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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

#371

Post by klipt »

humanrebar wrote: post #277
stale2002 wrote: post #161

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.

> How about if it costs a 100$ per loaf of bread? If bread cost that much, we'd start eating more rice, pasta, and potatoes. We'd change our meal plan. Likewise, if the employees you need to hire to execute on your business plan are too expensive, you need to adjust your business plan. Maybe hire different kinds of employees, maybe pursue higher margin opportunities, maybe cut your losses and try something else.

> If bread cost that much, we'd start eating more rice, pasta, and potatoes. We'd change our meal plan.

Or people would realize the ingredients for bread cost Similarly if software developers are all charging $1,000,000 / year, it gets cheaper to find smart people who aren't software developers (yes, there are plenty of smart people in other professions) and train them.

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

#372

Post by quuquuquu »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #356
throwaway911233 wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I make ~$200k in an affordable city not on the coast. I could make $300k - $400k in NYC. I write and maintain programs for finance.

How do you get a job in finance while not on the coast? Remote work? Work in a branch? Work for a regional outfit?

My money is on Charlotte NC, or perhaps Austin or Dallas if Charlotte is considered the coast somehow.

200k in those areas is obviously quite good but not life-altering money. You'll need to work 5-10 years before you become a millionaire.

Anesthesiologists in that area can make up to 600k.

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

#373

Post by anonacct37 »

ryandrake wrote: post #314
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…

> Someone will come along and talk about how a senior dev at Google can expect $250k a year. You'll get two categories of replies: "I don't believe this at all, Glassdoor proves you are wrong, nobody I know makes that, blah blah" and "bro that is totally normal". That's the thing. On one side, you have people who at least have a bit of publicly available data to point to (although sure, one could point out flaws in s…

I make $400k as a software engineer, and I can tell you it's pretty rare. We're probably talking top few percent of engineers (in terms of compensation) living in a select number of areas.

I think it's possible only a few dozen companies can do this.

These are median numbers for Amazon/Google/Facebook/Microsoft https://blog.step.com/2016/04/08/an-open-source-project-for-...

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

#374

Post by BoiledCabbage »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #166

Part of this comes from executives being taught to think of employees as expenses rather than assets. "Less money to employees = more money to me." This attitude is part of a larger systemic problem: A great deal of American business is now more about gaming the system than about building products. Take the VC money, build nothing, and cash out. Sell customer data to ad networks and cash out. SEO the hell out of that…

An underrated comment. It sounds harsh, but It's institutionalized get-rich-quick. A lot of it is the hyper-focus on efficiency. Which gets interpreted as efficiency of time, which turns to "get money back out as quickly as possible". And as people look for faster and faster ways to get money out at some point the only route/scheme that can keep up is "create an illusion of value and sell that."

And all of this is a drain for society, not a net plus. Even though you'll inevitably hear the argument "Creating an illusion of value has societal value. Obviously it does, otherwise people wouldn't pay for it." A which point you're reaching peak irony. And then you begin the inevitable arms race of smarter minds working on better ways to hide the illusions, and smarter minds on the otherside working on better ways to sniff them out. This is pretty mucb equivalent to having your best and brightest optimize better ways to predict horsetrack betting (but at least in that case if an Einstein invents an accurate weather prediction machine that value is transferable to society at large). These minds are bust develiping non-useful, non-transferrable non-useful abilities instead of becoming the next Elon Musk. It's a train wreck in slow motion, but those on the inside are so deep in it they're unable to see it.

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

#375

Post by mrep »

eikenberry wrote: post #312
jcadam wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps somewhere in between. While $250k sounds high for a pure code-slinger, I'm willing to believe a few companies (Google, Microsoft, et. al.) choose to pay a small number of their top devs that kind of money. On the other hand, competition for dev jobs in general is so fierce (as in the supply of great devs outstrips the demand by a large margin) that I can't imagine it would be difficult to fill those same posi…

> On the other hand, competition for dev jobs in general is so fierce (as in the supply of great devs outstrips the demand by a large margin) This is so much the exact opposite of everything I've experienced that I have a hard time believing it. Finding good developers is near impossible, we regularly interview people for months before finding someone halfway decent. And the last time I looked for work I had several…

Is your company one of the hot ones right now where developers are lining up?

Assuming not, what's the compensation for the job? Have you tried posting the compensation for the job publicly?

The reason I ask is because as someone who works for one of the big 5, I don't even consider companies outside of the big 5 or top startups. As "cynicalkane" said: "Much of the industry is not only unaware of reality but refuses to believe in it. This includes real engineers who do real work at real companies and comment actively on Hacker News. $250k for a senior engineer is just completely outside their reality."

Are you offering 250+ for senior engineers? If so, broadcast it and people will interested. Else, I'll assume you are going to just offer non-market rates and waste my time.

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

#376

Post by stale2002 »

humanrebar wrote: post #277
stale2002 wrote: post #161

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.

> How about if it costs a 100$ per loaf of bread? If bread cost that much, we'd start eating more rice, pasta, and potatoes. We'd change our meal plan. Likewise, if the employees you need to hire to execute on your business plan are too expensive, you need to adjust your business plan. Maybe hire different kinds of employees, maybe pursue higher margin opportunities, maybe cut your losses and try something else.

And what if those other things ALSO cost 100$ a meal? Is there a shortage of food?

Even if it is just bread, is it a good thing or a bad thing for society if bread costs 100$?

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

#377

Post by kspaans »

klipt wrote: post #370
kspaans wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I think the clarification needed was that you can reduce capital gains tax rates but not income tax rates.

But you don't have to hold $company stock to do that. You can sell on vest for 0 capital gains, then buy diversified index funds and hold those long term.

And that's indeed what I do! ;)

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

#378

Post by jghn »

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…

FWIW I'm roughly at the mid-point between those two figures and not at a Big 4 or similar. I have no RSUs, stock, bonuses, or other such things, it's all base salary. My base salary is higher than any of my developer friends who have full time jobs, but my total compensation is roughly upper quartile due to their add ons.

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

#379

Post by stale2002 »

imtringued wrote: post #346
stale2002 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Remember: The price of the good rises until it becomes profitable to produce more of the good or substitute the good with something else. An economic shortage refers to a market failure and not a lack of resources and is only possible because of external factors like price controls, zoning laws, etc. >There are almost always willing buyers at a lower-than-market-clearing price; the narrower technical definition doesn…

You've avoided the fundamental issue.

If bread costs 100$ is it a good thing or a bad thing for society?

If the "market clearing price" for bread results in people starving to death, is this good or bad?

In this hypothetical situation, would it be a good idea or a bad idea for the government, or charities, or society/individuals in society to try and solve the high bread price problem?

Also, if people are literally starving to death, even if markets "clear", does it or does it not fit a normal person's definition of a "food shortage"?

Personally, my definition of shortage is "there isn't enough of X, and it would be a good idea to increase X".

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

#380

Post by mrep »

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?

Shortages are irrespective of the severity of price. Shortages imply their is enough demand that normally price would increase to match supply at a given price point but cannot due to outside forces such as price controls.

What you and a bunch of other people confuse as a shortage is just basic market dynamics. Price is high but costs are also high (not a lot of people are willing and capable of being programmers). Cheaper developer prices would be great for businesses but price has to balance with cost and it is useless to call things a shortage for demand that is unsatisfied at a non-market price.

Example: would you say there is a shortage of Tesla model S's since I only am willing to pay $30,000. No, because the costs for a model S is higher than that and then everything would be considered a shortage at a low enough price point.

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