I think I know why you can't hire engineers right now • Hacker News Board

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

#481

Post by nivenkos » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 9:33 AM UTC

IshKebab wrote: post #464

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>30 paid holidays I'm always angered by these over-generalizations for the whole of Europe. Europe is not a single country with identical laws and working conditions but they differ wildly by borders. The minimum amount of vacation days by EU law is 20 per year for every full-time worker in the EU but workers can get more based on union negotiations of each individual country or individual company perks that wish to…

Yeah same in the UK. 25 days is the norm. 28 days is good. 30 days is very rare. Also nobody gets paid overtime, the company's pension contribution is 5% of your salary. Yes benefits are better in Europe, but not so much that you're better off earning $100k here than $200k in America.

And you will rarely even earn $100k.

Like I live in a European capital and am just below $100k after almost 8 years of experience.

We're just colonised by massive US corporations which ship the profits back to the US (and avoid as much tax as they can!).

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

#482

Post by sascha_sl » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 9:33 AM UTC

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…

Have a Germany anecdote.

>Healthcare

That's definitely a you problem, the US is the outlier here.

>30 paid holidays

24. Based on 6 day workweek. So 20. More is optional.

>Unions, Paid overtime

Rarely are there Unions specifically for the IT department. Employers here like "Vertrauensarbeitszeit", which means count your own hours, which usually ends up with you doing more (unpaid) work.

>weekends and calls off work come extra

Also very much depends on the job, many people do it without asking for compensation. In one place just being on call got me a good extra 20% salary, in another they refused to pay for it and now it's "non-mandatory" - but they know someone will likely still pick up the phone.

>Retirement

Biggest scam in history. I get the need for such a programm, but I'll be getting maybe 10% of what I put in out. Fuck being a millennial I guess.

>Flex Time

Already said. Mostly a negative because your performance review will check if your projects, planned with way too little time, will be completed. At least that's the case in development teams. I stick to platform teams for this reason.

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

#483

Post by tigershark » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 9:35 AM UTC

fy20 wrote: post #401

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…

In Europe it seems to have changed too. Salaries are still of course low compared to the US, but it seems the salaries are stabilising across the continent. I've been speaking to recruiters recently and a lot more companies are open to fully remote, even across borders. 10 years ago if you wanted the best salary in Europe you would need to go live in London, now there are plenty of companies hiring remotely across Eu…

Mmm.. I think it’s unlikely. London salaries at the top of the scale are not that far from the equivalent US. In Europe I don’t think it is the case, depending on your definition of close obviously.

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

#484

Post by nivenkos » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 9:35 AM UTC

pirate787 wrote: post #472

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…

Must be nice to live rent-free under the U.S. security umbrella.

Ami go home.

We should build up our own European industry like we had with Linux, MySQL and Nokia, etc.

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

#485

Post by mcv » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 9:36 AM UTC

jmchuster wrote: post #315

redisman wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The highest paying software companies employ LeetCode style interview Ugh yeah it’s ridiculous. We can’t hire anyone! Have you considered not putting candidates through months of studying to memorize a bunch of algorithm tricks and then grilling them for 5-10 hours total on those? No - that’s not what the cargo cult manual says.

I dunno if it's that ridiculous. Having to spend a couple of months studying to get a 100k raise, seems not a completely unfair trade.

Spending a couple of months for a guaranteed 100k raise would be great. Spending those months for a tiny chance of that raise would not.

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

#486

Post by vkk8 » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 9:40 AM UTC

mcv wrote: post #439

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…

Despite all of that, I think engineers are underpaid in Europe (and presumably East Asia). I just left a job at a major bank where all the non-engineer roles got paid, or at least could be paid more than I got. There were 5 pay scales for engineers, the top 2 of which weren't even being used. I got there from a freelance contract, and I had to take a serious pay cut to continue working on the project. It was a really…

In banks the technical people are, in my experience, always second class citizens. They are expected to shut up and do what the business people tell them to do. They are not really responsible for anything or making decisions and are paid accordingly. The best paid technical people in banks are not people who are working on some cutting edge technology developing new stuff, but people who happen to be the only ones who know how to maintain some piece of god awful critical legacy infrastructure. This is also the reason why the banking technology develops so slowly and why the infrastructure in banks suck so much.

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

#487

Post by rejschaap » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 9:43 AM UTC

mantas wrote: post #476

episteme wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But does this include bank holidays? We have 8(?) paid bank holidays in the UK so even 22 days is in reality 30. There are much fewer in the US.

Why would you include national holidays into vacation days? National holiday is more like an extra sunday. You can't move it for example if you're on a medical leave through it.

You can't move it, but you do get paid. So it's worth something.

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

#488

Post by pjmlp » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 9:44 AM UTC

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…

Basically DACH region.

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

#489

Post by pjmlp » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 9:45 AM UTC

sascha_sl wrote: post #482

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…

Have a Germany anecdote. >Healthcare That's definitely a you problem, the US is the outlier here. >30 paid holidays 24. Based on 6 day workweek. So 20. More is optional. >Unions, Paid overtime Rarely are there Unions specifically for the IT department. Employers here like "Vertrauensarbeitszeit", which means count your own hours, which usually ends up with you doing more (unpaid) work. >weekends and calls off work co…

Pick companies that have IG Metal deals, for example.

Quite a well known names do it.

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

#490

Post by jmchuster » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 9:46 AM UTC

mcv wrote: post #485

jmchuster wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno if it's that ridiculous. Having to spend a couple of months studying to get a 100k raise, seems not a completely unfair trade.

Spending a couple of months for a guaranteed 100k raise would be great. Spending those months for a tiny chance of that raise would not.

I thought the idea was that if you didn't spend months studying, you'd only have a tiny chance, regardless of how skilled you were. And that the months of studying is what's then required on top to get that offer from at least one of the big five you apply for.

That I commonly see complaints about how other people "without" skill were getting job offers just because they put in the months studying, seems to indicate that it's actually quite a generous chance.