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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

#191

Post by swader999 »

anonporridge wrote: post #99
oblio wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simple is not easy. The vast majority of people like to spend. Who can blame them? You can take your money to your grave, but what use is it then?

Never said it's easy. But spending much below your means is the only reasonable path to financial independence and wealth. I for one don't want to live in a society that exclusively prioritizes now and doesn't sacrifice anything to plan for the future. "A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit."

It's harder to plant the older you get though.

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

#192

Post by cercatrova »

symlinkk wrote: post #183
cercatrova wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually it means the former.

Do you seriously think people making $1M/yr browse this website

Yes, many such people, including myself, billionaires too. Brian Armstrong, founder of Coinbase [0], Austen Allred [1], Patrick McKenzie is probably at the millionaire level, working at Stripe; there are a lot of entrepreneurs and business people here, this is a site run by a VC of course, not just technologists.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=barmstrong

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=austenallred

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

#193

Post by square_usual »

reikonomusha wrote: post #100
Apocryphon wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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 don't know about FB, but I think the fact that Amazon's sourcers are shotgun shelling every warm body with a modicum of engineering experience says something about how difficult their hiring is.

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

#194

Post by stocknoob »

anonporridge wrote: post #61
hguant wrote: post #8

There comes a point where the money just isn't a motivating factor anymore, and companies are struggling to figure out how to work in that environment. This bit from the author hits the nail on the head: >Is an extra $10k per year worth learning a new org, a new skillset, a new set of expectations, a new set of coworkers, and a new boss? For many engineers, the answer is: “No.” Yes I could quit and get a ~20k raise b…

Also, I feel like engineers are much more likely to be attracted the FIRE mentality and tend to have the incomes and low spending habits that can get them retired easily by their mid 30s. I'm personally in that boat, and frankly, I'm a little bored but not bored enough to go back to work as an SE full time. If companies offered more part time work and highly flexible work, it might be enough to drag me back in. Even…

Thanks for writing that. Agreed, many technical people want the spare time and creativity to work on things that interest them. At some point, for those who enjoy intellectual pursuits, time becomes the limiting reagent, not money.

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

#195

Post by CSMastermind »

matthewfcarlson wrote: post #50
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.

As a rule, I don’t trust any third party recruiters but that generally limits me to mid sized and up companies unless I actively seek them out. On the other hand, I get an email from Amazon recruitment nearly every day and I have zero desire to work the bozos.

If you're willing to do a minimal amount of screening to figure out which ones are the good ones, third party recruiters are worth their weight in gold. They make the hiring process significantly easier.

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

#196

Post by sunir »

Frankly, it's always hard to hire engineers. Either you can't find talent or you can't find money to hire talent.

No matter what the personal choices and predilections of any engineer, the software industry is fundamentally constrained by the twin forces of capital and engineering talent. When there is lots of capital, there are a lot of companies, and there is insufficient talent. When there isn't a lot of capital, no one can nor wants to pay for talent so they can weather the storm. That's been the case since at least the 1970s.

Through this cycle, there are so many "engineers" working tirelessly to put other "programmers" out of work (not the shift in labels there, because there is always an unjustified scent of snideness in the air) as well to reduce the cost of engineering. All the no-code revolution now is part of this cycle.

There's a wonderful book angling for a Marxist revolution of engineers from 1977

Kraft, 1977. Programmers and Managers. The Routinization of Computer Programming.

I love it because it's cute, and since it's 2022, proven to be a dud. Like any Marxist analysis, it is accurate in assessing the problems and hopeless at prescribing a solution.

Regardless, the main lesson I have taken in my career is the absolutely top priority a senior engineer should have is building tools and processes to eliminate the need for code to generate business results. You will never be able to hire warm bodies fast enough, so all you can do is radically increase the power of each engineer on the team.

Those have always been the most fun teams I've worked on. It almost feels like being a wizard.

p.s. All that being said, I'm hiring. :)

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

#197

Post by el-salvador »

anonporridge wrote: post #151
leeoniya wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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/

> or had kids with disabilities

This is one of my biggest fears.

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

#198

Post by seanmcdirmid »

anonporridge wrote: post #103
dnissley wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The absolute value of your salary does highly correlate with cost of living, unfortunately. Which may have an effect on your savings rate.

Yes it does. If you have a high salary, you are probably living in a HCOL area. If you have a low salary for the same kind of work, then you are probably living in a LCOL area. The savings rates of these different individuals could be the same if the salary difference is proportional to the cost of living difference.

Even if the saving rates are the same, the higher salary in a higher COL wins because you can always move before retirement.

However, today’s high inflation rates make all these computations iffy, and if you rely too much on inflation beating stock market returns, you won’t be able to ratchet down on risk as you get closer to your preferred early retirement date (a crash can dump you back in the workforce at a bad time). Also, many people in HCOLs don’t want to downgrade to LCOLs after they retire.

Too bad Medicare doesn’t transfer to low cost but nice southeast Asian countries.

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

#199

Post by square_usual »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #190
didip wrote: post #87

The article is concise but missing a lot of real-life examples: * The highest paying software companies employ LeetCode style interview. That is off-putting to a lot of people even though the money would be super sweet to have. * Some wannabe startups also employ LeetCode style interview even though they don't pay anywhere near FAANG/Unicorns. * You know what's worst than LeetCode style interview? LeetCode style inte…

PIP culture? Google isn't giving me any answers here.

PIP stands for "Performance Improvement Plan". PIPs are a relatively common tool to give employees advance notice about getting fired, but Amazon has a notably brutal setup that uses stack ranking. Described here: https://www.reddit.com/r/csMajors/comments/kh9ztt/can_someon...

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

#200

Post by didip »

tjpnz wrote: post #179
didip wrote: post #87

The article is concise but missing a lot of real-life examples: * The highest paying software companies employ LeetCode style interview. That is off-putting to a lot of people even though the money would be super sweet to have. * Some wannabe startups also employ LeetCode style interview even though they don't pay anywhere near FAANG/Unicorns. * You know what's worst than LeetCode style interview? LeetCode style inte…

>* The highest paying software companies employ LeetCode style interview. That is off-putting to a lot of people even though the money would be super sweet to have. Not only off-putting but out of reach to older engineers with family responsibilities. I would also add that the value proposition for working at a FAANG isn't nearly as competitive if based outside the US.

I agree. I would go as far as saying that LeetCode interview is biased against older engineers with families. Especially young families.
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