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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

#411

Post by verst »

dastbe wrote: post #397
verst wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely not. Total comp of senior engineers at Microsoft in Seattle is nowhere near this. (I am one of those at this point in time)

It is an unfortunate truth that Microsoft's pay between entry level to somewhere around principal is not competitive with a substantial number of companies. That is not to say that Microsoft doesn't provide other benefits, but top tier compensation is not one of them.

I don't mind. When I look at the vast majority of software engineering jobs out there even Microsoft compensation is good, and perfectly fine for Seattle.

I used to work at Google too (in Mountain View). Believe it or not I liked working at Google and I also like working at Microsoft.

I don't need to chase top tier compensation. I just do things I enjoy where I'm learning and my career can progress. Right now I'm mostly writing in Go working on an OSS project managed by the Cloud Native Compute Foundation.

As an aside, early retirement is not a goal of mine.

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

#412

Post by reikonomusha »

pinerd3 wrote: post #385
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…

Any chance you can say where you work? Because that sounds kind of like a dream job to me, haha.

Not publicly (prefer to keep work and personal presence delineated), but if you can relocate to SoCal and you're a US citizen, you can send me an email.

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

#413

Post by usrbinbash »

Here is my take on the question:

1. Senior position with junior-compensation.

2. Junior position with intern-compensation (but senior skill profile)

3. No intern positions at all, or, if there are intern positions, they demand 10E12 years of job experience for the exciting opportunity to haul cables and monitors around all day every day...which is not only badly compensated, bu also provides ZERO useful experience for the next job.

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

#414

Post by wheresmycraisin »

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 really wish hiring managers understood that there's a second class of people who value #2 over #1 a lot more. Last time I worked as an employee I was making ~$175k TC (which is apparently a entry level salary these days) and completely miserable commuting 1 hour each way on Bart every day. I'd happily take a $75k fully remote job now that I've lived in the middle of nowhere and found that I like it very much.

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

#415

Post by unwind »

Clearly this entire post is submarine advertising for the OP's job-hunting site, and I guess that's fine.

What I found annoying was the repeated use of Elon Musk and his companies as examples, while refusing to type out the name fully due to not wanting to "help his SEO". That just struck me as being fundamentally dishonest, and made me quite skeptical toward the content.

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

#417

Post by sethherr »

gdcbe wrote: post #406
pjmlp wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Dunno where you live but in Belgium: - That salary certainly does seem realistic, even though I'm on the higher end and have a base salary above that; - I also get the same amount of paid holidays, might be even a couple more; - we have great hospitality insurance, mutuality (general health care) has to be paid by ourselves however, even though that's cheap; - they do help me save for pension in the form of a contrib…

It’s very expected to get options, pensions (401k matching) and premium health insurance.

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

#418

Post by baobabKoodaa »

The biggest reason companies can't hire right now is that there is more demand than supply. No matter how much you improve pay or working conditions, in the short term that only leads to talent moving from one company to another. If there is not enough people to do the work, there is nothing an industry can do to fix that.

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

#420

Post by hn_go_brrrrr »

intothemild wrote: post #407
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…

Anecdotally, I get offers to come interview for roles in different countries for Amazon, Facebook etc, like in sure most of us do. I politely say no every time not giving any reason other than I don't want to relocate for the job, but the reality is I don't want to either work at that company due to the horrible things they are doing or the horrible reputation of the working environment. I've asked other engineers if…

Same here. I don't even bother reading the Amazon or Facebook recruiting emails anymore. It's not literally true that "you couldn't pay me enough to work there" (you totally could) -- but they're not offering nearly enough to overcome my aversion.
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