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U.S. Employers Struggle to Match Workers with Open Jobs

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Re: U.S. Employers Struggle to Match Workers with Open Jobs

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If going to the doctor for a checkup costed you 20K out of pocket, would you consider there to be a "shortage" of doctors? How about if it costs a 100$ per loaf of bread? I'd considered that to be a shortage. Even if supply is technically meeting demand.

No, and I'm not sure why. Maybe because doctors have unlimited demand and are considered more highly skilled?

How about 100$ bread? Is that a shortage? People literally starving to death, because they can't pay for food?

But supply is meeting demand at that point, right?

Re: U.S. Employers Struggle to Match Workers with Open Jobs

#212
post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To reiterate we had trouble hiring at that rate good senior Java engineers. Not sure what you are basing your opinion on I lived and worked there for over 10 years including running my own company and working for other companies. I also know good number of founders/owners of the top outsourcing outfits.

> good senior Java engineers duh! they left for Germany

Some did, but they did not win as far as after tax $, it's mostly for better infrastructure and security. At the time we were trying to fill the positions a large UK based company closed down dev. office in Ukraine they had 120 dev's about 40 were senior scala/java within 1.5 weeks only one was without a new job he didn't take 60K offer either as he got a better competing offer.

Re: U.S. Employers Struggle to Match Workers with Open Jobs

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$250k base or $250k INCLUDING stock??

The second one, but if you're not thinking about salary in terms of total comp, you're doing it wrong.

Sure, but $1 of stock isn't worth $1 of liquid assets. It may be worth more than $1 in the long run, but when you're first handed it, you have to undervalue it, compared to hard cash.

I'm a theoretical millionaire several times over, from stock options in startups that suffered the fate of the 99%. You can obviously put more value in the stock of a SV megalith, but even then, you're putting a lot of eggs in one basket.

Re: U.S. Employers Struggle to Match Workers with Open Jobs

#215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The second one, but if you're not thinking about salary in terms of total comp, you're doing it wrong.

Sure, but $1 of stock isn't worth $1 of liquid assets. It may be worth more than $1 in the long run, but when you're first handed it, you have to undervalue it, compared to hard cash. I'm a theoretical millionaire several times over, from stock options in startups that suffered the fate of the 99%. You can obviously put more value in the stock of a SV megalith, but even then, you're putting a lot of eggs in one baske…

Stock from a public SV firm is almost as good as cash, and comes with a large amount of lifestyle intangibles.

Re: U.S. Employers Struggle to Match Workers with Open Jobs

#216
post #37

There is flood of American outsourcing centers in post-Communist EU countries. Top salaries for software devs/eng, including seniors, are USD 40k gross annually. They can treat the employees in the worst "corporate America" ways - their offices, available hardware, policies, laughable benefits, annual leave, create a perfect package for miserable professional and private life.

? Total misinformation. As applicable to Ukraine salaries are US salary - US tax -(20-30)% take into account cost of living and special tax treatment (3-4%). Workday is normal workday and not some unknown number of hours offices are way nicer then in US minus the usual suspects (Google FB etc.). You get way more time off plus there are like 3X official holidays in Ukraine. Running recruiting biz. on the side we had r…

Compensation is also heavily tied to the stack Java & C# -highest (outside of niche things)

Ruby

Python

PHP

Good Java middle can make more then good senior PHP

Re: U.S. Employers Struggle to Match Workers with Open Jobs

#217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like there's two tiers of the software industry: those employable at AmaFaceGoogFlix or a competitor, and everyone else; but the "everyone else" is completely unaware that the first tier exists. It's like if minor league baseball had no idea about major league baseball. You even see it on HN. Someone will come along and talk about how a senior dev at Google can expect $250k a year. You'll get two categories of…

The main reason for this is RSU. The base salary at those companies is not much more than rest of industry. But at senior levels the RSU matches or exceeds the entire base salary. Other companies have a hard time matching this. Startups try but the common wisdom now is to value those at zero. It seems only public traded companies stock is now considered as having value. And only public SV tech companies give these ma…

There's a point to this if you get a good startup job offer, but probably 95% or more of startup job offers are terrible. "You'll earn 50% below market, but if we make billions, your options will be worth a few hundred K per year once we have a liquidity event." No thanks.

For big companies that pay market rates, stock can be valued, and GAAP actually requires it. So they're not saving any money on paper paying you in stock. Your total comp is their total comp.

Usually, when you get a good offer including stock, it's from a company with worthwhile stock. Most startup offers aren't worth it even in wildly good scenarios.

Re: U.S. Employers Struggle to Match Workers with Open Jobs

#218
post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need to bring in cheaper, more desperate H1-BMWs from overseas.

We need to start bringing back more American-BMWs. Those foreign BMWs are taking our cars!

I recall Buick trying that about a decade ago without much success.

Re: U.S. Employers Struggle to Match Workers with Open Jobs

#219
post #22

"They're just asking for the moon, and not expecting to pay very much for it," Cappelli says. "And as a result they [can't] find those people. Now that [doesn't] mean there was nobody to do the job; it just [means] that there was nobody at the price they were willing to pay." In my opinion, this is the key paragraph in the article. I see this all the time when recruiters send me job postings, and they want someone wi…

during my first real salaried job out of college, a coworker told me that they thought they could have done their work with nothing more than a high school education. that was true about my job as well. companies have been spoiled with degreed employees who do routine coding and testing. in a lot of cases the degree is unnecessary. but hiring processes can't break out of this pattern, this groupthink.

I think this is totally right on. Additionally, I'd blame a big part of this problem on organizational refusal to hire and support remote employees. I am mentoring one person right now that could take jobs being offered in my city, but they live elsewhere in the country. Butts-in-seats management style is also part of the problem.

Re: U.S. Employers Struggle to Match Workers with Open Jobs

#220
post #88
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What skill sets a person has (provided it's related in some way to the open position) is less important than how quickly they can adapt and acquire new skill sets.

By this logic, no one should hire senior developers as they are just a waste of money.

Being a senior dev is more about high level soft skills and architecture skills, as opposed to knowing the intricacies of whatever programming language the company uses.

Coding syntax can be learned to master level in a couple weeks. "designing software" and "managing a project" skills cannot.

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