Dr M Khalid's global village blog

Top programmers are now the Premier League footballers of the computing world. And the reach of the computing world is extending everywhere, from phones to cars to buildings, which fosters demand for software programmers. Like footballers, top programmers are getting used to being mollycoddled: according to jobs site Glassdoor, which tracks salaries, a software engineer starting at Twitter, Facebook, Apple or Google could expect to be paid at least $127,000 (£82,000) annually, with medical insurance, free canteen food and holidays thrown in, as well as share options that could boost their income by 50%. For senior software engineers, the starting figure can be $153,000 (£98,000), which pushes beyond $250,000 (£161,000) after cash and stock bonuses. By contrast, salaries at Microsoft and Amazon, further up the coast in near Seattle, begin at around $100,000 (£64,000). Ref https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/oct/14/twitter-better-remember-who-monetises-its-tweets

Almost all of the cuts from the 4,100 strong workforce are coming from its "product and engineering" division, rather than in marketing or sales.  Almost at the same time as cutting staff,  Twitter  rolled out its "Moments" service that aims to collect tweets and links about noteworthy news events, and is considering tweets where links and names aren't included in its 140-character limit. But culling engineering jobs is a shocking act in a field where poaching is commonplace, such is the intense competition for staff. Ego-pumped rivals try hard to dismiss any loss they suffer to a competitor. Or in the case of Elon Musk, founder of the electric vehicle maker Tesla, a rival such as Apple is downgraded to jumped-up rival. "They have hired people we've fired," Musk said recently about Apple having  poached a number of key members of his staff. "We always jokingly call Apple the 'Tesla graveyard'. If you don't make it at Tesla, you go