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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

#331

Post by mattkrause »

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…

Is there a big research university near you?

If so, I'd bet it's a large and relatively untapped pool of candidates, especially outside of the CS/EE departments. A lot of fields now make pretty heavy use of programming, ML and other tech. It's true that some folks are definitely in the "I tweak the script that gives the numbers" camp, but there are proper coders as well. Plus, you're pulling from a pool that's smart, good at teaching themselves, and probably making $25-$60k.

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

#332

Post by kodemager »

user123456780 wrote: post #150
reikonomusha wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an under-discussed topic that this apparent utopia isn't available to everyone. Race, gender presentation, academic background, country of residence or origin, Twitter blue-check, etc. all seem to be correlated (no numbers; purely anecdotal) to those who enjoy (or don't) this utopia. Being masterfully technical, social, or political have a lot to do with it too, it seems.

> Being masterfully either technically, socially, or politically have a lot to do with it too, it seems. I don't think you need to be a master to get more money. What I have noticed as a hiring manager/tech lead is candidates/team members fall into either asking for more money or not. I have guys on my team who if they asked for money I could easily add 20 - 50k to their salary. But they don't, they also don't shop t…

I understand this management philosophy well, but it’s also very dangerous because you risk hiring people like me, who share salary information with everyone that wants to.

A few decades ago I started working at a place where a couple of really talented people had never asked for a raise. I negotiated indirectly by talking about better opportunities and head hunters with my boss as well as asking for more pay. I got it every year. After a couple of years someone asked me what I was making and it turned out I was making a significantly amount more money than a lot of the senior staff members.

This was very nice for the budgets, but it eventually lead to everyone important to the department finding new jobs over a period of five years. When I stated it was a great place to work with really talented people, when I left it wasn’t because the talent had left and management had a really hard time convincing their managers that they needed to up the starting wages, because the budget had been just fine for so long.

This is very anecdotal of course, but underpaying technicians for years can be a very dangerous strategy under the right circumstances.

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

#333

Post by aaronbrethorst »

Position your company as one that does interesting work, offers a good work-life balance, pays market rates, has a worthwhile stock comp plan, and doesn't require an engineer to spend the next six months practicing brainteasers to pass your interview/hazing process, and I bet you wouldn't have any trouble attracting a ton of engineers. I'd certainly find that compelling.

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

#334

Post by DoingIsLearning »

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…

First off great concept. The salary transparency seems like a huge selling point.I also love the aspect of being able to search by tech stack within your jobs, very frictionless.

Indeed I think many recruiters have it backwards. I've had good and bad experiences. There are recruiters who understand the long term game as a salesman, who build win-win relations and check in on you every few years. Those are the people that will absolutely sell your CV to your future boss and those are the people I have no problem in acting on my behalf as an intermediary.

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

#335

Post by kelnos »

lhorie wrote: post #124
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…

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.

> in fact, many FIRE blogs are from non-eng people

I don't disagree with your overall point, but I don't think "number of FIRE bloggers who are engineers" is a good proxy for "number of FIRE people who are engineers".

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

#336

Post by ihateolives »

pjmlp wrote: post #311
pattusk wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not disagree with your take, but I think you may only be speaking for a subset of engineers that are already fairly well compensated. The article likewise seems to discard the importance of money in favor of three other more immaterial factors, but I do not think this is representative of the situation of the global job market right now. I also think such a perspective can not fully explain the difficulties that…

> Over in Europe and East Asia, $50 to $60k salaries are the norm Yes, and we have plenty of nice stuff that goes along with it Healthcare, 30 paid holidays, unions, paid overtime, weekends and calls off work come extra (it is 40h week period, want more pay for it), retirement, flex time, ... Like the OP, my expenses are more than covered, getting more isn't worth the hassle to change. Ah, and in some countries havin…

> Ah, and in some countries having too many companies on the CV isn't well seen, it appears the candidate isn't able to fit-in anywhere.

It is changing though in the tech field. Yes, it used to be that 10 years in the same company showed that you're loyal and dependable, but now it's more like "so you haven't learned anything new or been in a different environment in 10 years?". There's a difference between changing jobs twice a year and every few years.

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

#337

Post by eyjafjallajokul »

richardfey wrote: post #295
lhorie wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would posit that the OP underestimates the impact of his second point: remote-first in a covid world opened up a large swath of opportunities to get very large total compensation bumps everywhere. I'm part of a slack group comprised of ex-employees of a company I used to work at and some folks there expressed that it is entirely feasible to land jobs today that pay a full 100-200k over their current or previous com…

100k-200k on top of let's say 100k? So they would be making 250k per year? How common is this?

100k is below starting salary in the Bay Area or Seattle. Most senior folks make 300-450k with Staff level engineers making 600-800k.

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

#338

Post by xonar »

swader999 wrote: post #273
ripper1138 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Link if you have it? I’m curious. I’m not surprised people are trying it. While I can definitely see it being possible to get the work done for a while, I can’t imagine how they could avoid meeting conflicts across 4 jobs.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29861370

This is unbelievable

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

#339

Post by alkonaut »

acchow wrote: post #74
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…

> 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…

50% raises are extremely rare to get once you are an established Engineer in my experience. At least if you want to keep the other factors (working time, city etc) and not simply advance by switching to management or similar.

One way is to try switching from a regular industry job to a “giant” such as a FAANG. But these are quite rare in most countries.

Another way would be switching into specific industries like finance - but the high comp there traditionally means giving up some other things such as a guaranteed 40h-or-less workweek. Hard pass from many established engineers.

A third option would be switching to a larger share of non cash comp, but again, equity large bonuses are not commonly part of European comp and comp in traditional industry.

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

#340

Post by eyjafjallajokul »

pjmlp wrote: post #311
pattusk wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not disagree with your take, but I think you may only be speaking for a subset of engineers that are already fairly well compensated. The article likewise seems to discard the importance of money in favor of three other more immaterial factors, but I do not think this is representative of the situation of the global job market right now. I also think such a perspective can not fully explain the difficulties that…

> Over in Europe and East Asia, $50 to $60k salaries are the norm Yes, and we have plenty of nice stuff that goes along with it Healthcare, 30 paid holidays, unions, paid overtime, weekends and calls off work come extra (it is 40h week period, want more pay for it), retirement, flex time, ... Like the OP, my expenses are more than covered, getting more isn't worth the hassle to change. Ah, and in some countries havin…

> Healthcare, 30 paid holidays, unions, paid overtime, weekends and calls off work come extra (it is 40h week period, want more pay for it), retirement, flex time, ...

If you are in your 20's, it is totally worth moving to the US where you can get paid 500K+ per year if you navigate your career efficiently. I posit that making this much money more than covers any of these additional expenses that you call out.

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