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I think I know why you can't hire engineers right now
501–510 of 927 posts
Re: I think I know why you can't hire engineers right now
#502Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 w…
True, In a bank tech is a cost center, that is why they are treated as second class citizens even though tech is actually enabling the business
Re: I think I know why you can't hire engineers right now
#503It's kind of funny -but more like funny-weird, not funny-haha- when I read some of these articles. I don't mean that in a bad way. The article is well written and, to some extent, well thought. The problem is they usually -as in this case- extrapolate a fairly limited experience to a very general explanation of just about everything. This can be also noticed in some of the absolutely tiring clichés of engineers being…
Simply wanted to say thank you for taking the time to write this. Always interesting to hear a non-american perspective.
Re: I think I know why you can't hire engineers right now
#504Earlier 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.
You'll be working with other people who jumped over some arbitrary hurdle. What kind of team is that? Are you going to be surrounded by mentors? Free of bozos? In a world of competent executioners? Unlikely. Look at how terrible a lot of the products are that these companies make. They're fundamentally selecting for the wrong set of attributes. Look at the turnover rate - how many projects go nowhere and collapse, th…
I don't know if FAANGs are so deserving of such vitriol. I would probably say that big companies overall just fundamentally have a set of issues, and FAANGs are probably above average in many aspects relative to the rest of the big ones. Now, if you prefer certain small companies, or other humanitarian or mission-focused ones, that's not a FAANG-specific complaint, in my mind.
And just product-wise, it's just way too easy to find counterexamples, like, how worse would the world be off if there was never invented google, gmail, chrome, iphones. Before google, there was no reliable way to search the web. Before gmail, there was no such thing as a dynamic web application. Before chrome, we were stuck with microsoft making up their own standards with IE and an inconsistent web spec. Before iphone, we were stuck with feature phones. The list just goes on and on.
Re: I think I know why you can't hire engineers right now
#505I am in late 30s, I recently switched jobs. Before this switch I never jumped for less than 20% hike. But this one I took slightly more than 30% cut. I never thought i would leave for less.
I was really disliking the tech stack, I could not change it even after trying. But there were lot of nice people, pay was above market levels. But i was still not satisfied, I could have stayed there and earn good increment every year by just doing 4-5 hours daily work.
The new company is a big Australian start up. My hope is that in the new company I’ll get to work with smart people and learn new things which I consider as an investment for my future growth.
Re: I think I know why you can't hire engineers right now
#506you can make the same point of Cool stuff to work on / Smart people to work with / Some degree of repeatability in work environment for Apple also.
Lots of other companies only focus Cool stuff, try to buy Smart people with money and lack stability and focus
Re: I think I know why you can't hire engineers right now
#507Frankly, 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,…
"eliminate the need for code to generate business results" - can you give an example of how you do this? Sounds interesting.
Re: I think I know why you can't hire engineers right now
#508Earlier 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…
>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…
Sure it was a stereotype, still there is contract negotiation, there is the law for all cases and what one can manage to put into their contract.
Also get knowledgeable about work law and have a legal insurance.
Even downgrading my example to how things go back home in Portugal versus DACH where I have been for the last 20 years, I would pick our conditions over FAANG salary without the social part.
Re: I think I know why you can't hire engineers right now
#509Earlier 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…
some rough numbers from last year... very senior tech role - fully remote :
* London : >100k pounds = ~120k E
* Berlin : >90k E
* Sofia : >50k E
but, when applying the taxes thereof:
* London : >120k E - 45% taxes -> 66k E
* Berlin : >90k E - 45% taxes -> 50k E
* Sofia : >50k E - 10-15% taxes -> 45k E
Which means.. it mostly depends where you (want to) live.. as differences in price/culture of life are much more than above differences.
Re: I think I know why you can't hire engineers right now
#510Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You can earn 5% investment returns after inflation during your saving years This is very unlikely long term. Right now treasuries are 5% less then inflation. Lots of FIRE people are going to get shafted.
S&P 500 returned ~25% this last year, and 110% over 5 years. That's excluding dividends.
That is actually, quite literally, inflation. It's money depreciating in value relative to stocks and financial products. Just like a burger at the golden arches shooting up in price is inflation, so is the price of a stock. It's probably not _only_ inflation, supply and demand will have caused the majority of this shift, since savers saw their money start evaporating. But that is of itself of course a second order effect of inflation, so I think the point stands.