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Ask HN: Finding tech talent is getting harder. It's not a Bay Area problem only

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Re: Ask HN: Finding tech talent is getting harder. It's not a Bay Area problem only

#51

Post by SJMosley »

As a product manager, I have gotten to the last round of multiple interviews (3 or more, meeting full teams and different departments).

Then been turned down as they are "going with other candidates", only to see the job reposted. This has happened on multiple occasions.

Maybe I wasn't the right person for the role. One specific role has now been up for 5 months. Which likely means the company is looking for an unrealistic set of requirements that no one can meet instead of training appropriately.

In my opinion, the person that will come in and solve all your problems without training does not exist. Make a decision and be okay with letting a new employee get familiar with your company and industry.

Re: Ask HN: Finding tech talent is getting harder. It's not a Bay Area problem only

#52

Post by mattkrause »

I'm not sure I believe this.

Find a random research university near you. It is chock-a-block full of people, most of whom are very smart and many of whom can code. Since everyone other than tenured profs has a precarious, low-paying job, this should be a fairly easy pool to recruit from.

Nevertheless, I, a staff scientist in a computational field, get messages from (maybe) 3-4 recruiters a year, all of whom are from huge companies. It would be good to hear from more places and it would great to hear from places that are willing to consider my actual experience (look at my code, hear about my data analysis) instead of asking me to dredge up half-remembered tricks from my undergrad data structures class.

Re: Ask HN: Finding tech talent is getting harder. It's not a Bay Area problem only

#53

Post by andy_adams »

wool_gather wrote: post #47
andy_adams wrote: post #17

When I look for a job, I spend time investigating companies who align with my experience, goals, etc - regardless of whether or not they're actively hiring. Consider doing the inverse: Contact developers who may not be looking, but who align with your company well. It's flattering to hear from someone who is genuinely interested in hiring me - if you're interested in _me_, I might consider you even if I wasn't planni…

This seems similar to the "hire from your network" that was mentioned in the OP. Or, to rephrase, how do you find/target these developers?

I mean outside of your network - people you wouldn't normally get referrals for. LinkedIn in a starting point, then researching an individual (Github profile, Twitter, personal website, etc) to learn more. This will obviously only work if the dev has a public life.

Re: Ask HN: Finding tech talent is getting harder. It's not a Bay Area problem only

#54

Post by wool_gather »

nakedrobot2 wrote: post #39
cletus wrote: post #15

There is no such thing as a labour shortage. There is only an unwillingness to pay. If you can't afford to attract talent at market rates then your business model as it is exists isn't viable. A big aspect to this is that the equity lottery of startups is largely gone because companies going public is increasingly rare, companies stay private longer (which presents real problems for the liquidity of employee options)…

Yes there is such a thing as a labor shortage. When unemployment is below 3% (as in the czech republic) there literally aren't any workers available. No I'm not going to pay someone $30/hour to paint my house, and i'm not going to pay $250/hour to some fresh graduate to hack some node.js.

I don't want to pay what I pay for housing, either, but I prefer having a roof over my head. Complaining about it is totally fair, but at some point you have to adjust to the facts on the ground if you want the thing.

Re: Ask HN: Finding tech talent is getting harder. It's not a Bay Area problem only

#55

Post by maxsilver »

daveFNbuck wrote: post #18
aantix wrote: post #10

This problem is no longer exclusive to the Bay Area. Hiring is time-consuming and expensive, and many startups feel that they can’t compete with some of the top salaries and perks offered by deep-pocketed alternatives. Offer to teach the developer something. "Java developers - want to learn Node and React?" "Rails developers - want to learn Elixir?" Get one senior person on staff who really knows the stack well and r…

If good developers want to level up their skills, how do you keep the senior developer who you've turned into a tutor happy?

> how do you keep the senior developer who you've turned into a tutor happy?

Pay them well, and give them a regular chunk of (paid) time to work on something that furthers their growth / is intellectually stimulating / whatever.

Re: Ask HN: Finding tech talent is getting harder. It's not a Bay Area problem only

#56

Post by quantumhobbit »

Many here are commenting that you should pay more and that is true. But how about not wasting the talent you already have?

I’ve had several jobs from startups to big companies and I have never been utilized at anything close to 100% of my potential.

Try getting rid of pointless meetings, distracting open offices, insane IT policies, and needlessly overcomplicated architectures. You may not even need to hire any more enigineers if the ones you have are more productive.

Re: Ask HN: Finding tech talent is getting harder. It's not a Bay Area problem only

#57

Post by wool_gather »

blizkreeg wrote: post #16
edhowzerblack wrote: post #2

As a developer who has recently been through the hiring process, I think the problem is not a shortage of talent, but rather that companies are awful at hiring. Here are a few of the main issues: 1. Don't limit your potential talent pool to the miserable and the unemployed. In theory, any developer who is currently employed might be interested in leaving their job to work for you. Perhaps you will offer them more mon…

I'd like to talk more about (1). We do a homework assignment that in fact does takes a few hours, but only for candidates who don't have experience developing in our core stack. If you can code in the languages and frameworks we use, it's a step we bypass. It tells us if they can solve a problem well using the tools and setup of their choice. If we clearly see they did well at this, the on-site can then focus on the…

> If you can code in the languages and frameworks we use, it's a step we bypass.

Curious; can you say more about how you judge this? Isn't that sort of the point of the homework in the first place?

Re: Ask HN: Finding tech talent is getting harder. It's not a Bay Area problem only

#58

Post by malvosenior »

hichamin wrote: post #12
vonmoltke wrote: post #8

> This problem is no longer exclusive to the Bay Area. When people question why so many companies start or stay in the Bay Area, "density of talent" inevitably comes up as one of the reasons. I can't reconcile that assertion with this one here.

I agree, Silicon Valley is the mecca of engineering talent. However, the demand for that talent greatly outranks the supply. With that being said, how can a seed or even a Series A startup stand out and be able to attract engineers when Facebook & Google are next door? Even better, how can a startup retain its engineer that's probably getting x10 inboxes a day from other companies with better packages? I'm not challe…

You have to pay competitively. If you can't afford to pay FB level salaries then you either didn't raise enough money or you have to be willing to part with serious equity. I think the days of founders retaining as much stock as they traditionally have are over. You'll need to start compensating your developers like you would execs. If you think about it, it actually makes sense. Execs add value by scaling up an organization of people. Devs add value by scaling up an organization of code and machines. In fact if you think about it like that, devs should probably be getting paid more than non-technical executives.

Re: Ask HN: Finding tech talent is getting harder. It's not a Bay Area problem only

#59

Post by silveroriole »

murph wrote: post #30
daveFNbuck wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If good developers want to level up their skills, how do you keep the senior developer who you've turned into a tutor happy?

Mentorship and teaching are also valuable skills. Many good senior engineers would love to focus on them if their employer recognized it as valuable.

Is that really true? Maybe some, but I don’t know about “many”. I’d imagine when most people start on their dev career, they don’t imagine their dream job to be “teaching,” they imagine it to be coding. I think you’d have a tough time getting responses for a “senior engineer” job ad that says you’ll actually be a full time mentor.

Re: Ask HN: Finding tech talent is getting harder. It's not a Bay Area problem only

#60

Post by blizkreeg »

wool_gather wrote: post #57
blizkreeg wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to talk more about (1). We do a homework assignment that in fact does takes a few hours, but only for candidates who don't have experience developing in our core stack. If you can code in the languages and frameworks we use, it's a step we bypass. It tells us if they can solve a problem well using the tools and setup of their choice. If we clearly see they did well at this, the on-site can then focus on the…

> If you can code in the languages and frameworks we use, it's a step we bypass. Curious; can you say more about how you judge this? Isn't that sort of the point of the homework in the first place?

Judge if they can code in our core stack? Well, if they're working with it in their current job, or in side projects. Assessing if they are good, we can do it in the on-site. Like I said, our on-site is based on knowing our stack, so we have to make sure they can work with it before we bring them in.
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