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Comment by arcbyte | Hacker News Reader

There's a massive population of software developers that don't care about software, don't have a passion for the problem solving, don't feel accomplishment when they ship something. They just got into the business because of the money and the hype. These people will never amount to much and will cost companies lots of opportunity cost money. It makes sense to not pay Bay Area salaries for these people and to go pay people in Europe to have this attitude. But for the people who actually love shipping products to people, there will always be money and they will always be in demand. The only problem is you can't find them reliably through the front door application process - you have to get lucky or build a network to find them. They're worth their weight in gold

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Your comment implies European tech workers are somehow less passionate or that passionate tech workers can't be found here. This is a harmful myth that perpetuates our depressed wages. We're not America's backwater for tech sourcing. We're just as capable and passionate.

> Your comment implies European tech workers are somehow less passionate or that passionate tech workers can't be found here.

No, it implies that there are Americans who don't care about their work and there are Europeans who don't care about their work. But the former are far more pricey.

The original comment was easy to misinterpret; I had the same thought until I reached the last few words.

I think the comment implies the opposite

I read this as since Evernote is not a cutting edge, hypey startup they don’t need to have as high a calibre/pay grade of staff as they currently do have by being based in California. Hence can halve labour costs by moving to Europe and still maintain a decent standard of technical employee.

> This is a harmful myth that perpetuates our depressed wages

In some European countries, conditions are more favorable to workers, and this can be reflected in the wages as well. For instance, an employee in France will enjoy 35 weeks of holiday per year (not including public holidays), and also stronger protections regarding layoffs. This is somewhat expected that wages are also lower.

EDIT: 35 days, not weeks.

You possibly meant 35 days per year.

Weeks

Given French stereotypes, I'm not sure, heh.

French side do weeks not days like Americans. That is why French can't compete with the rest of EU. If you think Americam boomers bad, ENTIRE France is a glorified boomers on steroid. To be fair their income tax rate is 70%. So work hard? Reagan once forgo the other half of the year of work once he max his marginal tax rate.

Income tax rate is far from 70% (not sure if this was second degree or not).

Up to €10,777 = 0% From €10,778 to €27,478 = 11% From €27,479 to €78,570 = 30% From €78,571 to €168,994 = 41% More than €168,994 = 45%

https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F1419?l...

You need to add "cotisations sociales" (not tax per se, social security and such), which is I believe a 22% flat tax. So that would make 67% for the last bracket. But there are other differences. For instance, if you're married or/and have kids, you can have important benefits. Also RSUs are taxed differently.

Overall, tax is high in France, but not that different from other countries. Even in the US, certain places like NYC are heavily taxed. And you also need to see what tax gives you. I don't mind to pay tax if that gives me (and everybody else living here) access to healthcare, security, education or a decent future pension. Now whether France still provide these things is up to debate.

35 days, that's correct!

but they are not just somewhat lower, they are massively lower. Is 1-2 extra week really worth $50-100k? Also many (most?) tech companies offer more than 2 weeks in the US

With all due respect, as a European myself, the ones who are passionate about tech do not stay out of the US for long. There are notable exceptions of course but the immigration statistics and subsequent brain drain is undeniable. The only notable tech company to come out of Europe in the last decade is Spotify.

I don't agree - moving to the US is about chasing the money.

> The only notable tech company to come out of Europe in the last decade is Spotify.

I think this is incredibly dismissive of a huge number of tech companies that are european. ASML are dutch, and ARM are a UK company. Neither are startups, but both are foundations of the bleeding edge of tech this decade.

The fintech space is brimming with startups in europe, and to the best of my knowledge this is far superior to the situation in the US.

> ASML are dutch, and ARM are a UK company

I guess it’s much easier for them to compete for workers since IIRC Intel (and I assume others in the sector) don’t pay that well compared to software companies

The protestant work ethic is becoming a thing of the past.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic

The replacement now is the "hustler's work ethic", which takes away the virtues from the traditional work ethic.

Loyalty and hard work are a two-way street. Companies generally haven’t demonstrated loyalty; employees are forced to reciprocate lest they find themselves unemployed and unemployable.

Because we replaced good faith business people with the root of all societal decadence known as the "Masters of Business Administration".

> But for the people who actually love shipping products to people, there will always be money and they will always be in demand.

> The only problem is you can't find them reliably through the front door application process [...]

Do they get found reliably enough in any manner, that there will always be money for them?

Were hiring managers and interviewers onboard with this theory, would they able to recognize such a person (amidst all the people projecting that because it quickly becomes standard interview advice to project that).

Is the market really for them, if they're indistinguishable?

(I'm imagining "In STAR format, tell me about a time that you loved shipping product to people, totally speaking candidly and off-the-cuff, not a rehearsed ritual answer recommended by prep materials, I'm sure." Or "I had to dock you points on your Leetcoding assessment because you didn't smile while you capped the whiteboard marker, which our hiring data science team says predicts that you don't love shipping solutions.")

There is also an adjacent problem, where management cares very little about features which improve things for the users. And no matter how many great engineers they have, they don’t get used on things that people would care about.

Oh the horror. Someone might work a job because they need money to eat even though they’re not deeply passionate about it.

There was a thread on Reddit yesterday asking what you would do if you didn’t have to think about money tomorrow. Like half the top posts were some version of “quit my job”.

This part of society is really broken. “I wish I didn’t have to deal with this thing taking up half of my life” isn’t a thing the majority of people should have to feel.

I don’t really have a point. Sorry.

I’m pretty sure that’s been true for as long as there have been jobs. At least at this point I wouldn’t be working for someone if I didn’t need to think about money.

I dislike the word “passionate” in this context too. You don’t have to be in love with programming, but there definitely are qualities of curiosity, tenacity and pride of workmanship that are very important to high performing software teams.

To some degree that’s probably true of most jobs though. There are some people that paint software as something unique where it isn’t some all consuming nights and weekends interest you’re not a “real” programmer.

Let me separate your two sentences, because the latter is an immature viewpoint that I wholeheartedly disagree with.

WRT what makes software unique is that it’s a rare combination of opaque, hard to evaluate, long-lived, mechanically unforgiving and path-dependent. In other words, incompetent developers can make a huge mess of things that future developers can find it impossible to dig out from. Other jobs have some of these aspects, but I can’t think of any that share all of them.

Ok... why do all the people that just want to clock in and get a paycheck get offended that people willing to pay a lot of money want to hire people that actually care?

Because you want to have your cake and eat it too?

I care more about the quality of work that people do than the degree to which they “care” in the abstract-which are only loosely correlated.

Putting effort and time into a craft is not “loosely” correlated to being good. People that work harder, put in more effort and are frankly obsessed with their craft are, with few exceptions, better than those that are not. This is one of those “my grandma could have told you that” moments…

I have met plenty of people who were really enthusiastic about filmmaking, writing, sports of various kinds, etc. who were simply not very good. It’s probably hard to excel at something you hate but enthusiasm doesn’t necessarily translate into skill.

In my years as a junior dev I noticed this! The signs for me were seniors who had just aged through, but I knew more about the tech stack and problem domain or that could not just intuit a recursive function(I was flabbergasted as I watched one of them lookup how to write one).

In the years since all these devs have since moved on to management rather than more senior technical roles.

What a ridiculous comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9090135

It’s fine to be passionate but can lead to unwise decisions. Getting taken advantage of is one, accepting lower pay than you should for nebulous benefits is another. If you are passionate, surely you crave the financial freedom to do your own thing on your own terms instead of wasting time at a company full of dispassionate people.

People have lives outside where they work. It's a job to pay the mortgage not some mission to change the world. If you think your value to a company makes you irreplaceable then you're not the first to sit in the chair of naivety.

Are you saying that those people are not living in Europe?

I don’t understand your critique. Are you saying that European software developers don’t have a passion for shipping products?

I took it to mean: it's better to pay an EU salary than a Bay Area salary if the SWE is unenthusiastic / an average performer. i.e. "Both EU and Bay Area have SWE who will ship code. Only pay Bay Area salaries for those who go above and beyond shipping code"

I use plenty of paid software developed in the Bay Area that I wouldn't even use for free if I had a choice in the matter. The reason for a lot of successful software companies in the Bay Area has nothing to do with the people. It's disposable cash willing to throw money at an idea with a 1/500 chance of working out. As already seen, cash is running out for a lot of startups and they won't be getting another round of funding. That will lead to wages significantly dropping. We don't see the same in Europe where the wages were never hyperinflated. Wages continue to increase albeit at a slow pace.

> It makes sense to not pay Bay Area salaries for these people and to go pay people in Europe to have this attitude

This sentence implies that "this kind of people" exist in both places. I don't see any judgment in terms of where they are more prevalent.

It does imply that the opposite kind can't be found in Europe, otherwise you would also be better off paying a lower salary for them.

That’s rich coming from a continent responsible for a handful of software breakthroughs.

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