Why I’m Not Looking to Hire Computer-Science Majors • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I’m Not Looking to Hire Computer-Science Majors

#31

Post by akhilcacharya » Sun, Aug 30, 2015, 7:41 PM UTC

pavel_lishin wrote: post #3

> A junior developer fresh out of college can expect to earn around $10,000 monthly, plus benefits, a $100,000 signing bonus and $200,000 in stock options. Maybe I'm out of touch with the realities of the world, being an ancient 31-year old PHP/Java developer who's never written a line of something cool like Go in his life, but an expectation of $10k post-tax right out of college doesn't seem like a realistic expecta…

This is the WSJ, their audience is going to be a bit more niche than all software developers. For a grad of Harvard or Stanford CS or MIT C6? I'd say that's a reasonable starting salary.

Re: Why I’m Not Looking to Hire Computer-Science Majors

#32

Post by greenyoda » Sun, Aug 30, 2015, 7:45 PM UTC

znpy wrote: post #28

The article is paywalled and i can't read it.

You can read it by googling the title of the article and clicking on Google's link to it.

Re: Why I’m Not Looking to Hire Computer-Science Majors

#33

Post by speechduh » Sun, Aug 30, 2015, 8:09 PM UTC

pavel_lishin wrote: post #3

> A junior developer fresh out of college can expect to earn around $10,000 monthly, plus benefits, a $100,000 signing bonus and $200,000 in stock options. Maybe I'm out of touch with the realities of the world, being an ancient 31-year old PHP/Java developer who's never written a line of something cool like Go in his life, but an expectation of $10k post-tax right out of college doesn't seem like a realistic expecta…

For comparison, google offers competitive fresh-out-of-top-tier NLP Ph.D.s ~150k cash + 50k /yr bonus.

Re: Why I’m Not Looking to Hire Computer-Science Majors

#34

Post by kippster » Sun, Aug 30, 2015, 8:11 PM UTC

superuser2 wrote: post #26

hodgesmr wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the midwest, a dev with no professional experience straight out of college can expect to earn around $3,450 monthly (post-tax), plus benefits, no signing bonus, and no stock options.

It's really pretty irrational (in terms of pay, career progression) to be a dev in the Midwest. Even if you don't like Bay Area cost of living there's Portland, Seattle, Boston, etc. the only reasons I can think of to stay would be a serious desire to own a suburban home or to live near your parents.

The big exception is the prop trading industry based in Chicago.

Re: Why I’m Not Looking to Hire Computer-Science Majors

#35

Post by TsiCClawOfLight » Sun, Aug 30, 2015, 8:15 PM UTC

rvac wrote: post #13

It's interesting how the author laments that CS graduates are not up to date with the latest technologies, while admitting himself that the technologies "change every 10 minutes". By this logic, students starting a CS education should have no idea what they just signed up for, since the up to date courses desired by industry do not even exist yet - heck, the technology does not exist yet. That said, I personally know…

Why do you think that position to be extreme? (serious question)

Re: Why I’m Not Looking to Hire Computer-Science Majors

#36

Post by duaneb » Sun, Aug 30, 2015, 8:17 PM UTC

superuser2 wrote: post #26

hodgesmr wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the midwest, a dev with no professional experience straight out of college can expect to earn around $3,450 monthly (post-tax), plus benefits, no signing bonus, and no stock options.

It's really pretty irrational (in terms of pay, career progression) to be a dev in the Midwest. Even if you don't like Bay Area cost of living there's Portland, Seattle, Boston, etc. the only reasons I can think of to stay would be a serious desire to own a suburban home or to live near your parents.

> Portland, Seattle, Boston

None of these are exactly cheap cities (Portland might be the closest), and not everyone wants to move to a city just to do a job they could have done from home.

Re: Why I’m Not Looking to Hire Computer-Science Majors

#37

Post by tyho » Sun, Aug 30, 2015, 8:19 PM UTC

port6667 wrote: post #8

For those that don't want to register, just delete the http://url and then search for the rest. Click the link from Google or whatever and the page will load without the register popup. SEO baby.

Another neat trick to bypass this particular type of silliness is to install refcontrol (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/refcontrol/), it allows you to control the Referer header. Set the referer for wsj.com to https://google.com, goodbye paywall.

Re: Why I’m Not Looking to Hire Computer-Science Majors

#38

Post by trgn » Sun, Aug 30, 2015, 8:25 PM UTC

superuser2 wrote: post #26

hodgesmr wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the midwest, a dev with no professional experience straight out of college can expect to earn around $3,450 monthly (post-tax), plus benefits, no signing bonus, and no stock options.

It's really pretty irrational (in terms of pay, career progression) to be a dev in the Midwest. Even if you don't like Bay Area cost of living there's Portland, Seattle, Boston, etc. the only reasons I can think of to stay would be a serious desire to own a suburban home or to live near your parents.

There's attractive urban living in the Midwest (and the South) too. Coast = urban kewl stuff, midwest = suburban lame stuff, that's a huge simplification. I'd actually say the opposite. If you desire to own an `urban` home, you have a much better shot at it in the Midwest, than you would have at the coasts. Average dev income will push you to the burbs on the coasts, but not necessarily in the Midwest.

But pay is lower in fly-over country, certainly.

Re: Why I’m Not Looking to Hire Computer-Science Majors

#39

Post by duaneb » Sun, Aug 30, 2015, 8:33 PM UTC

rvac wrote: post #13

It's interesting how the author laments that CS graduates are not up to date with the latest technologies, while admitting himself that the technologies "change every 10 minutes". By this logic, students starting a CS education should have no idea what they just signed up for, since the up to date courses desired by industry do not even exist yet - heck, the technology does not exist yet. That said, I personally know…

It's a full-time job to keep up with the industry, let alone change it with research. I think a little lag is OK so long as it doesn't teach BAD practice (e.g. thank god academia has moved from CVS to git).

Re: Why I’m Not Looking to Hire Computer-Science Majors

#40

Post by logn » Sun, Aug 30, 2015, 8:33 PM UTC

superuser2 wrote: post #26

hodgesmr wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the midwest, a dev with no professional experience straight out of college can expect to earn around $3,450 monthly (post-tax), plus benefits, no signing bonus, and no stock options.

It's really pretty irrational (in terms of pay, career progression) to be a dev in the Midwest. Even if you don't like Bay Area cost of living there's Portland, Seattle, Boston, etc. the only reasons I can think of to stay would be a serious desire to own a suburban home or to live near your parents.

Is it really? Bankrate.com's cost-of-living calculator tells me the equivalent income in San Francisco if you're moving from Columbus, Ohio earning $110K is $213K. That would be an approximate salary of a senior developer. And these are jobs where 40 hrs is the norm, in addition to medical, dental, disability, life insurance, 401k match, and bonus.