~27% that year, what's US levels, 20%? 25%?) and all our benefits, it feels like you guys get the very short end of the stick, which is a completely different message than gets bandied around by the media.

*Edit: Just did some reading and realized I seem completely off base on my income tax estimates for the US. I'll let it stand for posterity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> 2200EUR a month is around £21.5k a year, which while in London is not enough to live on where i live (Edinburgh) is on the lower end of a normal wage range (£20k-£25k) for a PHP Developer here.

This is specifically the reason I work in London for 4-6 months of the year as a contractor and do my own thing the rest of the time.

</comment><comment><USER69> I'd be very happy to make 2200€. I'm in France, and I'm paid barely above minimum wage. Granted, I don't have a very high level of college education, but even so, I made more when I had a job in a factory a few years ago. And the job market here doesn't seem to be that competitive, unfortunately.

<comment><USER67> If you're willing to move, come to Sweden. Stockholm is screaming for IT talent, we're open to immigration and the pay for someone with a few years of developer experience is quite a bit beyond that.

<comment><USER70> Any tips for an American wanting to emigrate?

<comment><USER67> For non-EU peeps, it's a bit harder.

First, there's always the love visa -- find yourself a swedish girl and move here (you don't need to marry). On a more serious note, the easiest thing is to get a job at a Swedish company with a US presence (or vice versa) and get them to help you move. For example I know Spotify is recruiting aggressively and they have offices in Stockholm, SF and NYC. Most medium to big software companies here already has international people on staff and a lot of them has experience with the (comparatively little) bureaucracy required.

If you're any good and really serious about it, feel free to send me a mail (on my profile) and I'll see if I can help you out in any way :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> In France the situation is the same. Starting salaries go from 35k€ to 50k€ gross a year. No wonder a lot of students from college start as investment bankers or quant.

<comment><USER69> You might want to rephrase this as "In Paris".

<comment><USER72> Yep, I'm around €35k/year w/ 6y experience in the "province" (that's what we call the "non-Paris area" in France.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> In my experience, from what I see in Brazil, entry-level programmers with no professional experience are paid much more than the equivalent in other professions. And, even after years of "training" in college, they will need a year of two of actual on-the-job training before they start adding enough value to justify their cost. In short, a company that hires fresh-out-of- college programmers is making an investment in them.

<comment><USER74> Im interested on moving on to Brazil, how much its the average salary ? and there's some craiglist like site for IT jobs ??

<comment><USER73> It's a bit hard to compare, with different costs of living and the overvaluation of the Brazilian Real exchange rate. But salaries are mostly way below American levels. A decent programmer can make US$ 20k/year. More gratuated developers, analysts and architects will make US$ 30k - 50k. Over US$ 60k would be considered a very good pay. As for websites, I suppose one of the biggest is <http://www.catho.com.br/>. As a foreigner you would probably want to go to São Paulo because it's the main economical center and it's pretty safe for Brazilian standards.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> I think a big part of the problem is that employers are competing only for the pool of existing programmers. This makes sense - the bigger problem (expanding the size of the pool) is beyond the influence of almost all employers (maybe the giants facebook and google can influence this somewhat).

As a result, only very incremental progress can be made. If the standard salary is 70k, employers will balk at offering more than 80k. If they have to offer 90k, they'll feel that a bad shortage exists, because they're offering way above the "market" salary - causing them to conclude that good devs can't be had "at any price".

Here's what I think they don't get - to really solve this, they need to start attracting people from other professions. They need to get the top minds that are currently going into medicine, law, finance, and so forth (well, the percentage that could and would go into software development if they rewards were greater).

Honestly, I don't see industry ever making this jump. I think they'll keep competing for the same smallish pool of talent and scratching their heads about why they can't attract more candidates for an incremental increase in pay/benefits.

<comment><USER76> It works both ways though. A programmer position that makes business sense at 40K might not make any sense at 90K. It's not like all companies need programmers regardless of price. If the price is too high, they can just go another way.

<comment><USER75> I agree - my criticism is directed only at those companies that claim that they desperately need programmers and can't find them at "any" price.

I understand that there's an implicit "reasonable" condition on price, so my real disagreement is around what counts as reasonable. Most of these companies would view a 200k salary as unreasonable. I'm not so sure.

Examples abound, but I remember a company talking about how great its salaries were, and one example was a guy with a PhD from University of Texas (Austin) and 5 years work experience. His salary was $125,000. I wouldn't expect it to endear me to many Americans to scoff at $125k a year, but when you think about how long PhD programs are, how high the attrition rates are, how much talent it takes, and the kind of salaries available to people with professional degrees that take a shorter time (with far lower attrition rates)... well, it's pretty clear that $125k actually isn't all that competitive. I'm sure that it would give employers sticker shock, but to get competitive with the other fields attracting the best and brightest, they might well have to go over 200k for someone like this.

If it's not "worth it", then clearly there is no shortage, it would be a suboptimal use of talent.

<comment><USER77> Including bonus and stock I make that working as a developer in test with only an associates degree in management.

It's pretty underwhelming pay for a doctorate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> Programmers do get paid...sometimes. Look at programmers in the finance industry. It is somewhat unfair, but it seems that your pay depends more on the industry you work for, than your actual skills. It's a market. It's all about where you are.

<comment><USER79> Indeed. You want a higher salary, go where the money is.

</comment></comment><comment> alFReD-NSH Since I am a programmer, I vote up this post, hoping it helps that I get a raise!

</comment><comment><USER80> We've built our team around the idea that, you pay people enough so that money isn't an issue and then move on. The main focus is on creating a positive work environment and doing our best to keep moving forward with new and interesting work. As a result we have a great team who are generally positive go-getters even in rough times.

We've had a couple people here who were soley motivated by money which stuck out like a sore thumb and ultimately didnt last.

</comment><comment><USER81> Seems like everyone in discussion focuses on vacation, sick leave and salary in the US, and noone is talking why is the software engineer salary in Austria, and similarly in the rest of Europe less than in the US.

The reason is simple. Try to remember one software package developed in Austria? Can you name one software company based in Austria that is successful in selling software or services? Do you know of any, even moderate, company from Austria whose primary role is creating and selling software? That's right, you can't.

That's because software engineers there work for companies where spending money in producing software is a cost, not an investment. If software is not a primary line of business, than there are two things in place. One is that developers are an expense. Second is that you don't need that good or experienced developers working on glorified enterprise internal applications.

So, if you want money, either work for a company where software development is primary line of business and be paid accordingly, or work on your own. You can't make good bucks working for cost center.

</comment><comment><USER82> Try to work as webdev in Hungary (mostly php, rails and other mainstream languages are not really used). I know a place where you could get about $1200. But that's the rare case. For a freshman $400 is the max, if you're not lucky enough to born in Budapest. I deeply consider moving somewhere abroad, because here I don't feel I can be as good as I want to be...

</comment><comment><USER83> > There are currently 22% more open job positions in this area compared to > last year

If there is an overall shortage of qualified developers, paying more to hire great developers does not fix it. All it does is raise the salaries of the existing qualified developers. That is fine and great for them, but it doesn't solve the shortage.

<comment><USER84> Well over the longer period it will bring more people into the career. Economic issues work on the scale of years. But I assure you that if you start paying more now you'll see more people entering in 6 years (ie. you'll catch the attention of people in the middle of highschool and then when they pop out of uni they are yours for the hiring).

</comment></comment><comment><USER85> Microsoft has learned a trick about recruiting straight from college developers.

Microsoft quotes the new higher a large number (120k per year) but it is all back end weighted to a bonus at the 15th month or some sort.

this allows Microsoft to see the work product and fire the ones that don't cut it, way before the bonus comes.

<comment><USER77> I think my benefactors approach to hiring fresh grads has more to do with lowered resistance to, in my personal opinion, horrible internal politics & internal systems.

It is my understanding that generally a new hire will do well on their first year's review cycle as a low mark would reflect poorly on the hiring manager that approved them. So generally you'll hit your target bonus of 15% or whatever it is nowadays.

</comment></comment><comment><USER86> In South Italy professionist graduated, certificated, with ten yeas of experience as Java programmer, earn net 1500 euros. I'm graduated and work from 2 years and earn net 1200 euros. I prefer be waiter, i'm moving away from Italy to start as waiter, it's better!

<comment><USER87> Consider remote working as a freelancer in other European countries, they pay 70€+ per hour if they need you (and you are good ;)). All you need is a fast internet connection and a coffee machine at home :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER88> As a programmer, I love the fact that the demand is outpacing supply. But, I also have this weird feeling that we are back in 1999. Back then, even crappy programmers commanded 6 figure salaries. Hopefully, I'm wrong.

</comment><comment><USER89> "there ain't no money in poetry, and that's what sets the poet free"....

</comment><comment><USER90> I agree with you. They always say there are so much job offers and the industry search developers but with around ~1600 without taxes you don't get enough.

</comment><comment><USER91> Funny, my first post on hacker news was about programmer salary in Austria. I got offered a senior programmer job in Vienna for a fraction of what I'm making here in the US.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2473544>

It's good to know that I wasn't crazy for thinking the salary was too low.

</comment><comment><USER92> At my last company I had 20 days vacation and about to transition to 25 days. However, work was so busy that I had to plan and request my vacations 3-6 mos in advance. I now have less vacation but more freedom to take it when i want.

If one really wants to maximize free time contract work is where its at.

</comment><comment><USER93> Something tells me this question exists in all industries and has existed for most of human history.

</comment><comment><USER94> I can say exactly the same thing for designers. Want good designers? Pay them good.

</comment><comment><USER95> "There's no shortage of smart, hardworking engineers. There's a shortage of smart, hardworking engineers willing to work for very little money." ~ David "Pardo" Keppel

</comment><comment><USER96> Corollary: you'll never have a mass of good programmers in sectors that CAN'T PAY them competitive salaries. This is a bad thing.

<comment><USER97> Why is that a bad thing?

<comment><USER96> The brightest and the best selling ads while very little programming talent goes towards combating ignored problems like teen homelessness, and other under represented issues is bad in my book. But, I'm a bleeding heart idealist, and possible dinosaur.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER98> The one thing I do need is the ability to pay rent and bills WITHOUT WORRYING about them.

Because every minute I spend worrying about my financial situation is a minute I absolutely cannot spend working on your software.

After that, it's all good.

Though sick days and vacation is nice, too. Or at least don't ask me about it when I just kinda disappear for a day or have a completely unproductive day.

</comment><comment><USER99> $$ gets you more programmers, not necessarily good ones.

Just look at dot com era (if you're old enough to remember). Tons of money, thrown at everybody and anybody. The vast majority of which were not "good" programmers. Many weren't even programmers just good at faking it, till they made it.

<comment><USER28> More money may not get you good programmers but below market rate will _absolutely_ get you crappy ones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER100> Yep.

I get paid £18k with 5+ years experience in what we're doing.

</comment><comment><USER101> Learn to negotiate.

</comment><comment><USER102> Frankly, this is an issue in all industries. The company i work for is always complaining about the quality of people they have to hire. But then they offer salaries of $26,000 a year (not in software obviously).

But point is: to get quality, it costs money.

<comment><USER103> It's probably less of an issue in some industries, like law or surgery or constitutional lawyers. In these places employers pay much more, and they expect to pay more.</comment></comment>


OCLC prints last library catalog cards - <AUTHOR> https://www.oclc.org/en-US/news/releases/2015/201529dublin.html <comment><USER2> z39.50 is better than card catalogs and it predates the www.</comment>


AMD's Zacate E-350 Fusion Processor Benchmarked, Beats Intel Atom/NVIDIA Ion 2 - <AUTHOR> http://hothardware.com/Reviews/AMD-Zacate-E350-Processor-Performance-Preview/

<comment><USER2> This is a really good thing. Intel has had it way too easy with Atom for a long time, and it's been obvious they have deliberately kept the performance low enough to avoid competition with their higher priced lines.

With ARM pushing Atom up from below, and AMD filling in the hole above it Intel will have to start competing harder at the low end, and a motivated Intel is always good for the industry.

</comment><comment><USER3> Anandtech has published their benchmarking as well: [http://www.anandtech.com/show/4023/the-brazos-performance- pr...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/4023/the-brazos-performance-preview- amd-e350-benchmarked)

So did Tech Report: <http://techreport.com/articles.x/19981>

<comment><USER4> Every time I see one of these articles come up on Hacker News I always think "Oh, I bet Anandtech's article must be out." And I go there instead of reading the one linked here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would love to see a hearkening back to those glory days of AMD product towering over Intel's Netburst, even if it's not in the "performance" segment of processors. This type of competition has only brought good things.

</comment><comment><USER6> AMD seems to have done the right thing here. They aimed for the weak point between CULV and Atom and actually hit it, plus they added some pretty good graphics too with a small number of chips overall.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The rumor on the street is that Apple is eyeballing these chips for next gen Macbooks.

<comment><USER7> Surely not these but the next batch of Fusion chips with "grown-up" CPU parts (Phenom/Athlon). Even the 11" Macbook Air's 1.4GHz Core2Duo ULV blows all of these chips out of the water.

<comment><AUTHOR> True, maybe not Macbooks with Zacate, unless Apple wants something cheaper and lighter. And these parts aren't that far off from CULV Core 2 chips actually.

<comment><USER7> I think their version of cheaper and lighter will be the next step up from the A4, i.e. something ARM-based for their iOS devices. By avoiding the Core iX chips in the 11"/13" devices in favour of a faster GPU they've already demonstrated they're not keen to sacrifice computing power below a certain level.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Vikings – Libre-friendly data center - <AUTHOR> http://goteo.cc/vikings <comment><USER2> _We will build a state-of-the-art data center that will cover all your hosting needs; based on fully libre[1] software, libre boot firmware and performant libre-friendly hardware. We will always respect your freedoms and your privacy - we don 't spy on you._

 _\- based on 100% libre software and libre-friendly hardware with Libreboot, including our front- and back-ends_

So if you're limited to Libreboot, the last set of Intel processors you can support came out in, what? 2009? 2010? Cross referencing the list of "supported" systems[0] with some general googling for their release dates[1], 2010 seems to be it, unless their data center is gonna run on a rack of Macbook 2's and Chromebook C201's.

Either way, it's hardly "state of the art" hardware by any stretch. Maybe they'll go with some custom RISC processors?

[0][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libreboot#Supported_systems](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libreboot#Supported_systems)

[1][https://www.techpowerup.com/119540/asus-releases- kgpe-d16-so...](https://www.techpowerup.com/119540/asus-releases- kgpe-d16-socket-g34-motherboard-for-12-core-amd-opteron-processors)

<comment><USER3> Yup, was about to write that. A bit more information:

They're planning to run a Asus KGPE-D16 AMD motherboard. This is a 2009 motherboard.

From Libreboots website:

> Libreboot has support for fam15h AMD hardware (~2012 gen) and some older > Intel platforms (~2006-2009 gen).

> It is extremely unlikely that any post-2008 Intel hardware will ever be > supported in libreboot

> It is extremely unlikely that any post-2013 AMD hardware will ever be > supported in libreboot

[https://libreboot.org/faq/](https://libreboot.org/faq/)

This project has no legs.

<comment><AUTHOR> We've chosen the D16 because it is available now - with free/libre boot firmware, without binary blobs. The systems are very performant, despite their "age" (the CPUs we use were released 4 years ago (6284 SE), a system can have up to 32 CPU cores with 2.7GHz).

So from the performance perspective, systems based on the D16 are still able to compete with other, newer systems. From the "respecting your freedoms"-perspective, the D16 is unsurpassed AFAIK.

These systems are in fact a practical solution for free/libre software idealists and people who don't want to live in an Orwellian society.

That being said, relying only on this hardware would be foolish indeed. Not only because it will become too expensive to run at some point, like any hardware that gets older, but also because x86 seems to be a dead-end because it's becoming more and more locked-up.

We're planning to use openPOWER systems in the near future and move away from x86, to provide the best services for people who care about their freedom.

More will be revealed in campaign updates, we've just started the campaign and there will be campaign updates over the next 39 days that _will_ interest you.

PS: This project has wings instead.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It raises a lot of questions, like... a ton. 1\. Really libre until what? Do you have ANY Libre DataCenterInfrastructureManagement/BuildingManagementSystem that can really be used in production? What about the Chillers/UPS/CRAC/GENsets/... What about the design of the DataCenter ? The access system, badging system, ...? 2\. What about networking devices? 3\. They provide VPNs/... but what about ISPs/...? 4\. If it's they're 1st DC, what about the quality of the designs? The redundancy? ...

> What could go wrong? Everything. From the beginning with how you choose your > chillers (a bad choice could easily double your PowerUsageEffectiveness), to > the future with how you operate it.

Nonetheless, I find the initiative awesome and I wish you a huge luck and I really hope they'll succeed! The intention is clearly laudable.

P.S.: I work at Etix Everywhere (www.etixeverywhere.com) a company designing, building and operating modular DataCenters around the globe. We're recruiting a lot so don't hesitate to take a look, and help us to build data centers really everywhere!

<comment><USER5> _> Do you have ANY Libre DataCenterInfrastructureManagement/BuildingManagementSystem that can really be used in production?_

An open source DCIM that's used in production: [https://github.com/digitalocean/netbox](https://github.com/digitalocean/netbox)

<comment><USER4> Indeed, totally forgot this one. And for the BMS? Monitoring the power consumption, temperatures ...

<comment><USER5> I'm not aware of an open source BMS, sorry. Just wanted to put that out there in case anyone reading the thread was looking for an open source DCIM.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > "Since the Summer of Snowden what we have feared had become true: almost all > modern hardware platforms used for hosting contain potential backdoors or > exploitable bugs. Vikings plans to change that."

You won't change that with Libre Software : as long as your mobile / computer / server is connected to the internet it is hackable no matter what. Libre Software is not exempt of exploitable bugs, there's a lot of non libre parts in hardware etc and someone from the team could be subverted to insert a backdoor.

Basically they're bringing wooden shields to the fight when the NSA is shooting enriched uranium shells from Big Bertha !

Their goal is noble but they shouldn't let people believe that their data will be totally secure on these servers.

<comment><USER7> I think this axiom is pretty common in the Free Software field: Free Software tackles exactly the issues that are important

So when something is deemed an important issue, by the axiom it is solved through free software.

In reality most issues are orthogonal to licensing (using a cloud or not, encryption, ...) and in some classical free software performs arguably even worse (usability)

</comment></comment><comment> mike-cardwell "An eco-friendly data center that is based on 100% on libre software and runs libre-friendly hardware" \- Does that include switches and routers? What about the UPS's?

<comment><USER8> This appears to be addressed on the linked page. Along with a desire to use flywheel UPS instead of lead acid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think this project is fantastic, and I'll be making a small contribution.

Intel having a backdoor to cloud servers in the current climate seems like a situation worth working to amerliorate. Best of luck!

<comment><USER10> Intel has a back-door to cloud servers? I hadn't heard about that. Got a link?

<comment><AUTHOR> [https://libreboot.org/faq/#intelme](https://libreboot.org/faq/#intelme)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> File under "Yet another clickbait heading for something that doesn't actually exist"

<comment><AUTHOR> Let's hope you're wrong about that and libre computing finds its way into the data center! By the way, we do exist.

<comment><USER11> Don't be disingenuous. It's a crowd-funding campaign. Not an actual product I can buy now. I'm so sick of clicking on headlines on HN which sound like they're describing some interesting product or service, only to be taken to the virtual begging bowl of a crowd-funding page.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you don't find our product interesting, well, that's really our problem. I'm here to have valid arguments, potentially to convince you of the contrary, I'm not here to get attacked for no valid/obvious reason.

I'm still open to have a conversation like normal human beings usually have, so if you have questions related to our crowdfunding campaign, please ask.

Vikings exists to further libre software, libre-friendly hardware and improve the existing, locked-up "hosting industry" that often works against their own users and at the very least don't care for their privacy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Main question: where would it be based?

<comment> mike-cardwell They don't specify. They say that the location hasn't been decided, but don't give a list of options or anything.

Yeah. I'll hang on to my money thanks.</comment></comment>


Tell HN: My group just finished our short animation. Thoughts? - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCHivuaQhQY Completed for CNM190 at UC Berkeley. <comment><USER2> I think that the bit where the two characters simultaneously shot the rose should have held the anticipation a little longer, and maybe exaggerated the beams more.

I also felt that the angel's pose was a bit stiff when he was shaking his head. And given the way that the characters were positioned beside the rose, the explosion should have sent them flying sideways, instead of into the camera (though I realize that you needed to show them together in the following shot).

Sorry to be so nitpicky, but this was for a class, right?</comment>


Apply HN: Turn $1 into $1000 through the game of Rock-Paper-Scissors - <AUTHOR> eDoubling is an online multiplayer competition platform where the players can win and double money playing the simple classic game of rock paper scissors. There are 3 types of game: one on one contest, sit and go tournament, and big cash tournament. It's like a new kind of lottery only much better, because the odds would depend on you! If 5-million people compete in the event, you would only need to defeat 23 opponents to win. It is a game of skill, so we can provides both virtual currency and cash tournaments worldwide. In the United States, eDoubling can operate cash competitions in 37 states, and virtual currency competitions nationwide.
We are looking for beta testers: go to http://edoubling.com
Thanks;) <comment><USER2> Hm, this is one of those ideas which (like daily fantasy sports) seems to be in a gray area around online gambling. I don't know if what you're doing is currently illegal, but it definitely is one of those things that (e.g.) the NY Consumer Finance people don't tend to like. So I think that's a big risk for the business. Maybe you can get around these somehow but is it really how you want to spend your life?

If you want my advice, I'd encourage you to work on something that makes the world a better place somehow. Then you can have the world (and the regulators) on your side, and that gives your business a higher chance to succeed in the long term.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is quite a loophole you've found here. Do you know if would be legal to allow users to opt-in to playing randomly? It could still technically be a game of skill, and players would just be choosing not to use skill. Then, it literally would be a lottery.

I really think you need to heed the lessons of fantasy sports for money. As long as you are flying under the radar, you may be fine. However, as a VC, I wouldn't even consider investing in this, because I would worry that if you ever became wildly successful, then regulators would step in (changing the rules if they have to) and shut you down.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> First of all thank you for your advice. There are a lot of offline competitions around the world every year. The United States of America Rock Paper Scissors League is a national competition league (www.usarps.com). Why do not to combine all in one place?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> When you became wildly successful, the regulators would always stepping in!</comment>


You Don't Need All That JavaScript, I Promise - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1L2WgXu2JY <comment><USER2> You _can_ just use FTP, and HTML/CSS, as the presenter claims, but if you want reusable components, you're going to need at least some-JavaScript based technology, like custom elements (web components).

If you don't have a concept of a component, and every time a developer needs a simple component: a Button, a Link, a Card, pray that _every single developer_ in your organization understands the accessible, semantically-correct way to implement it (spoiler alert: they won't, occasionally, a junior engineer won't understand why buttons shouldn't be implemented with <div> tags). And hopefully they follow your design team's specification for how the component should look (again, they won't). Then, you end up developing a product with ten disparate and interwoven look-and-feels, due to developers on separate projects re-inventing the wheel instead of using a common Design System. It no longer feels like one cohesive experience.

The counter point: That JavaScript is actually solving enterprise grade problems-- controlling your brand via a Design System, ensuring accessible HTML gets generated, and so forth. It comes at a cost of potentially somewhat slower performance, but the solutions provided make the tradeoff worth it.

</comment><comment><USER3> There's an argument in terms of security against server side templating. It also depends upon what you are building like Hugo is best for information sites without dynamic server templating where lots of HTML is better than a huge load of js.</comment>


Hard Fork, Take Two: SegWit2x Will Return Dec. 28, Says Founder - <AUTHOR> https://cointelegraph.com/news/hard-fork-take-two-segwit2x-will-return-dec-28-says-founder <comment><USER2> I'm going to repost here a comment I left on reddit.

This Segwit2X has almost nothing to do with the original "Segwit2X". They are basically taking what they think is the good parts of all cryptocurrencies, and are putting it into one monstrosity.

\- X11 based algorithm from DASH

\- 2.5 minute blocktime from litecoin

\- 4mb (closer to 8mb with segwit) blocksize from Bitcoin Cash

\- difficulty adjustment algorithm from Bitcoin Cash

Plus they are promising some pretty impossible stuff in the "future":

\- ZkSnarks from ZCash (which they list on the same line as "anonymous transactions" in some areas, and on a different line in others...)

\- Lightning Network from Bitcoin

\- Smart contracts from ETH

\- Something called "offline codes" which god only knows what it means

Basically it's a shitcoin that is trying to lure people in with impossible promises and just taking what they think is the best thing from every major cryptocurrency and putting it into one disgusting abomination.

Oh, and they chose a loaded name to make sure they'd get some coverage in the "news".

This "Segwit2X" has literally nothing in common with the previous "Segwit2X" from november except for the name. Nothing else is the same. How they got any exchanges to list it under the same name i'll never know... If I was a betting man, I'd wager that the guy running this lost a bunch of money when the S2X futures market crashed since the fork never went through, and he is looking to recoup it by starting the process back up and pumping the futures cost so he can get out.

But on the up side it's really showing me which "news" sites and exchanges I should stay away from, because they clearly don't even vet the stories or coins they are going to be listing.

<comment><USER3> Another shady thing they are doing:

> The founder also promised that in addition to the common practice of > crediting BTC holders with equivalent balances of the new coin (B2X), they > would also receive "a proportional number of Satoshi Nakamoto's Bitcoins as > a reward for their commitment to progress."

This seems pretty bad. Satoshi Nakamoto may not even have access to his coins, but what if his heirs or family wanted to take ownership of them? They should be able to do so. Do we just decide that anyone who owns a sufficiently large number of coins should have to forfeit them at the whim of whoever is creating the altcoin of the moment?

<comment><USER2> Oh yeah forgot about that part, they are just going to rewrite history and give out a bunch of coins because they can...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's not the btc core team doing this. Someone just took segwit's name and code and decided to do their own fork.

[https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2595620.msg27008511#...](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2595620.msg27008511#msg27008511)

Team looks dodgy as hell, inconsistencies on the official webpage, premined coins:

[https://github.com/SegwitB2X/bitcoin2x/commit/08220e2a3c8ba8...](https://github.com/SegwitB2X/bitcoin2x/commit/08220e2a3c8ba8f53801302a8b7b6d6da5a39645)

<comment><USER5> Cryptocurrency fanfiction?

<comment><USER6> The pay is a lot better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This headline is just wrong. No "founder" of the Segwit2x project is involved with this scam.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Sorry for the fake news... I did do my due diligence and checked the story. I'll be more careful before submiting soemthing to HN.

<comment><USER2> It's not "fake news", it's just a garbage article where the author didn't do any research (or they did, and the author knows exactly what they are doing).

Not necessarily your fault, and I'm personally glad you did submit it as whatever the creators of the new "S2X" are doing to get it in the media, it's working, and the more we can point out how terrible it looks, hopefully we can limit the damage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Can someone give an opinion on the results or possible results of this fork?

<comment><USER9> Segwit2x is a compromise deal that had two parts: Segregated Witness, which allows future efficiency extensions such as the Lightning network; and 2x which doubles the block size. [https://arstechnica.com/tech- policy/2017/11/bitcoin-compromi...](https://arstechnica.com/tech- policy/2017/11/bitcoin-compromise-collapses-leaving-future-growth-in-doubt/) Miners signaled their agreement ahead of time, and the Segwit part worked. But since that took some pressure off, and Bitcoin Cash forked with 8x which attracted those people who wanted larger blocks, consensus fell apart before 2x was activated. In addition, there were multiple code bugs that would have kept 2x from working anyway.

Assuming the bugs got fixed this time around, success of the fork depends only on getting a critical mass of miners on board.

<comment><USER10> > […] and the Segwit part worked. But since that took some pressure off […]

Pressure on what? Transaction backlog? Hardly, the fees are higher than they've ever been and we have 100k transactions in the mempool.

The minority of transactions use segwit, blocksize still remains a big issue, even if we now have means to cram more transactions into a block, but hardly anybody uses it.

It took pressure off of the Bitcoin Core team (and blockstream), because segwit is what's needed to get lightning to work. Then they lost interest in the second part (increasing the blocksize) and that's (partly) why it fell through.</comment></comment></comment>