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Google commits $1B in grants to train U.S. workers for high-tech jobs

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Re: Google commits $1B in grants to train U.S. workers for high-tech jobs

#321
post #268

Google spends what, upwards of $10B a year on software engineer salary and benefits? So, seems like a good deal. If they can spend $1B and decrease salary’s and benefits by at least 10% over a few years, they get return on investment.

Why would salaries or benefits decrease?

Re: Google commits $1B in grants to train U.S. workers for high-tech jobs

#323

Everyone hates a cynic so bring on the downvotes: I'm going to warn everyone of what's coming. Software engineer jobs will be blue collar, $40-$60k a year jobs, by 2030. The HUGE push from government, and private business, to fill the PERCEIVED lack of engineers, will come to fruition around that time. Make no mistake about it - there is NOT a lack of skilled engineers right now. There is a disinterest among business…

>Software engineer jobs will be blue collar, $40-$60k a year jobs, by 2030.

I'd be fine with that. $60k is a solid living. 1/4th of a pretty nice house. In Wisconsin.

I'd take that salary today - in Wisconsin. But I'm not sure you could even get your own room for that in the Bay Area, where they'll inevitably require you to be to earn it.

Re: Google commits $1B in grants to train U.S. workers for high-tech jobs

#324
But nobody wants to address the mounting student loan problem!!

Degrees don't come for free, technical graduates don't come for free, students have to go to college for that and in US you need a LOT of money for that.

This is the chicken and egg problem where nobody wants to address the real problem an everyone is going around giving superficial solutions.

Re: Google commits $1B in grants to train U.S. workers for high-tech jobs

#325

Everyone hates a cynic so bring on the downvotes: I'm going to warn everyone of what's coming. Software engineer jobs will be blue collar, $40-$60k a year jobs, by 2030. The HUGE push from government, and private business, to fill the PERCEIVED lack of engineers, will come to fruition around that time. Make no mistake about it - there is NOT a lack of skilled engineers right now. There is a disinterest among business…

"PERCEIVED lack"? Doesn't the fact that salaries are sky rocketing essentially disprove your point? Why are the salaries getting pushed higher and higher? Because demand for SWEs is outstripping supply. This to me looks like the same kind of privileged outlook that other professional guilds like the AMA desire. Do you want cheaper healthcare, or doctor compensation to keep going up? Hey, letting nurse practitioners t…

>Why are the salaries getting pushed higher and higher?

Because Bay Area cost of living is getting pushed higher and higher. The median programmer already has roommates, a 2-hour roundtrip commute, and no hope of family-sized housing or (gasp) ownership; if standard of living falls any further, we'll all go do something else.

Obviously many people have it worse, but we have alternatives.

Re: Google commits $1B in grants to train U.S. workers for high-tech jobs

#326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are getting tons of apps from top schools like harvard, stanford, etc. I don't think they will have any problem hiring people. Maybe this would help some small company a lot more that can't afford pay google salaries. Also If you believe the Pareto principle most of people at google probably aren't that important to their successes.

Their goal is to increase the supply and diversity of good engineers, likely decreasing salaries in the long run. It's about damn time!

Google could cut salaries by half or more while delivering equal or better quality of life if it built substantial engineering presence in cheap cities.

Education is a wickedly complicated problem compared to not being in California.

Re: Google commits $1B in grants to train U.S. workers for high-tech jobs

#327

I wonder how long it would take for Google to spend an extra $1 Billion by bringing janitorial, food service, and other non-technical jobs in-house instead of contracting it out to the lowest bidder. To put it in perspective, $1 Billion is 10,000 times $100,000. Or 1000 $100,000/year jobs for ten years before discounting for the time value of money. Instead, big chunks of the money will get siphoned off to administra…

They aren't doing this for charity - they are doing it to ensure a steady supply of technical hires. Technical jobs are profit centers; non-technical contracted services are cost centers.

The thing about hiring more software developers than you need is that it just adds complexity to the project without adding any new features.

Big companies are terrible at this. As companies add more engineers, the engineers become less productive, then managers get worried and so they 1. Hire more engineers and 2. introduce new project management tools and methodologies to the company which lowers productivity even more but which creates an illusion of progress for idiotic upper management — Over time managers and engineers get used to lower levels of productivity as it keeps declining and the company keep hiring more and more engineers whose engineering skills themselves keep declining from being poorly used.

Re: Google commits $1B in grants to train U.S. workers for high-tech jobs

#328
post #321
post #268

Google spends what, upwards of $10B a year on software engineer salary and benefits? So, seems like a good deal. If they can spend $1B and decrease salary’s and benefits by at least 10% over a few years, they get return on investment.

Why would salaries or benefits decrease?

Law of supply and demand. More supply, steady demand => More bargaining power on the side of the company.

Re: Google commits $1B in grants to train U.S. workers for high-tech jobs

#329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure all the gender studies classes has helped the vast majority of tech students become better developers

Given all the stuff that's happening lately with people like Susan Fowler, a whole lot of developers could have benefitted from more of those. Of course, that's completely ignoring that there is far, far, far more to "liberal arts" than gender studies.

Diversity training doesn't work though and it often makes things worse.

https://hbr.org/2012/03/diversity-training-doesnt-work

Re: Google commits $1B in grants to train U.S. workers for high-tech jobs

#330

It's never been easier to get training in all sorts of things, for free. For example, I'm currently taking MIT's 6.002 electronics course because I never learned circuit analysis properly. It's on youtube, it's free, I watch it anytime. There's the Khan Academy, too.

Training often requires other resources besides one-way communication. A professor who only lectured and didn't otherwise interact with students would be a bad, ineffective teacher.

This is how most of uni lectures are. The only interaction you get is badly answered questions that would not have been asked if it was to possible to pause or rewind the lecture.
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