Is The Silicon Valley Talent Shortage Getting Worse? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is The Silicon Valley Talent Shortage Getting Worse?

#101

Post by hga » Thu, Nov 11, 2010, 3:39 PM UTC

nhashem wrote: post #16

I have a theory that the dot-com bust in 2000 and the outsourcing/offshoring hype in 2004ish basically wiped out two generations of computer science students. I graduated in 2004 and I remember the number of students in my major decreased dramatically between my freshman and sophomore year (some of that is the usual engineering major attrition, but I didn't see nearly the same decline as my friends in electrical/mech…

Could be. For hard numbers, the dot.com/fiber-telecom bust caused MIT's EECS enrollment to crash from 400 students per class, a number that had been stable for more than 2 decades, to less than 200. It's now gotten a bit better (a bit over 200), but no one expects a return to the glory days. As I recall reading somewhere recently, overall nationally the effect was the same, from 20,000 to 10,000 majors annually granted.

I'd also add one big factor: despite the poo-pooing by some of age discrimination, it's very real and when your parents or friends of your parents tell you from harsh experience that your career will be over when you reach 35-40 years of age, you listen if you have any sense.

Of course, now the name of the game is to get a good starting job, period. I suspect that has more than a little to do with the slight recent upturn.

Re: Is The Silicon Valley Talent Shortage Getting Worse?

#102

Post by variety » Fri, Nov 12, 2010, 3:14 AM UTC

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).

Could you define what you mean by a great engineer, please?

Re: Is The Silicon Valley Talent Shortage Getting Worse?

#103

Post by dschobel » Fri, Nov 12, 2010, 9:22 PM UTC

patrickaljord wrote: post #91

dschobel wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But at Facebook and Twitter the chance to become very wealthy within the next few years is substantially greater than at Google.

So why do you feel the need to call it an "advertising company"? Or was that a snarky anti-google comment? ;)

That wasn't me.