10 ms·

> Why not set a bounty to improve Prettier instead of building a competing project just to increase the motivation to improve Prettier? There are three reasons

by wentin 3y ago

> Why not set a bounty to improve Prettier instead of building a competing project just to increase the motivation to improve Prettier? There are three reasons, I think: 1. Writing a rust compiler is separate from prettier project because of its nature. Prettier is not written in Rust, and Rust has proven to be a robust option to write a formatter, so the goal really is to write a formatter in Rust itself, and it can't be replaced with improving prettier within its current codebase 2. Asking someone to write a Prettier-branded and owned Rust compiler for $20k is not enticing enough. It is essentially equivalent to contracting someone to write some code for Prettier, with an open bid. It would cost a lot more to hire someone to write these code. Great programmer who has the skill to answer this bounty get paid at least $200 an hour (extremely conservative estimate), $20k is enough for 100 hours of work for one person, not enough to finish the project. But getting rewarded for $20k for stuff you write and will own is enticing! 3. Good ecosystem going forward. If prettier owns the winner project, prettier is responsible to maintaining and improving it. The good that the bounty did ends when the project is handed over. Prettier team get burdened with a project that they didn't write themselves, and the original team (the best people for the job) is not incentivized to keep maintaining it. There is no ongoing competition to keep this field active.

andai 3y ago
>Great programmer who has the skill to answer this bounty get paid at least $200 an hour (extremely conservative estimate) Dang! What do you base this estimate on? The Rust aspect, or parsing aspect, or intersection of both?
- butterlesstoast 3y ago
  Adding this for data. I charge $500 an hour for contracting. It's gotta be at least that as it's costing time I would otherwise spend with my family. Family time / time away from my core job is incredibly valuable.
  - Cthulhu_ 3y ago
    For said data... does anyone actually pay that? I mean if you don't get hired for that amount you've got tons of family time so I guess it works? What I'm trying to say, I don't see the correlation between having a huge hourly rate vs family time. 40 hours a week of work is still 40 hours regardless of how much you're paid.
    - ncallaway 3y ago
      I mean, if you work 20 hours a week, then you don't have 40 hours a week of work
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
  A freelance developer can easily ask $250/hour, similar for a contract agency, and that is kind of a low amount. It sounds like a lot for a single developer but if one considers all of the non-billed time of chasing leads and bills it's maybe a different picture.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- TylerE 3y ago
  Keep in mind as a freelancer you have to make about for $2.50 for every $1 a salaried person makes, as you're on the hook for 100% of taxes, health care, business expenses, etc.
  - EricMausler 3y ago
    Is the 2.50:1 just a broad estimate or based on something? When I was doing pricing for service contracts it was usually around 1.50:1 burdened billing rate vs direct labor (income)
    - bosie 3y ago
      how did you factor in when you can't work (sickness, holiday, increasing your skill, finding the next job etc)?
      - EricMausler 3y ago
        2088 potential work hours in a year Less 88 hours holiday Less 80 hours vacation Less 56 hours sick =1864 hours (these are federal guidelines under the Service Contract Act regs) 232/1864 is a base increase of 12.5% for PTO Payroll taxes, Medical, workers comp, etc add about 30% - though medical is flat so at higher wages like discussed here the % increase it represents goes down further I did not have to factor in increasing skill on the job or time between jobs - but I did have to account for overhead and g&a which would be similar to time between jobs since those would be for bills Big companies would have a lot of markup on OH/g&a/fee, but a software dev working remote for themselves on contract could competitively go down to 5-10% or less here to simply cover the minor added burden to bills. That totals up to about a 50% increase on the salary rate. You can't outright bill someone for time you spend looking for a new job or improving your skills. You may charge a premium that you use to do such things but that would have to go under fee which tends to top out at 15% with the government, not something that can be expected to be accounted for. In my experience at least. Again though, this was for service contracts - particularly with the US government, subject to certified cost and pricing data disclosures. I was genuinely curious about the 2.5 number though, as i have spent a lot of time dealing with market rates in various conditions I was interested to know the context. I could see a few ways that could happen, but I wouldn't want to speculate too much
- hectormalot 3y ago
  Depends on the geography and/or whether the knowledge is highly specific. As a datapoint, the average Dutch contracting rates I see for IT development (think: Java, Swift, Kotlin) range somewhere from €75 - €150/h. Higher is possible, but then you're talking very specific expertise and typically shorter projects. I'm on the hiring side, this is a figure across some 20 external devs. I think it's representative of the middle of the market.
  - pas 3y ago
    but those are for at least a few weeks of engagement, no? 8h/day, right?
    - hectormalot 3y ago
      yes, likely months of engagement at 36-40h per week
    - 946789987649 3y ago
      In London contracting rates of £700+/day are not abnormal and those are usually minimum 6 month full time.
  - JustLurking2022 3y ago
    I think most people on here are citing US based conditions, particularly with respect to healthcare costs and various taxes.
- etruong42 3y ago
  I imagine someone who has this skill has a shot at being L4 or L5 at Google. levels.fyi estimates a year salary of an L5 engineer at Google to be 362,248. If we naively divide that by 50 (weeks in a year) * 40 (hours of work a week), we'd get $181.12 an hour. Googlers also get health insurance, free food, other perks that may push the effective hourly compensation even closer to $200. Googlers also get equipment to do the coding, whereas this competition does not provide a workstation, so another possible line item to consider. It's not a perfect comparison/analogy, so I'd rather not get nitpicked, as the overall thrust of my argument is that $200/hr is not outlandish imho.
twodave 3y ago
I came here to say that $200/hour is only "extremely conservative" in very few and small geographic parts of the world. Where I'm from (in a large city in the US) this number would be described as extravagant. I've charged $200 or more on only one occasion myself, and it was a very short-term arrangement.
- parasubvert 3y ago
  I'm from a large city (but not the largest) in Canada and $200/hour or higher is common for high end devs, architects, and project managers. I charged $200/hour twenty years ago. These days I'd charge $250-300/hour if I was a contractor. It is not extravagant in most of North America, but again, it is a rate for higher end talent. I have not charged less than $150/hour since the 90s. I once had some contractors in my team that were paid $500/hour due to vendor markup. I consider that extravagant.
  - wredue 3y ago
    I’ll second this that even in Canada, which has quite low tech pay, the lower end of quality dev work is $180/hr. Most of us managing contractors wouldn’t blink twice at $200/hr. Many of the bills are much higher.
    - jihiggins 3y ago
      where are you finding these rates at? i have rarely seen anything even passing $100/hr in canada, contract or not
      - fooster 3y ago
        Dude I got $1000 a day in Canada in the early 90s. You just need the right skills and contacts.
      - parasubvert 3y ago
        IT developers are often around $100/hour outside Toronto, Toronto being a bit more. Upwards of $150-200 if its speciality work or you're a team lead. It varies though, the market also exists for $80/hour java developers, which tend to be new grads Contract Developers going to technical companies will earn more like $180+.

by wentin 3y ago

andai 3y ago

>Great programmer who has the skill to answer this bounty get paid at least $200 an hour (extremely conservative estimate) Dang! What do you base this estimate on? The Rust aspect, or parsing aspect, or intersection of both?

butterlesstoast 3y ago
Adding this for data. I charge $500 an hour for contracting. It's gotta be at least that as it's costing time I would otherwise spend with my family. Family time / time away from my core job is incredibly valuable.
- Cthulhu_ 3y ago
  For said data... does anyone actually pay that? I mean if you don't get hired for that amount you've got tons of family time so I guess it works? What I'm trying to say, I don't see the correlation between having a huge hourly rate vs family time. 40 hours a week of work is still 40 hours regardless of how much you're paid.
  - ncallaway 3y ago
    I mean, if you work 20 hours a week, then you don't have 40 hours a week of work
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
A freelance developer can easily ask $250/hour, similar for a contract agency, and that is kind of a low amount. It sounds like a lot for a single developer but if one considers all of the non-billed time of chasing leads and bills it's maybe a different picture.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
TylerE 3y ago
Keep in mind as a freelancer you have to make about for $2.50 for every $1 a salaried person makes, as you're on the hook for 100% of taxes, health care, business expenses, etc.
- EricMausler 3y ago
  Is the 2.50:1 just a broad estimate or based on something? When I was doing pricing for service contracts it was usually around 1.50:1 burdened billing rate vs direct labor (income)
  - bosie 3y ago
    how did you factor in when you can't work (sickness, holiday, increasing your skill, finding the next job etc)?
    - EricMausler 3y ago
      2088 potential work hours in a year Less 88 hours holiday Less 80 hours vacation Less 56 hours sick =1864 hours (these are federal guidelines under the Service Contract Act regs) 232/1864 is a base increase of 12.5% for PTO Payroll taxes, Medical, workers comp, etc add about 30% - though medical is flat so at higher wages like discussed here the % increase it represents goes down further I did not have to factor in increasing skill on the job or time between jobs - but I did have to account for overhead and g&a which would be similar to time between jobs since those would be for bills Big companies would have a lot of markup on OH/g&a/fee, but a software dev working remote for themselves on contract could competitively go down to 5-10% or less here to simply cover the minor added burden to bills. That totals up to about a 50% increase on the salary rate. You can't outright bill someone for time you spend looking for a new job or improving your skills. You may charge a premium that you use to do such things but that would have to go under fee which tends to top out at 15% with the government, not something that can be expected to be accounted for. In my experience at least. Again though, this was for service contracts - particularly with the US government, subject to certified cost and pricing data disclosures. I was genuinely curious about the 2.5 number though, as i have spent a lot of time dealing with market rates in various conditions I was interested to know the context. I could see a few ways that could happen, but I wouldn't want to speculate too much
hectormalot 3y ago
Depends on the geography and/or whether the knowledge is highly specific. As a datapoint, the average Dutch contracting rates I see for IT development (think: Java, Swift, Kotlin) range somewhere from €75 - €150/h. Higher is possible, but then you're talking very specific expertise and typically shorter projects. I'm on the hiring side, this is a figure across some 20 external devs. I think it's representative of the middle of the market.
- pas 3y ago
  but those are for at least a few weeks of engagement, no? 8h/day, right?
  - hectormalot 3y ago
    yes, likely months of engagement at 36-40h per week
  - 946789987649 3y ago
    In London contracting rates of £700+/day are not abnormal and those are usually minimum 6 month full time.
- JustLurking2022 3y ago
  I think most people on here are citing US based conditions, particularly with respect to healthcare costs and various taxes.
etruong42 3y ago
I imagine someone who has this skill has a shot at being L4 or L5 at Google. levels.fyi estimates a year salary of an L5 engineer at Google to be 362,248. If we naively divide that by 50 (weeks in a year) * 40 (hours of work a week), we'd get $181.12 an hour. Googlers also get health insurance, free food, other perks that may push the effective hourly compensation even closer to $200. Googlers also get equipment to do the coding, whereas this competition does not provide a workstation, so another possible line item to consider. It's not a perfect comparison/analogy, so I'd rather not get nitpicked, as the overall thrust of my argument is that $200/hr is not outlandish imho.

twodave 3y ago

I came here to say that $200/hour is only "extremely conservative" in very few and small geographic parts of the world. Where I'm from (in a large city in the US) this number would be described as extravagant. I've charged $200 or more on only one occasion myself, and it was a very short-term arrangement.

parasubvert 3y ago
I'm from a large city (but not the largest) in Canada and $200/hour or higher is common for high end devs, architects, and project managers. I charged $200/hour twenty years ago. These days I'd charge $250-300/hour if I was a contractor. It is not extravagant in most of North America, but again, it is a rate for higher end talent. I have not charged less than $150/hour since the 90s. I once had some contractors in my team that were paid $500/hour due to vendor markup. I consider that extravagant.
- wredue 3y ago
  I’ll second this that even in Canada, which has quite low tech pay, the lower end of quality dev work is $180/hr. Most of us managing contractors wouldn’t blink twice at $200/hr. Many of the bills are much higher.
  - jihiggins 3y ago
    where are you finding these rates at? i have rarely seen anything even passing $100/hr in canada, contract or not
    - fooster 3y ago
      Dude I got $1000 a day in Canada in the early 90s. You just need the right skills and contacts.
    - parasubvert 3y ago
      IT developers are often around $100/hour outside Toronto, Toronto being a bit more. Upwards of $150-200 if its speciality work or you're a team lead. It varies though, the market also exists for $80/hour java developers, which tend to be new grads Contract Developers going to technical companies will earn more like $180+.