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The Tech Talent Shortage Is a Lie

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Re: The Tech Talent Shortage Is a Lie

#3
Definitely tech companies don't do enough to recruit and train novice programmers. Cue the "Junior level" position with a 3 year experience requirement.

That said, certainly the group that face the most racial inequalities and lack of institutional privilege in the American job market are humans who had the unfortunate luck of being born outside her borders.

Re: The Tech Talent Shortage Is a Lie

#4

Definitely tech companies don't do enough to recruit and train novice programmers. Cue the "Junior level" position with a 3 year experience requirement. That said, certainly the group that face the most racial inequalities and lack of institutional privilege in the American job market are humans who had the unfortunate luck of being born outside her borders.

> Definitely tech companies ... don't ... train novice programmers.

This is the worst part IMO. As we all know a Computer Science degree isn't a 1:1 match for what people will be doing in the industry. Assuming every candidate had the chance to do side projects or internships[1] instead of spending a couple of weeks training smart grads is an easy way to have a "shortage".

[1] Not everyone has time for side projects (work + school), not all internships are the same either

Re: The Tech Talent Shortage Is a Lie

#8
> Few businesses give interns real coding assignments or support them adequately. Many can’t or won’t pay interns, which erects a privilege barrier by excluding anyone who doesn’t have savings to weather working for nothing for a few months.

I'm a university student in a co-op CS program and most of my classmates, many with no previous programming experience, found good jobs that pay well where they get real experience after 1 year of school. This paragraph doesn't seem true to me at all. Demand is extremely high for CS interns, many even make it to earning $100k+ before graduating. These internships can also easily pay your entire tuition, you can even end up with tens of thousands of savings after you finish your degree.

Re: The Tech Talent Shortage Is a Lie

#9
You can't call it a shortage when you expect developers to work 80 hour work weeks so you can squeeze $$ out of all your clients who decided not to hire in house for their main product on Android.

I thought it was pretty much known that the concept of SW-shortage was a big lie?

Re: The Tech Talent Shortage Is a Lie

#10
In the country I actually live in reports say that there is a huge shortage of waiters and chefs at the moment. And there is -- most of them are leaving for richer countries. What this means is that there are a lot of businesses who don't want or cannot afford paying more for chefs and waiters, and not that there are simply not enough people who could serve pizzas in a countryside restaurant.

Same goes for tech talent. I was testing the tech market in my home country a couple of years ago, and a multinational company who is (also) complaining about extreme lack of tech talent said that no engineer is allowed to be paid more than ~ $40k/year (in that particular office). They pay three times as much in the UK. Well, tough luck then. :)

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