If you’re qualified to write that kind of code, basic needs are surely well taken care of and are the least of your concerns.
To put it simply, these people will not have a hard time finding high paying jobs. And since they are able to choose, “being part of the open web” makes a lot of sense.
Have you checked Mozilla’s salary? https://www.levels.fyi/company/Mozilla/salaries/Software-Eng...
I was making almost that much pre-Covid as a regular old SAAS CRUD developer in the south East US. It was comfortable but far from not needing to work for a few months and hold out because I was concerned about “open source values”.
I jumped at the chance to work remotely at BigTech three months ago. I’m sure many of them would too.
[1] https://mobile.twitter.com/arubin/status/27808662429?locale=...
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/07/googles-iron-grip-on...
In my experience, finding fulfilling work is harder than well paying ones.
Not saying I have all the answers, just what happened to me. This fulfilling thing is hard.
But I was replying to this...
If you’re qualified to write that kind of code, basic needs are surely well taken care of and are the least of your concerns.
The Mozilla developers aren’t getting paid minimum wage by any means, nor am I doubting their skills, but they definitely aren’t making the salaries of great engineers if levels.fyi is accurate.
That was my entire point. I wouldn’t get past the first technical screen for an entry level software engineer at $BigTech without “grinding leetCode ((tm) r/cscareerquestions) as a CRUD developer, but I made about that much even before I got a consulting job at $BigTech and I am living on the opposite coast from Silicon Valley.
Google could kill Firefox by just not renewing its search contract.
If money wasn't a consideration perhaps ddg become a good partner. That combo could shift as much as 5% of google traffic away from search.
Google pays Apple a reported $8 billion a year to be the default search engine for iOS. It pays Mozilla less than $600 million (https://www.cnet.com/news/google-firefox-search-deal-gives-m...).
Doesn’t that tell you how little Firefox traffic is worth?
As for iOS, this source says there were 900 million iPhone users (doesn't include iPads) as of Jan 2019: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2019/01/30/900-million-iphones... , and this one says 1.5 billion Apple devices (probably includes Macs) as of Q1 2020: https://9to5mac.com/2020/01/28/apple-hits-1-5-billion-active...
I'll arbitrarily guess 1.2 billion iOS users (the rest being Macs). In that case, there are maybe 6x as many iOS users as Firefox users. Therefore, if Google paid the same per Firefox user as they did per iOS user, they would have paid $1.3 billion for Firefox users. That's a difference of about 2x per user from what they actually paid.
iOS users have demonstrably paid for (or been gifted by people who paid for) premium electronic devices, which I would expect makes them more valuable advertising targets. I'm mildly surprised that the difference isn't larger, but I don't have a good feel for advertising expenditures.
I think the idea that most Mozilla employees were working there for morals rather than being able to buy their children shoes is doubtful.
I don’t have kids so I don’t know what that part is like, though.
That’s like saying that working at Apple and being on the macOS team you will be part of the core of PC operating systems.
But it seems that you just wanna piss on Firefox for market share reasons.
That said, is always a mix, and a balancing act. And a matter of finding something fun to work on :)
Second, instead of stock you'll get a higher potential bonus. The bonus percentage increases based on your level.
Third, benefits are generous. Being able to work remotely was a particularly unique and valuable one for a long time.
Fourth, the class and scale of the problems Mozilla is solving are interesting and challenging, which is a motivation for some employees.
Fifth, the mission and the commitment to open source are a motivation to many employees as well.
(These are just my personal observations as a current employee)
Most of the people I know in tech work for governments, non-profits, small business, private companies, etc. that don't offer stock-based compensation. They just make much less in total comp than BigTech stock-heavy jobs.
As someone working at a private finance company - annual bonuses at a rate similar to big tech stock grants work just fine.