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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

#241

Post by expertentipp »

qaq wrote: post #216
qaq wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

? 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

"Java pays the most" is the curse of the industry. That's why we have plenty of these dull corporate Java projects possible to setup only in Eclipse and people neurotically sticking to them with a hope for this fat salary.

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

#242

Post by alexanderstears »

WalterSear wrote: post #192
Godel_unicode wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always find this an interesting argument; while company foo has more power than a random job seeker, they certainly don't have more power than all the other companies seeking that employee. In order for companies to wield their supposed salary-depressing power there would have to be massive collusion. For an example of how (in)effective that is, look how much salaries increased while Apple Google et al were colludi…

Companies are certainly beholden to the market: one of the ways the power asymmetry is unfolding is in their successful manipulation of H1 visa legislation. None of this is all-or-nothing. Companies use their power over the individual applicants as a response to the vagaries of the market. However, the basic logic divide and conquer ing means that they always have more power than individuals selling their services to…

Even the H1 program pits corporate interests against each other. The biggest companies have to enter the same lottery as WIPRO Jr. DBAs.

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

#243

Post by yahna »

cynicalkane wrote: post #217
bit_logic wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

But they are totally taking on all the risk and hard work. YOu just have to work insane hours for half of your worth with the risk of getting fired. That's no risk at all compared to being a founder, you should be grateful they gave you that (pre-dilution) 0.015% as employee number 1. After all you get ot build something great!

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

#244

Post by alexanderstears »

WalterSear wrote: post #187
alexanderstears wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the market clears that's the equilibrium.

If the market is free, eventually it gets sold. In this case, that means legislating artificial surplus in the form of increased H1 visas.

Even then the market clears. The equilibrium under H1 is different than without H1 but there's still an equilibrium.

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

#245

Post by tambienben »

jordache wrote: post #125
tambienben wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It turns out I knew the person who did get the job I was all but promised. You should have another cup of coffee.

i tend to skim-read manifestos

I think it pays more to be observant than to be butthurt on the internet.

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

#246

Post by yahna »

5trokerac3 wrote: post #213
cynicalkane wrote: post #198

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…

THat's not as true when we are talking about stock from Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, etc... The risk is dramatically lower.

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

#247

Post by notyourday »

HeroOfAges wrote: post #238
Danihan wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get why companies can't just hire a bunch of more "questionable" applicants at a lower rate, say $45k - $60k or so for junior devs in most cities. No need to spend much effort on the interview process, just make sure they can solve a couple standardized problems, and then "hire" them as contractors for a 90-day trial. Put them onto teams and throw them in the deep end, then get rid of all the ones who can't s…

Quite a few companies are doing exactly what you describe to fill dev positions. The real cost comes when the systems designed and built by those junior devs are so brittle it becomes very time consuming and expensive to add new features. Most of the time, however, those systems built by the junior devs are so buggy there's no time to build new features in any case because everyone is too busy dealing with issues in…

That's because these companies management loves to develop by committee that comes with agilie, points, IPMs and standups. When a voice of expert is assigned the same weight as the voice of a Joe Random Developer and there are more Joe Random Developers than experts, you end up with garbage fire of systems.

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

#248

Post by jedberg »

jcadam wrote: post #227
cynicalkane wrote: post #113

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…

I still don't believe the $250k figure :) I make exactly half of that here in Florida (a fairly low cost area) as a senior dev and my salary has definitely plateaued (and I haven't had a raise in a few years). I know I make more than most of my peers and local recruiters scoff when I tell them my current pay (I had to talk my current employer up about $30k just to match my salary at my previous employer to get me to…

H1B data is public. You can see exactly how much they are offering H1Bs, which most people assume to be lowballing. The median for Google is $127K, but that includes junior engineers. Sort by salary to see the senior roles.

And then remember that this is just base salary. Usually, the RSUs are almost equal to the salary when granted, and sometimes double in value over the four years they vest.

http://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=GOOGLE&job=SOFTWARE+ENGINEE...

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

#250

Post by thanksgiving »

stale2002 wrote: post #235
basseq wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But supply is meeting demand at that point, right? It implies a shortage, because of the price point. Because demand far outstrips supply, which drives price up.

And now to bring things full circle, if tech salaries are very high, doesn't this ALSO imply a shortage of programmers, as demand is far outstripping supply?

I'd say no. We can't compartmentalize things like this. I fully support bringing in foreign talent but the logic is flawed. I want lower wages across the economy but the conversation must start in the board room. Nobody, other than the investor, should be making more than a certain multiplier of the minimum wage. The CEO who got fired from HP and went on to be the CEO at Oracle? Is there a shortage of CEOs? I'm sure if you look within your organization, you'll find at least one person willing to bite the bullet and become your next CEO if you need.

Sorry if this was a little off topic. I feel uneasy about our growing inequality in our economy but we can't fix it outside of the boardroom. Did you know that board members get paid? I surely didn't until not too long ago. Why do they get paid? I mean I'm not talking compensation for travel. I'm talking six figure compensation. Do we have a shortage of people who are willing to sit on your board?

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