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

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

#151

Post by anonporridge »

leeoniya wrote: post #136
anonporridge wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> getting married and having kids i have not met anyone yet who is married with kids but would have preferred an earlier retirement instead. kids are more expensive than all the other things combined that you listed - no amount of living in the basement or saving 30k on having no car is going to make up for that.

People regret having kids all the time. It's just not socially acceptable to talk about openly.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/m9vh8a/serious_p...

https://www.reddit.com/r/Parenting/comments/1wvx04/serious_d...

https://www.reddit.com/r/regretfulparents/

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

#152

Post by reikonomusha »

ldjkfkdsjnv wrote: post #129
reikonomusha wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't say for certain, but it seems there are lots of squeaky wheels about it and lots of chatter on the internet about them, but AMZN/FB/whoever else aren't actually facing any serious repercussions in terms of being able to hire. (I hope I'm wrong, because I do feel there needs to be a moral reckoning about how we technologists—whatever the specific discipline—are contributing to the world, and whether it's truly…

I think amazon is absolutely facing pressure from word getting out about working conditions. They raised their pay band for a middle level engineer 100k.

That's a great point and corroborates other stories I've heard about increasing mid-level pay. It does continue to support the thesis that is (in simplified form) "everybody has a number".

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

#153

Post by symlinkk »

caymanjim wrote: post #72
symlinkk wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must live in the sticks or something. I make well over 6 figures and can’t afford a house.

Maybe not today, if you haven't saved, but if you have no major debt now, there is noplace in the country where six figures won't allow you to buy a house once you have a downpayment. Mortgages are cheaper than rent, and you're presumably living somewhere right now.

I mean that’s kind of a tautological statement, if you have a huge down payment of course you can buy a house?

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

#154

Post by ssalazar »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #33
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.

Internal recruiters as they currently are should not exist . That's the hiring managers job, including negotiation of pay. The only roles I've ever accepted were roles that involved a hiring manager reaching out directly to me. There's a reason for this, namely that the only recruiters worth a damn seem to be working in boutique firms and want to take a significant bite out of my future pay. Really, just avoid them i…

As a hiring manager I’ve worked with internal recruiters and a good one is invaluable.

- the transactional part of setting up interview loops, coordinating schedules, etc is extremely tedious for a field of 3-5 serious candidates for a given role. Internal recruiter takes all of this away from a hiring manager who has other duties.

- an internal recruiter can plow through LinkedIn to find solid candidates, identifying ones for the hiring manager to review and, if qualified, reach out to. Again, tedious work for a hiring manager with other responsibilities.

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

#155

Post by lhorie »

loeg wrote: post #141
lhorie wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't really seen a whole lot of evidence that there's any stronger correlation between FIRE and engineers compared to other jobs (in fact, many FIRE blogs are from non-eng people). And conversely, there's plenty of engineers who have kids (hence, very much not FIRE). The vast majority end up going down that route, in fact, at least in my experience.

Why do you say kids are incompatible with FIRE? They add some expense, but it is not insurmountable with a high income like many senior software engineers enjoy. There are prominent FIRE folks with kids -- e.g., "Mr. Money Mustache."

I wouldn't go as far as say they're incompatible; I'm sure it's doable. But there's a pretty big difference in believability between the claim that "engineers are much more likely to be FIRE people, to the extent it makes a noticeable difference in the engineering job market, now of all times" vs "FIRE people w/ kids exist, but are outliers among outliers"

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

#156

Post by srcreigh »

sigstoat wrote: post #143
giantg2 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fucking disgusting.

you realize it doesn't come out of the employee's salary, right? the company has to cough it up separately.

It actually does come out of your signing bonus if you don't ask for it.

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

#157

Post by danrocks »

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.

I feel 3rd party recruiters are such a massive waste of time and a drag on the overall process. Has anyone built a true job search engine that simply links back to the original company's site (instead of some recruiting agency)? It seems that even the big job sites like Indeed are so fully of recruiters that their quality is pretty low.

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

#158

Post by fifilura »

I remember, back in year 2000, I went to a speech held by ESR (somewhat odd since I am based in Europe) with content very similar to this article. He was ranting about how all companies should open source their code because that is what keeps employees stay and happy. It was in the middle of the netscape/mozilla open source craze.

My reaction was "OK, this is the guy everyone is talking about".

A few months later - the job market was entirely different. And that stuck for many years after that.

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

#159

Post by WoahNoun »

Apocryphon wrote: post #46
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…

On the flip side, dissatisfaction about engineering work conditions at AMZN (the notorious PIP culture) is a rising deterrent.

PIP severance after 2 years is just an early RSU payout and then you can get another job with a signing bonus.

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

#160

Post by tickerticker »

humanrebar wrote: post #106
acchow wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There comes a point where the money just isn't a motivating factor anymore That's cuz your numbers are too small. Offer a 50% raise instead of a 20k raise and you will see different results. > Yes I could quit and get a ~20k raise by shopping my resume around, but I don't need the money Plenty of stories on Blind of people shopping around and going from 150k TC to 350k TC, so I guess it really depends on your situa…

This. Also, those highly paid engineers in other companies might be tired of working on surveillance tech but aren't willing to stomach 50% pay cuts because your company is shooting for "market rate" compensation instead of market clearing compensation.

Insight and nuance. Nice.
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