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

cushychicken.github.io

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

#631

Post by Chris2048 »

kristopolous wrote: post #539
jmchuster wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> google, gmail, chrome, iphones There's four excellent examples of things that were better 10 years ago before this practice was instituted. The youngest thing on that list (chrome) is 14 years old. Both Apple and Google used to not hire in this 3-4 interviews of canned programming question way. Then they did. Those products are now stagnating and deteriorating so much that it's obvious to everyone. If you think it'…

Why are those 4 thing worse no?

Ok, I understand that google search is worse, but it isn't obvious to me that's a result of engineering vs executive choice.

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

#632

Post by jack_riminton »

mcv wrote: post #591
jack_riminton wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having worked in a fintech D2C app, the distinction I drew was that there were 2 'products' - the financial product i.e getting 4% return on your money - the digital product i.e the app The 1st was the real product, the 2nd the nice-to-have Obviously core tech in banking is infinitely more critical than an app but the point is the same; the tech in banks, unless its 'quant', HFT or ML is not the money maker and there…

The app that people use to access their money is absolutely core tech. If the payment infrastructure goes down (or worse: is buggy), that's a massive problem. Banks that don't consider this core aren't keeping up.

Many of our customers didn’t even use the app. They could phone up and get someone to do every action for them. If your product can operate without the app then the app is secondary

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

#634

Post by UncleMeat »

jmstfv wrote: post #443
kelnos wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure I agree. Trinity study suggests that if you retire 30 years before death, you can safely withdraw 4% every year during retirement, regardless of economic fluctuations. If you retire super early and need 50 or 60 years, your safe withdrawal rate is probably closer to 3% or even 2%, though. Your point may be that we should expect significant economic turmoil in the near- and medium-term, much more than "fluctu…

> Consider that the 2021 inflation rate is likely a symptom of COVID It's mostly a symptom of reckless monetary and fiscal policies. > Monthly inflation rates for the last few months of 2021 were trending downward It's the opposite if CPI is to be believed (which is a big if): https://www.bls.gov/charts/consumer-price-index/consumer-pri...

Your chart measures a 12 month trailing computation. That number going up does not imply that the month-by-month inflation is actually going up. If that number went up in December all it means is that December 2021 had more inflation than December 2020. It says nothing at all about the relative inflation between November 2021 and December 2021.

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

#635

Post by UncleMeat »

SCHiM wrote: post #510
anonporridge wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 e…

Sure, but the only kind of inflation that really crushes people living off their investments is stagflation, where increasing prices of goods is not reflected in portfolio sizes. If your investments are growing way faster than the price of goods, there is no problem.

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

#636

Post by ridethebike »

mcv wrote: post #491
vkk8 wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Technical people are responsible for building and maintaining all the systems that handle the stuff that the business want done. And I also told business people what they should be doing. Seeing banks as a non-tech industry is a mistake in my opinion, and many banks do seem to agree that they should be a tech company. Many are active in tech communities, organise tech related events, and really seem to care about tec…

Worked in several banks. "We are not bank, we are tech company with bank department" - was mentioned occasionally in each of them. What was also common - red tape, outdated software (tools, libraries, frameworks), restricted access to workstation, processes focused around pushing approvals around (instead of automation). That's why my response to "we are not a bank" sentiment above is "it's a bank, alright".

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

#637

Post by [deleted] »

elihu wrote: post #559

I think there's something else that's necessary that doesn't align well with the things in the article, and which is currently lacking in my current work environment, but which is kind of hard to describe succinctly. Basically, my job requires using a lot of tools and technology and processes created by other people, but none of those tools are easy to use or well documented. In order to get stuff done you have to ha…

[deleted]

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

#638

Post by jyounker »

wreath wrote: post #616
fnord123 wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> specially compared to the US where quite some companies will match our European amenities (talking about software engineering jobs). Debatable. In most European countries, if you lose your job you still have health cover. If you lose your job in the US you do not keep the company benefit health insurance (except as part of a severance package for a limited time). For H1-B visa holders, they must leave the country (…

Depends where in Europe. In Germany, if you lose your job you still have to pay for health insurance, at least the first three months until your unemployment kicks in (assuming you're eligible for it, like in most cases) and I don't know if unemployment covers your health insurance. If you are married and you and your spouse were on the same statutory health insurance, then you're covered by your spouse. Which can be…

Once you are unemployed you do have to pay for your health insurance, but it's heavily subsidized, costing (as a 50 year old) around 200 a month. Compare that to 1200 per month in the USA.

It's a huge difference.

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

#639

Post by alistairSH »

bluGill wrote: post #618
fnord123 wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> specially compared to the US where quite some companies will match our European amenities (talking about software engineering jobs). Debatable. In most European countries, if you lose your job you still have health cover. If you lose your job in the US you do not keep the company benefit health insurance (except as part of a severance package for a limited time). For H1-B visa holders, they must leave the country (…

But it isn't hard to find a job, and there are other options for health care while you are looking. I agree that it is stupid to tie health insurance to your job, but it isn't the big deal you make it out to be, so long as you have savings

so long as you have savings

That phrase is key. Most Americans don’t have savings. Even among the professional class, savings are often nowhere near high enough to pay OOP for insurance at market rate.

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

#640

Post by mcv »

weatherlite wrote: post #533
mcv wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like there are plenty of $200k SE jobs in Amsterdam. It's just that most of them are at Booking and Adyen.

Plenty idk. Could be that high earners really like reporting about their salaries? I mean it must feel much better to go into a salaries website and tell everyone you're making 200K than it is 70K, so it could be biased upwards. Truth is these Dutch companies don't have to pay that much - so many people from all over the world want to work there 80-100K is more than plenty. Maybe super high management will get 200K.

That's possible, but if Amsterdam has big name tech companies, Booking and Adyen are definitely it, so perhaps it makes sense that they pay more. Sadly I'm not that interested in working for them; Booking uses way too many dark patterns for my taste, and I've been to Adyen's office, and they had dozens of programmers working in a single noisy room. That didn't appeal to me at all.
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