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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

#61

Post by akeefer »

cperciva wrote: post #30
maxxxxx wrote: post #10

In Germany there is the word "Schweinezyklus". Pig cycle. It's mostly prevalent in engineering. It works like this: 1. Companies complain about not having enough qualified engineers 2. Everybody gets told to get into engineering in college 3. Boom crashes. Companies lay off engineers. The new engineering graduates don't get hired and are unemployed 4. Everybody flees engineering 5. Back to step 1. I think we are at t…

I don't think this quite captures the situation. Companies aren't complaining about a lack of credentialed developers; they're complaining about a lack of competent developers. In 2000 there were far more people graduating with computing degrees than in 1995; but the average quality was far far lower. The people who suddenly found that they couldn't get jobs when the dot-com bubble burst? Most of them didn't belong i…

I finished undergrad in 2002, and no one was hiring then, even for Stanford CS grads. No one wanted people fresh out of school because there were so many unemployed engineers with 5+ years of experience that there was no incentive to take someone straight out of school.

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

#62

Post by msbarnett »

cgopalan wrote: post #40
ootachi wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we really at the point where engineers can't find jobs because they only know C++ instead of Python and Ruby web stacks? This is a bit concerning, if so.

I hope not. I have worked quite a bit on Python/Django but I am considering diving into C++ due my recent exposure of the wonderful world of graphics programming (not game development but simulation and visualization).

Nobody is going to penalize you for being the Django guy who can also hack complex C++ and knows his way around OpenGL/DirectX. Far from it, you'll look like a guy with a truly broad skill-set who can handle damn near anything.

The guys who are having trouble are the guys who decided that the knowledge they needed for their 9-5 C job was "good enough" so they stopped learning. That's what kills careers.

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

#63

Post by rdouble »

msbarnett wrote: post #62
cgopalan wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope not. I have worked quite a bit on Python/Django but I am considering diving into C++ due my recent exposure of the wonderful world of graphics programming (not game development but simulation and visualization).

Nobody is going to penalize you for being the Django guy who can also hack complex C++ and knows his way around OpenGL/DirectX. Far from it, you'll look like a guy with a truly broad skill-set who can handle damn near anything. The guys who are having trouble are the guys who decided that the knowledge they needed for their 9-5 C job was "good enough" so they stopped learning . That's what kills careers.

Stopping learning is an issue, but employment reality is more complicated. In much of the country the guy who can hack both Django, C++ and OpenGL is unemployable, and the guy who turned his brain off after getting his MCSE can easily find a job. For instance, this is a pretty typical snapshot of who's hiring in my part of the country:

http://cl.ly/2T01382O3v3L3a1x1n2r

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

#64

Post by serge2k »

rdouble wrote: post #56
geebee wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Semester of statistics required for mine.

Of course they have since dropped the stats requirement. And the calc 2 requirement. So now it's a semester of calculus and a semester of linear algebra. I guess too many people failed calculus 2 and stats.

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

#65

Post by cema »

m0nastic wrote: post #59
tptacek wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Boston area tends to have relatively low salaries, both compared to competing areas (like the Silicon Valley, NYC, and Washington-Baltimore corridor) and relative to the cost of living (real estate, primarily). The difference is not trivial.

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

#66

Post by msbarnett »

rdouble wrote: post #63
msbarnett wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody is going to penalize you for being the Django guy who can also hack complex C++ and knows his way around OpenGL/DirectX. Far from it, you'll look like a guy with a truly broad skill-set who can handle damn near anything. The guys who are having trouble are the guys who decided that the knowledge they needed for their 9-5 C job was "good enough" so they stopped learning . That's what kills careers.

Stopping learning is an issue, but employment reality is more complicated. In much of the country the guy who can hack both Django, C++ and OpenGL is unemployable, and the guy who turned his brain off after getting his MCSE can easily find a job. For instance, this is a pretty typical snapshot of who's hiring in my part of the country: http://cl.ly/2T01382O3v3L3a1x1n2r

Individual locales can have particular niche demands or simply end up as technical backwaters where employability depends entirely on your familiarity with, say VB 6.

That's mostly, I think, an argument for moving out of technical backwaters if you're in a technical career. If you let yourself be limited to skills that are more valuable in Minneapolis than the major tech hubs, you're eventually going to be stuck with skills that aren't even valuable in Minneapolis, as the "hot" tech hub technologies become mainstream and finally migrate there way out to the backwaters.

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

#67

Post by tptacek »

serge2k wrote: post #64
rdouble wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Semester of statistics required for mine. Of course they have since dropped the stats requirement. And the calc 2 requirement. So now it's a semester of calculus and a semester of linear algebra. I guess too many people failed calculus 2 and stats.

People fail stat and pass linear algebra?!

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

#68

Post by m0nastic »

cema wrote: post #65
m0nastic wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Boston area tends to have relatively low salaries, both compared to competing areas (like the Silicon Valley, NYC, and Washington-Baltimore corridor) and relative to the cost of living (real estate, primarily). The difference is not trivial.

My experiences haven't found it to be that cut-and-dry:

I moved from Boston to Silicon Valley in '99, and found it was significantly more expensive with only marginally better salary (which I was happy to accept as we would leave at lunch and go surfing, which for me was a worthwhile tradeoff).

I moved from SV to Washington DC in '01, and found the cost of living slightly less, but salaries approximately the same.

I'm now in the process of moving to NYC, and the cost of living and salaries both are a little higher (I don't really care about money though, so I'll admit that it hasn't been a factor in my moving decision).

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

#69

Post by geebee »

tptacek wrote: post #67
serge2k wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Semester of statistics required for mine. Of course they have since dropped the stats requirement. And the calc 2 requirement. So now it's a semester of calculus and a semester of linear algebra. I guess too many people failed calculus 2 and stats.

People fail stat and pass linear algebra?!

There's basic "stat" for the social sciences (nothing but arithmetic for means, medians, standard deviation, and so forth). Then there's calculus-based probability, which can be very rigorous. The CS curriculum at rigorous programs tends to require the harder, calculus-based probability. I was a math major, but there were a lot of CS and engineering students in my stats class.

BTW, even with the calculus prereq, I'd agree that linear algebra would typically be a harder class, so I definitely understand why you're surprised someone would pass Linear Algebra and fail Stats.

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

#70

Post by Locke1689 »

patio11 wrote: post #52
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…

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 engi…

Ah, sorry poor wording. What I mean is that a developer's skill increases non-linearly with experience. That is, there is a sharp spike after only a few years of working in industry. I won't argue that skill doesn't continue to increase with experience, but I think the difference between my skill in 9 years may be proportionally lower than the skill difference now and in, say, 2 years. However, employers generally seem to work on linear experience models, so if I start at $80k now, in 2 years I may get a simple cost of living + (hand-wavy) 10% salary increase, whereas if your assertion is correct I should probably be getting paid closer to the controlling market salary of >$120k. Do you think the proper way to handle this is for new developers to quit after 2 years?
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