Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Is The Silicon Valley Talent Shortage Getting Worse?

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 103 posts

Re: Is The Silicon Valley Talent Shortage Getting Worse?

#61

Post by kls »

Retric wrote: post #58
kls wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software engineering is technical, sure, but it's not that hard It actually is, have you ever notices the absolute void of developers over the age of 40? People yell age discrimination but it is not true, it is the constant churn in ones life. From constantly reeducating yourself to stay relevant to the next emergency that requires 16 hrs 7 days a week for 2 months. It requires a passion for technology just to fulfil…

The real issues is the total number of Software dev's has increased dramatically over time so if you look for someone with 25 years of experience you need to realize 25 years ago the industry was smaller. Also while there are plenty of older developers the good ones are expensive because they know they are really worth every penny. PS: It's a true eye opener to see someone making 500$ an hour working a 40 hour week a…

It's a true eye opener to see someone making 500$ an hour working a 40 hour week and know they could raise their rates

Right some how we make the moral argument that one person should not be making that much. But when you realize a good developer can do the work of a team. Because the how you do it, is more important than how much you do of it. Couple that with the fact that a developer can automate 100-1000 peoples jobs and the true value of their labor starts to take form.

Re: Is The Silicon Valley Talent Shortage Getting Worse?

#62

Post by illumin8 »

GFischer wrote: post #47
aneth wrote: post #30

The developers I know are mostly trying to be founder level at a startup. I actually feel sorry every time I run into a company trying to hire a Rails developer because I feel their pain. What's the solution for you companies desperate to hire? In my opinion, your outlook on equity needs to change. It's regular practice to offer a "rock star" developer 0.25% of your pre-diluted shares when you have $2M dollars in the…

"What's the solution for you companies desperate to hire?" How about looking abroad? I know, it's fraught with perils, but as someone from "abroad" from the U.S. point of view, it needn't be that bad. And your dollars will go a LONG way in hiring top talent (of course, you need someone local or whom you trust to choose the top talent. 90% of the local programmers are crappy too!).

You can't hire an H1B unless you are willing to document that you were unable to find local talent that had the required skill set. HR departments usually work around this by wording the job requirement in such a way that only their hand-picked H1B applicant has every exact skill. "Oh, you need a Python/Django/Ruby/Java guy with 2 years .NET? I just happen to have a resume with that exact skill set in front of me; so strange that we wrote the job opening like that..."

Expect to pay about $10-20K extra just to hire an H1B because of all of this extra paperwork and documentation, as well as hope he wins the H1B lottery.

Re: Is The Silicon Valley Talent Shortage Getting Worse?

#63

Post by illumin8 »

carterac wrote: post #7

The valley?? The real story of talent drought is in New York City. Recently there has been a gigantic explosion of startups with lots of funding, but _very_ few great engineers available. As CEO of a just-funded tech startup, I am budgeting ~70% of my time to personally recruit a Lead Developer and Senior Software Engineer (despite having a technical background myself).

As an engineer from the NYC market myself, I know what you are going through. We have a hard time finding good engineers because the banks are paying $50-100K annual bonuses, plus six-digit base salaries.

It's hard for a startup to compete with that.

Re: Is The Silicon Valley Talent Shortage Getting Worse?

#64

Post by tarmstrong »

kls wrote: post #61
Retric wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real issues is the total number of Software dev's has increased dramatically over time so if you look for someone with 25 years of experience you need to realize 25 years ago the industry was smaller. Also while there are plenty of older developers the good ones are expensive because they know they are really worth every penny. PS: It's a true eye opener to see someone making 500$ an hour working a 40 hour week a…

It's a true eye opener to see someone making 500$ an hour working a 40 hour week and know they could raise their rates Right some how we make the moral argument that one person should not be making that much. But when you realize a good developer can do the work of a team. Because the how you do it, is more important than how much you do of it. Couple that with the fact that a developer can automate 100-1000 peoples…

Who makes the moral argument that one person should not be making that much?

Re: Is The Silicon Valley Talent Shortage Getting Worse?

#65

Post by illumin8 »

rrival wrote: post #42
awt wrote: post #41

As a programmer it's always fun to be in a good job market. However, I do get a bit concerned about bubbles when things get overheated like this. I suppose the best one can do is save for the downturn and build up some great experience for when the market inevitably gets tougher and the rounds of layoffs start.

Bubble? Overheated? Aren't we recovering from a broader downturn? Or are you suggesting that we're in the 3rd or 4th quadrant of the VC investment-ease curve (~2000, ~2007)?

The federal reserve is printing almost $1 trillion in "easy money" that will be lent out to businesses at close to 0% interest rates. Don't fool yourself into thinking that this money won't end up creating a bubble somewhere. It might not be a tech bubble, but it very well could be.

Re: Is The Silicon Valley Talent Shortage Getting Worse?

#66

Post by jswinghammer »

wyclif wrote: post #44
carterac wrote: post #7

The valley?? The real story of talent drought is in New York City. Recently there has been a gigantic explosion of startups with lots of funding, but _very_ few great engineers available. As CEO of a just-funded tech startup, I am budgeting ~70% of my time to personally recruit a Lead Developer and Senior Software Engineer (despite having a technical background myself).

It could be because you are not paying enough. NYC is an expensive and unpleasant place to live for some people, esp. if they are from other cities in the US.

Yeah this was the problem I ran into when I was being recruited by a few companies in NYC a few years ago. I live in Boston but they weren't willing or able to help me relocate and weren't willing to pay me anything close to what I could make at another job here in Boston.

Re: Is The Silicon Valley Talent Shortage Getting Worse?

#67

Post by matwood »

seldo wrote: post #20

The national unemployment rate is over 9% while Silicon Valley is fighting tooth-and-claw to hire. What's wrong with this picture? Software engineering is technical, sure, but it's not that hard -- if some of the idiots I've worked with in the past could hold down jobs, then anyone can. Which dying industries should we be looking at to fill the gaps in the software industry?

Software engineering is technical, sure, but it's not that hard

It's easy for you or I or most anyone on HN to say that, but my experience proves that it's not true in the general population.

Re: Is The Silicon Valley Talent Shortage Getting Worse?

#68

Post by GFischer »

illumin8 wrote: post #62
GFischer wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"What's the solution for you companies desperate to hire?" How about looking abroad? I know, it's fraught with perils, but as someone from "abroad" from the U.S. point of view, it needn't be that bad. And your dollars will go a LONG way in hiring top talent (of course, you need someone local or whom you trust to choose the top talent. 90% of the local programmers are crappy too!).

You can't hire an H1B unless you are willing to document that you were unable to find local talent that had the required skill set. HR departments usually work around this by wording the job requirement in such a way that only their hand-picked H1B applicant has every exact skill. "Oh, you need a Python/Django/Ruby/Java guy with 2 years .NET? I just happen to have a resume with that exact skill set in front of me; so…

I was thinking more along the lines of hiring people or teams for working remotely (which has its own set of problems, but it's still cheaper and could get better talent).

Re: Is The Silicon Valley Talent Shortage Getting Worse?

#69

Post by untamedmedley »

There is no pipeline. I see lots of comments about how entry level developers are useless. No one wants to train the next gen of developers, so companies are fighting over a smaller and smaller pool of people.

The only way to get any experience seems to be to start your own company. Which is great for the person who goes off and does it, but not smart for the company trying to hire them.

If employers don't want to waste money investing in entry-level positions, why waste it investing in someone who has made it clear they want to work for themselves?

Pay less, train more.

Re: Is The Silicon Valley Talent Shortage Getting Worse?

#70

Post by GFischer »

jscore wrote: post #24
seldo wrote: post #20

The national unemployment rate is over 9% while Silicon Valley is fighting tooth-and-claw to hire. What's wrong with this picture? Software engineering is technical, sure, but it's not that hard -- if some of the idiots I've worked with in the past could hold down jobs, then anyone can. Which dying industries should we be looking at to fill the gaps in the software industry?

I have never met anyone who was not technical and then became a coder. In pre-2000 dot.com you could've gotten a job with a word 'Internet' on your resume, but nowadays you should at least know decent coding.

My googling skills are failing me, but there was an article that had some data on the number of people in the "hard" sciences moving into the "soft" sciences, and the number of people that went the other way.

Not surprisingly, it was basically a one-way street.

(It also reminds me of http://xkcd.com/435/ )

Addendum: For the difference between hard and soft science, see http://clustertwo.org/articles/Strong%20Inference%20%28Platt... - the hard sciences are the ones based on the "strong inference" defined there

Post reply on HN