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Darpa: US Geek Shortage Is National Security Risk

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Re: Darpa: US Geek Shortage Is National Security Risk

#41

Post by cbailey »

ww520 wrote: post #18

It really is simple economic at work here. When lawyers, doctors, investment bankers, or managers got paid much higher than engineers, why would smart native born Americans want to be engineers? Engineers are populated with smart people who don't have verbal fluency in English, i.e. smart first generation immigrants or smart foreigners.

If these people really thought about it, they would see that the market is flooded with lawyers and screaming for quality engineers of all kinds. I know this because my wife is in law school and the law schools are admitting and churning out more lawyers than ever despite many law jobs dissolving into thin air.

Re: Darpa: US Geek Shortage Is National Security Risk

#42

Post by sliverstorm »

catch23 wrote: post #10
sp_ wrote: post #6

German, Romanian, Vietnamese-American (1st generation immigrant), Chinese-American (1st generation immigrant), Spanish, Iranian, French, Australian, South African, Indian, British, Russian. What's that? The nationalities of the people who sit in my hallway in the computer security department of one of the biggest software companies in the United States. OK, admittedly there also four or five true red-blooded American…

What's wrong with being international? My parents were once international geeks -- their company sponsored their green card and they've been living in the States for over 50 years. They both received their PhD's from US universities and work in research firms. They consider themselves more American than any other "true" red blooded American even though they weren't born here. I think the real problem is our immigrati…

It's not that there's anything wrong with internationals, but rather that when a team of 12 has 11 internationals you know that our country is having issues sustaining it's own tech sector. We may not always be able to ship in brilliant minds from Moscow and Berlin and Bombay to save our butts.

Re: Darpa: US Geek Shortage Is National Security Risk

#44

Post by peripitea »

econo_girl wrote: post #4

I think this really comes down to basic economics. Talking about a "shortage" of something is equivalent to saying the market isn't clearing: that there's more demand than supply. And having more demand than supply is equivalent to the price being too low. Salaries for developers, inflation-adjusted, have remained essentially the same since the dot-com boom. Meanwhile, salaries for bankers and consultants and lawyers…

Yeah, I don't have data to back this, but my gut tells me that big software companies' consumer surplus on payroll is significantly higher than it is in other knowledge industries, i.e. Microsoft/Google/etc. aren't paying you nearly as much as they'd be willing to.

I think that's part of the reason talent acquisitions are becoming increasingly common -- you can't just pay new hires 50-200% more than what everyone around them is making, because that would infuriate existing employees. But if you pay them that same figure via a talent acquisition, none of your current employees will care much because they can mentally file it under "special cases".

Re: Darpa: US Geek Shortage Is National Security Risk

#45

Post by pnathan »

keiferski wrote: post #30
pnathan wrote: post #5

I suggest working to deprecate the glorification of sports stars, actors, rock musicians, and other careers that don't contribute to the advancement of humanity. Demonstrate the wonders of STEM fields, and do so in a non-hokey manner (I've seen the government ads and the ACM ads, they are terrible). Instead of bubble-heads on the evening news, work to have thoughtful people providing the voice of the country. Work to…

I'm with you on the athletes, but actors and musicians don't contribute to the advancement of humanity? I'm sorry, but you're quite mistaken. The notion that only technical fields are valuable is a very, very short-sighted mentality. Both technical and non-technical people provide value, and the proper way to get more of both isn't to attack those that are unlike you.

Engineers and scientists provide better water and better food. Actors and musicians do neither. I consider that pretty valuable.

That said, it's a question of balance. And it's also a question of not accepting all things as of equal value, which is required for progress.

Re: Darpa: US Geek Shortage Is National Security Risk

#46

Post by WoundedMarlin »

pnathan wrote: post #5

I suggest working to deprecate the glorification of sports stars, actors, rock musicians, and other careers that don't contribute to the advancement of humanity. Demonstrate the wonders of STEM fields, and do so in a non-hokey manner (I've seen the government ads and the ACM ads, they are terrible). Instead of bubble-heads on the evening news, work to have thoughtful people providing the voice of the country. Work to…

These days the media pushes sports and actors more and more. They show being a TV or Movie star you can make a lot of money. What they do not show is that there are 1,000's and 1,000's of people trying to do that same thing that never make it anywhere.

This is the same thing for sports and even less make it to the big leagues and make the money that you see the stars make these days.

I have to agree that there needs to be a push to make computers and science more appealing to the younger generation. The more we can show that engineers and scientist are not labeled geeks the more we will get the younger generation test out the different fields.

Re: Darpa: US Geek Shortage Is National Security Risk

#47

Post by masterzora »

mattdeboard wrote: post #27
ww520 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever I read "smart & passionate," I see "smart & willing to work for less."

Demanding equitable compensation falls under the rubric of "smart." If you're willing to work for pay below market value, you're not smart, therefore don't meet the "smart and passionate" condition.

If we follow that reasoning, all early-stage startups are screwed since they don't have any smart people working for them!

Re: Darpa: US Geek Shortage Is National Security Risk

#48

Post by floppydisk »

lawtguy wrote: post #20

I think there's three reasons that there's a shortage of U.S. CS graduates: 1) Dot-com bust: Lots of people jumped into CS when it looked like being a programmer was a easy way to become a millionaire. When it became obvious that wasn't going to happen for most CS graduates and there was a glut of talent in the market, people switched to something else. 2) Outsourcing: Right on top of the dot-com bust was the trend t…

Issue 4) CS Curriculum is bland at the introductory level. Having worked with students in the 100/200 level courses recently, very few actually intended to pursue it as a major. They cited the intro teachers as one of the main reasons why. Boring CS teacher vs. dynamic and engaging liberal arts professor? Yes, I realize this isn't always true, but it was certainly a reinforced stereotype at my uni.

Issue 5) Interesting work is hard to come by. When I was interviewing, I saw several companies whose work I found interesting and made sure I got to know people who influenced hiring. Nothing came of those applications and I ended up going into what you might call one of those mega software houses. That is to say, even with a shortage of CS majors, finding a job doing work you--as a computer scientist--find interesting is difficult.

Re: Darpa: US Geek Shortage Is National Security Risk

#49

Post by ahi »

sp_ wrote: post #6

German, Romanian, Vietnamese-American (1st generation immigrant), Chinese-American (1st generation immigrant), Spanish, Iranian, French, Australian, South African, Indian, British, Russian. What's that? The nationalities of the people who sit in my hallway in the computer security department of one of the biggest software companies in the United States. OK, admittedly there also four or five true red-blooded American…

Compared to doctors and lawyers, engineers have pretty crappy salaries. If you are smart and in it for the money, you don't go into engineering.

Re: Darpa: US Geek Shortage Is National Security Risk

#50

Post by floppydisk »

angryasian wrote: post #26
programminggeek wrote: post #17

I think that part of the problem is in how geeks are trained and what they work on. For example, think of all the software people go go to school, learn java, and then build big ugly enterprise bank, insurance, whatever software inside some megacorp that nobody cares about. Most end users of said software don't like it and have zero appreciation for the people who made it. Outside of Silicon Valley being a geek isn't…

this is a terrible post on several levels. first none of the apps are magical, they are all sites that are fun. Time wasters as some people may call it. There is a huge difference between apps for productivity and having fun. In the end being productive is not always fun. Claiming some languages are not geeky enough is super ignorant. As long as the person is coding out of some level of enjoyment is all that matters.…

I'm down for hacking on kernel code and learning the guts of an OS!

I do think the grandparent has a valid point though. Most enterprise corporations do treat IT / development as plug and play instead of "engineers." I think enterprise coding would be fascinating, but they are stuck in a language and platform rut (PHP/Java/C# and something else whose name escapes me) and don't let the engineers explore other solutions to problems outside of those silos.

Some of the enterprise challenges -- scaling for instance -- are quite fascinating problems that only show up in large software projects, but to solve them one finds oneself limited to cobbling together a solution from previous solutions built on top of older solutions using the same software stack + updates. Creativity and a willingness to think outside the box is lacking in some of the larger organizations and after 20+ years of doing the same thing on almost the same platform has managed to help push geeks into the corporate IT stereotypes.

As you point out, not everyone wants to work at a startup and might enjoy the stability of a regular job. I might be one of those people, don't know yet. What I do know, is I would like to exercise some creativity and find newer and more updated ways of doing things instead of rehashing the same code in the same software stack day in and day out. But that's just me.

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