Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I think I know why you can't hire engineers right now

cushychicken.github.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 927 posts

Re: I think I know why you can't hire engineers right now

#111

Post by bagels »

rsweeney21 wrote: post #102
Waterluvian wrote: post #15

I’ve gotten 7 recruitment emails since Sunday and none of them have come close to sufficiently explaining what the company or job is for me to even consider responding. It’s bizarre how secretive they are. I imagine the recruiters are looking out for their own interests. Recruiters are in the way.

It’s because if you apply directly, they don’t get paid for their work. So they hide the details until you talk to them. I’m a software engineer that started a recruiting company. The current state of the industry is pretty bad. We are trying a different approach- we are transparent. We share all the details about the company right out of the gate. Including salary info. We refuse to work with companies that won’t le…

Played with the search. Hard to evaluate on salary alone, especially for senior roles if equity is part of the offer. Showing equity as well may help (percent times last valuation)

Re: I think I know why you can't hire engineers right now

#112

Post by anonporridge »

tharkun__ wrote: post #97
anonporridge wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The absolute value of your salary doesn't tell you anything about how long it takes to get to retirement (or more accurately, financial independence). That's exclusively a function of your spending and saving rates. https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-si...

I don't think that is accurate. I would say it is a combination of both. The article you link to obviously makes it sound like it's an exclusive function. But it simply dismisses the fact that not everyone can reasonably sustain the savings rates mentioned. Sure, there's reports of very motivated people that live on next to nothing and have a huge savings rate for the first 10 years of their working life, abstaining…

We all have to make the choice between prioritizing creature comforts and freedom.

I chose freedom. While my colleagues were living in fancy high rise apartments, buying new gaming rigs and cars, taking extravagant international vacations, and getting married and having kids, I was living in a basement studio with my college mattress on the floor and no car for several years while biking to work.

I'm retired and they're still slaving away with no end in sight.

No risk and sacrifice, no reward.

Re: I think I know why you can't hire engineers right now

#113

Post by hamandcheese »

schmookeeg wrote: post #62
Waterluvian wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Why would I skip the recruiter and apply directly unless the recruiter is a non-helpful middleman? I’d love to have a direct contact to negotiate the whole process.

If you have ever met a recruiter who was NOT an unhelpful middleman, I'd love to meet them. My spam folder is filled daily with dozens of body-shop spammers with 50-point scrabble names offering me jobs I don't do in places I won't live for money I haven't made since I quit my newspaper route in college. It's maddening and has been very consistent throughout my career. I've toyed with the idea of finding a for-fee re…

Every time I’ve actually been in the pipeline at a company, I appreciated having a recruiter as my point of contact.

Re: I think I know why you can't hire engineers right now

#114

Post by lostcolony »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #39
reikonomusha wrote: post #29

Purely anecdotal: In my experience as a hiring manager seeing trends change over the past 10 years, and selecting from the top 10% of candidates by some vague metric, it's primarily about "does it pay a lot" and secondarily "does it offer full-remote"? A lot of my friends, former colleagues, and candidates I've failed to hire end up going to either a FAANG or a very successful brand-name company (typically a SV compa…

I was looking for this comment. The OP and the current top comment seem to think that many engineers wouldn't jump for 10-20K increases. While that is true if they are in a good role, many salary increases from jumping are high double digits right now. Compensation, WLB, and benefits matter FAR FAR more for the majority of people than "good projects" or "smart colleagues". If you want those and can't get it in your j…

One other thing - in evaluating a new role, the thing I can be SURE of...is comp. Everything else is a nicety, but I can't rely on it.

So if I'm looking to jump...well, either my current environment isn't great, or the salary is enough to attract me. There is no situation where my current environment is good, and you offer me a salary comparable to what I'm making, and I would make the jump, because you are a -complete unknown-.

So you can talk to me about the brilliance of my colleagues, the amazing projects, the great work/life balance, the autonomy to work on what matters in the most efficient way possible...and all of that might be true. Or it might not be. I've been lied to by hiring managers in the past, both intentionally and unintentionally. But ultimately the only thing I can truly rely on, that is protected by law, is compensation.

Re: I think I know why you can't hire engineers right now

#116

Post by digianarchist »

polymatter wrote: post #109
digianarchist wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny that most of my high school buddies grind their jobs for a paycheck, but as a software developer I'm supposed to "find a company I'm passionate about" so work "has meaning". Hard lessons I learned over the last 24 months: - Titles don't matter. Promotions provide minimal pay increases. It's better to focus on finding another job. - Job difficulty doesn't scale linearly with salary. I'm working roughly the…

What are RSUs?

Restricted Stock Units

Re: I think I know why you can't hire engineers right now

#119

Post by 88913527 »

MattGaiser wrote: post #69
synergy20 wrote: post #37

It's a tight labor market now, not just engineer positions. as far as engineer or IT jobs are concerned, I have been wondering for years: is the root cause that we can't produce enough STEM graduates? starting from k-12. I have no strong evidence, but my current company could not even find candidates(we're doing chip design), in the past it would have to work with H1B workers but covid19 made that a slow and impossib…

STEM doesn't retain people, particularly women (only one woman I know that I graduated with is still a tech worker) and plenty of others got tired of taking orders from project managers and decided to become them or go found something. A lot of people think that as software engineers they get to develop the product. In practice, I have mostly been an ticket processing Oompa Loompa. You can get some input, but that re…

It depends on the engineer. Some are interested in steering the direction of the product, but a majority are not. Coming in, picking up Jira tickets, and clocking out is enough for many software engineers. I don't blame them, and in fact it's probably a good thing; too many cooks in the kitchen becomes problematic.

Re: I think I know why you can't hire engineers right now

#120

Post by KerryJones »

polymatter wrote: post #109
digianarchist wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny that most of my high school buddies grind their jobs for a paycheck, but as a software developer I'm supposed to "find a company I'm passionate about" so work "has meaning". Hard lessons I learned over the last 24 months: - Titles don't matter. Promotions provide minimal pay increases. It's better to focus on finding another job. - Job difficulty doesn't scale linearly with salary. I'm working roughly the…

What are RSUs?

Restricted Stock Units: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/restricted-stock-unit.a...

"The term restricted stock unit (RSU) refers to a form of compensation issued by an employer to an employee in the form of company shares. Restricted stock units are issued to employees through a vesting plan and distribution schedule after they achieve required performance milestones or upon remaining with their employer for a particular length of time. RSUs give employees interest in company stock but no tangible value until vesting is complete. The RSUs are assigned a fair market value (FMV) when they vest. They are considered income once vested, and a portion of the shares is withheld to pay income taxes. The employee receives the remaining shares and can sell them at their discretion."

Post reply on HN