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What unemployment? Nothing like that in United States of Software

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Re: What unemployment? Nothing like that in United States of Software

#51

Post by tptacek »

Locke1689 wrote: post #48
patio11 wrote: post #41

Don’t mention this in the software industry especially startups, the situation is almost the complete opposite with demand for qualified engineers more than twice the supply. At the price startups are willing to pay, naturally. I imagine demand exceeds supply for doctors willing to work for $30k + equity + copious free beer, too. I know a lot of people feel that $80k or $120k for developers is quite generous. It may…

I hope so, but the problem I see is that new grads (I include myself here) are willing to work for 80k, while it's not that much of a stretch to say that the best graduates will be almost as productive in a few years as they will be in 7 or 8 years. That doesn't, however, automatically mean a commensurate salary increase, so developer salaries are kept perpetually lower than they should be. How can employers and empl…

In 1994, when I first entered the job market, $80k/year was a ridiculous number, reserved for people with unattainable-sounding skills like "PowerBuilder". Point being: look at the trend line, not the spot price. New grads today will accept $80k. Five years from now, if the market retains this level of heat, will they continue to do so?

Re: What unemployment? Nothing like that in United States of Software

#52

Post by patio11 »

Locke1689 wrote: post #48
patio11 wrote: post #41

Don’t mention this in the software industry especially startups, the situation is almost the complete opposite with demand for qualified engineers more than twice the supply. At the price startups are willing to pay, naturally. I imagine demand exceeds supply for doctors willing to work for $30k + equity + copious free beer, too. I know a lot of people feel that $80k or $120k for developers is quite generous. It may…

I hope so, but the problem I see is that new grads (I include myself here) are willing to work for 80k, while it's not that much of a stretch to say that the best graduates will be almost as productive in a few years as they will be in 7 or 8 years. That doesn't, however, automatically mean a commensurate salary increase, so developer salaries are kept perpetually lower than they should be. How can employers and empl…

If X is repeatedly cheaper than what it should be, you should buy it instead of selling it.

Anyhow, if I'm reading you right, you think that the best college grad in 2019 will be about as good as you are in 2019, causing your salary to decrease? If I'm reading that right, you will have a very interesting eight years in industry and not worry about new college graduates ever again.

Generic career advice for every engineer: broaden skill set, get reassigned to a profit center, negotiate aggressively on comp.

Re: What unemployment? Nothing like that in United States of Software

#53

Post by tptacek »

geebee wrote: post #36
kabdib wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree on "tough math". Strongly disagree. Be analytical, practical and tenacious. Know how to abstract, design, program. Know tools, know platforms. Know how to triage and actually ship stuff. Be good to work with. Keep learning, constantly. Read tons of code. But "tough math"? Honestly, haven't needed anything more than simple statistics for most problems. "Tough math" seems more like an ego thing. I'd watch out…

I agree. Even as a math major myself, I have only needed formal math when math was part of the domain knowledge. Math is a great major, but I think you can be an absolutely top programmer with a degree in a different subject or no degree at all. I mentioned this because if you want to be the kind of programmer with a CS or related degree, you'll need to be very good at math.

You do not need to be very good at math to get a CS degree. The last role I had was in a company heavily loaded up with UMich CS grad students, none of whom could (for instance) deploy a discrete cosine transform.

There's a level of "street math" that good programmers tend to have (statistics, maybe some trig, maybe basic matrix arithmetic), but you'd be surprised how many excellent programmers don't even use algebra. A friend of mine interviewed at a very famous quant hedge fund (a decade or so ago) and shocked his interviewer by answering one of the questions with a system of equations in two variables.

Re: What unemployment? Nothing like that in United States of Software

#54

Post by tyty »

tptacek wrote: post #51
Locke1689 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope so, but the problem I see is that new grads (I include myself here) are willing to work for 80k, while it's not that much of a stretch to say that the best graduates will be almost as productive in a few years as they will be in 7 or 8 years. That doesn't, however, automatically mean a commensurate salary increase, so developer salaries are kept perpetually lower than they should be. How can employers and empl…

In 1994, when I first entered the job market, $80k/year was a ridiculous number, reserved for people with unattainable-sounding skills like "PowerBuilder". Point being: look at the trend line, not the spot price. New grads today will accept $80k. Five years from now, if the market retains this level of heat, will they continue to do so?

To be clear, $80k in 1994 is roughly $116k today with inflation - probably still on the very high end of entry level.

Re: What unemployment? Nothing like that in United States of Software

#55

Post by geebee »

tptacek wrote: post #53
geebee wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Even as a math major myself, I have only needed formal math when math was part of the domain knowledge. Math is a great major, but I think you can be an absolutely top programmer with a degree in a different subject or no degree at all. I mentioned this because if you want to be the kind of programmer with a CS or related degree, you'll need to be very good at math.

You do not need to be very good at math to get a CS degree. The last role I had was in a company heavily loaded up with UMich CS grad students, none of whom could (for instance) deploy a discrete cosine transform. There's a level of "street math" that good programmers tend to have (statistics, maybe some trig, maybe basic matrix arithmetic), but you'd be surprised how many excellent programmers don't even use algebra…

I'd expect UMich CS to be very strong. I haven't looked at the undergrad curriculum, but I'd be surprised if it doesn't require calculus through differential equations, along with some more advanced electives.

I should have defined "tough math," because a lot of people on HN have gone far enough with math that what I described above wouldn't be considered "tough". But it actually does serve as a gatekeeper for most engineering and hard science curricula, including CS.

Re: What unemployment? Nothing like that in United States of Software

#56

Post by rdouble »

geebee wrote: post #55
tptacek wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do not need to be very good at math to get a CS degree. The last role I had was in a company heavily loaded up with UMich CS grad students, none of whom could (for instance) deploy a discrete cosine transform. There's a level of "street math" that good programmers tend to have (statistics, maybe some trig, maybe basic matrix arithmetic), but you'd be surprised how many excellent programmers don't even use algebra…

I'd expect UMich CS to be very strong. I haven't looked at the undergrad curriculum, but I'd be surprised if it doesn't require calculus through differential equations, along with some more advanced electives. I should have defined "tough math," because a lot of people on HN have gone far enough with math that what I described above wouldn't be considered "tough". But it actually does serve as a gatekeeper for most e…

One can get through the required classes without being any good at them. Wannabe doctors take 2 years of chemistry as premeds and promptly forget it all when finals are over.

That said, I've never seen a CS degree that required any more math than a year of calc and maybe a semester of linear algebra. That doesn't seem so hard, one just has to keep up with the homework. Maybe you are thinking of computer engineering?

Re: What unemployment? Nothing like that in United States of Software

#57

Post by tptacek »

tyty wrote: post #54
tptacek wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 1994, when I first entered the job market, $80k/year was a ridiculous number, reserved for people with unattainable-sounding skills like "PowerBuilder". Point being: look at the trend line, not the spot price. New grads today will accept $80k. Five years from now, if the market retains this level of heat, will they continue to do so?

To be clear, $80k in 1994 is roughly $116k today with inflation - probably still on the very high end of entry level.

Entry level? $80k was for a spectacularly senior position. $35k sounds about right for degreed entry level dev jobs in '94.

Re: What unemployment? Nothing like that in United States of Software

#58

Post by shoota »

nuromancer wrote: post #43
shoota wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're correct for general problem solving in computer science. However, in order to get a degree from most universities you have to have taken 3 courses in calculus, a course in linear algebra and a course in differential equations. To most people those courses are "tough math".

If you are seeking a masters in CS most universities are only looking for programming languages, computer architecture, data structures and one algorithms course. These are the prerequisites for most courses.

That's true I'm just speaking from experience of looking at many undergraduate computer science programs in the United States. They all generally require some "tough math", and I think they should because that sort of analytic thinking in solving complex mathematical problems applies directly to computer science.

Re: What unemployment? Nothing like that in United States of Software

#59

Post by m0nastic »

tptacek wrote: post #57
tyty wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, $80k in 1994 is roughly $116k today with inflation - probably still on the very high end of entry level.

Entry level? $80k was for a spectacularly senior position. $35k sounds about right for degreed entry level dev jobs in '94.

It's not quite equivalent, but in '98, I was thrilled when I got a job as a network engineer for 40k (in Boston). At the time it seemed like more money than I knew what to do with (I very quickly became much more imaginative).

Re: What unemployment? Nothing like that in United States of Software

#60

Post by hga »

nuromancer wrote: post #43
shoota wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're correct for general problem solving in computer science. However, in order to get a degree from most universities you have to have taken 3 courses in calculus, a course in linear algebra and a course in differential equations. To most people those courses are "tough math".

If you are seeking a masters in CS most universities are only looking for programming languages, computer architecture, data structures and one algorithms course. These are the prerequisites for most courses.

An ABET accredited CS major requires learning the calculus and probably somewhat beyond the AP BC level plus a course in discrete math. And maybe a bit more, you can check out their web site at http://www.abet.org/
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