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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

#201

Post by faizshah »

mrkentutbabi wrote: post #17

That’s weird. I like money more than “work for cool stuff”. Cool stuff don’t pay bills. Heh, maybe this is why I am an average engineer.

On the flip side companies don’t really seem to care if you’re interested either. I applied to around 200 companies in the final 2 years of my data science undergrad and no matter how much interest I showed in the fields of my interest: stream processing, network analysis, and recommendation systems nobody really cared. I added projects and hackathons and applied directly to teams working on that stuff, never even got an interview in those areas. I ended up getting a front end job at a FANG.

The truth of hiring is nobody is actually honest about it, most of the advice you read online is unrealistic. Engineers mostly care about compensation, working conditions, and future job prospects. Companies mostly care about whether you fit some pre defined funnel and can pass their interview hoops they don’t care about how interested you are or “how much value you can bring” like you read online.

Companies will hire the engineer who passed all 5 technical interviews with good feedback over the engineer who got medium feedback but has experience and interest in the field. And engineers will turn down the most interesting job with middling pay for the high paying boring job that offers remote.

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

#202

Post by InvaderFizz »

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…

The recruiter that got me my current gig was great. I literally didn't fill out anything or apply. I handed him my current resume and that was it. He scheduled the interview rounds, managed the negotiations (10k more than my requirements), did everything.

Sure, he's getting like $30k from my employer in a month, but whatever. That $30k has almost no impact on my compensation.

He mainly does Dallas, but my position is fully remote.

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

#203

Post by swader999 »

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

There was a guy yesterday that said he's doing four remote swe jobs right now at the same time. Takes roles that he's comfortable with and capable at, gets stuff done and nobody complains. Sounds like he's +1 million. Sort of like a 4x Tim Ferris program.

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

#205

Post by MichaelDickens »

giantg2 wrote: post #70
anonporridge wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"that can get them retired easily by their mid 30s" Maybe a small subset. The median dev salary is $110k. So no, only a very small number are able to retire in their 30s.

On $110K income, you could:

- Pay roughly $30K in taxes - Spend $30K, which is close to the median American's individual expenditure - Invest the remaining $50K

At that rate, you can achieve lean FIRE in 15-20 years. So not quite mid-30s, but not far off.

Of course, in a high cost of living area, you might need to spend more than $30K, but you'd also make more than $110K. (For what it's worth, I lived in SF for several years and spent less than $30K annually.)

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

#206

Post by GoOnThenDoTell »

digianarchist wrote: post #140
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 companies that pay 80% of FAANG salaries without the LeetCode whiteboard bullshit are out there.

Do you have any pointers for those who’d like to filter for that?

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

#207

Post by taurath »

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…

> Someone boycotting AMZN one day will be happy to accept a very healthy salary + benefits package writing legacy Java 6 backend code if it means a good double- or triple-digit percentage in compensatory promotion

Unlikely these are the same people tbh

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

#209

Post by brewdad »

bluedays wrote: post #117

Okay, now do one for juniors. As a junior developer I would literally work for the worst company, but none of them are interested in me.

Have you tried looking for jobs with the best companies? Some of the worst companies are the worst because they have unreasonable expectations for their hires relative to the value they can provide for putting up with working there.

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

#210

Post by reikonomusha »

taurath wrote: post #207
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…

> Someone boycotting AMZN one day will be happy to accept a very healthy salary + benefits package writing legacy Java 6 backend code if it means a good double- or triple-digit percentage in compensatory promotion Unlikely these are the same people tbh

It could simply be extremely small sample size, but I know 5 (!!) people personally who fall into this intersection. All of them are quite talented. All jumped ship from meh-paying start-ups to a high-paying role at AMZN after railing on AMZN the years prior for being an awful company. One of them even took a department leadership role (or whatever the title equivalent is) and cited a 3x increase in TC.

It could be that their disdain for AMZN was disingenuous virtue-signaling (supporting your thesis), or it could mean the money is just simply the trump card to their personal ethics (supporting my thesis).

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