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

cushychicken.github.io

821–830 of 927 posts

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

#821
post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on how you define works. It does effectively filter the people that can't code, but it also filters a lot of people that can code and just can't or don't care to do it under time or environment pressure. In the past that was fine, candidate pool was large enough that a heavy-handed filter was okay. That may be changing.

> Depends on how you define works. It does effectively filter the people that can't code, but it also filters a lot of people that can code and just can't or don't care to do it under time or environment pressure. It is much more important for a company to filter out likely low performers than it is to avoid filtering out likely high performers, because the costs of hiring an incompetent person are enormous. Not only…

This is only true for companies that have a large talent pool e.g. FAANG companies. For some small 30 person business in the back of nowhere that wants you in the office 5 days a week they cannot be anywhere near as picky.

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

#822
post #310
post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“All the time” here means it has happened in the past, it happens today, and it will probably continue happening. It may not be a high percentage of parents but it exists. Believe it or not, Reddit is made up of human beings just like you.

"All the time" infers high frequency. And sure, Reddit is full of humans, but it's nowhere close to a representative sample of the populations. That should be clear as soon as you start reading.

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

#823
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…

Corollary: the documentation must be written to speak to the stupidest person in your team/company who you expect to use the product it describes. Otherwise, you may end up with a documented system that you can’t use or fix. Fortunately, that’s often me (a supervisor), so I get to be self-deprecating when conveying this requirement.

When I write process/operating docs, I write it for the person who is on call, at 02:00 Sunday morning, after overindulging in alcohol Friday night. I don't assume stupid, just not firing on all cylinders due to being half awake and distracted.

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

#824

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The absolute value of your salary doesn't tell you anything about how long it takes to get to retirement (or more accurately, financial independence). That's exclusively a function of your spending and saving rates. https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-si...

> That's exclusively a function of your spending and saving rates. Saving rate is bounded above by your income. It's relevant.

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

#825
post #717

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You haven't. That's the sad reality for devs living in the EU (or elsewhere but not in the States). 200k is also a bit generous, senior engineers that are specialized in tech do earn much much more than that, anywhere from 2x to 5x. Yes, 5x that amount for an engineer. I didn't believe this myself but that's really how it is. However, given that more and more companies are becoming more open to WFH setting, it will h…

What tech do you have to specialize in to get $1 million a year?

Big-data, AI, HFT ... Basically anything that has been and is a hot topic and which generates a lot of revenue. But I am clearly not thinking of an average Joe level of expertise. It requires to have all around the stack skills including the ability to grasp the big picture of the product and drive it forward.

Technical skills wise, for areas from above, you'd usually be looking at the strong background in algorithms, math & statistics, internals of operating systems, underlying hardware but mostly about the CPU at the microarchitectural level and strong expertise in at least one programming language.

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

#826

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really? I mean, you more than likely aren't going to get paid 500k+ per year, even if you "navigate your career" efficiently. And in so many cases, you might be losing out. Did you want vacation time or do you simply want to work while you are young? Do you want to have children in your 20's? If so, maybe not move to the US. Your child probably will have citizenship of your home country - but maybe not, especia…

Most vacation packages for software devs are unlimited or in the 3-4 week range. Plenty of time for a long vacation in the Spring and a shorter one in the fall. It's one of the only things that keeps me going through it all

In other words, you might be able to take a couple weeks in the spring - with some companies - and maybe a week during the autumn. Yet stories of folks getting vacation and not being able to actually use the vacation time abound.

It shouldn't be an issue to take all of your vacation time all at once if you should so choose.

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

#827
post #398
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…

As a Belgian those salaries look like rainbows and unicorns to me, I would love to earn it do not get me wrong but as a good earner in Belgium I earn like 35% of that or so, nowhere near getting close. How realistic is it really to get such remote jobs for that salary. My skill set, attitude, passion, professionalism and devotion certainly isn't the issue. From what I remember from some job hunts in the past the issu…

A good way to approach these opportunities is to understand the nature of the opportunity pool. Perhaps the most famous resource on this topic is a video about trimodal compensation distribution by Gergely Orosz[0] (a former Uber engineering manager), which talks about the different types of companies operating in Europe (i.e. local, european, global) and their compensation bands

A thing to note is that even though tech companies are now more open to hiring outside of SV, in the grand scheme of things they still represent only a minority of employers as you travel further out the globe. Which is to say: the opportunities do exist in Europe, but they're not going to come on a silver plate for everyone. As a software engineer, you'll need to put some work in a) finding these employers and b) preparing for their interview structure (which is often said to be difficult to pass)

It is true that these companies used to prefer relocation to US (which require a visa w/ bachelor degree requirements, in addition to the actual willingness to relocate), but now thanks to covid, companies are often willing to hire in Europe (and even as far as India) even despite the timezone challenges. This was brought up by a combination of market dynamics, internal pressure from employees looking to leverage LCOL areas to maximize personal gain, as well as a related shift in the job market overall based on the emergence of tech pockets like in the Netherlands (because real talent grows and eventually needs to grow teams to support their ongoing success). With this said, there are logistical challenges that prevent companies from being truly remote-from-anywhere (e.g. the need for tax entities in the countries where they hire) so there's still going to be some amount of magnetism towards specific tech-oriented locations (albeit better than Bay-Area-or-nothing).

As for real data: one of the most cited resources is the levels.fyi website. It's heavily skewed towards Bay Area, but you can also find information on other tech hubs, correlated to their respective gravitational pull for talent (e.g. Toronto, Canada has a pretty decent amount of data). Another thing to keep in mind is that job postings are often stale (sometimes by years) and they may be more open to remote than they seem.

Compensation is not equal everywhere, and a 200k bump isn't necessarily a given. It's more of a ballpark. The context is that a L5 role (roughly a 5-10 yr senior developer) pays a salary of USD ~150-200k/yr in the Bay Area. For comparison, a similar position for the same company in Bangalore might pay USD ~80k/yr, but Toronto might have very similar pay to the Bay Area pay range. Note that this is only the salary portion. A typical job offer from these companies usually also has an equity portion (i.e. stocks), and equity packages of 100-200k/yr are fairly normal in SV. Adding the salary and equity numbers plus a yearly bonus amount is typically referred to as "total compensation" (or TC) and is what these 300-400k numbers refer to.

In these conversations, typically we talk about L5 as the baseline because that's the level at which there are the most number of job openings for big tech, but there are also opportunities at L4 (junior level) as well as L6+ (staff level), with corresponding adjustments in pay. L6+ roles can in fact pay well north of 500k/yr TC, but needless to say, these are significantly harder to land roles, even in the Bay Area.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8Xpapy6I9E

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

#828

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd think it would be cheaper for them to just improve working conditions.

So much of "working conditions" are habits and culture. Changing those is a lot harder than installing new lighting or safety guards. Worth it? yes, but there is lag time.

It’d also likely require change from the top down - which is never happening. They’d rather pay people more than change their own behavior.

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

#829
post #465
post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay sure, but it’s hardly the case one can just join a FAANG company at a senior level to earn $500k easily as OP suggests. Want to retire early? Easy! Just become a managing partner at JP Morgan in your late 20s and you’ll be rich enough by 30.

i would guess as a percentage there are two orders of magnitude more senior engineers at an arbitrary tech company vs managing directors at an arbitrary investment bank. senior engineer is ~5 years of experience to achieve, with maybe 1-2 years extra if you're meandering.

I was being facetious - advising someone to become rich and retire early by getting a very difficult to achieve role in another country 10x that counties annual salary in their 20s is not much better than saying to someone if they want to become rich they should just become a world famous actor or something. It’s just unrealistic advice that does more harm than good (and it rubs me the wrong way hence these responses lol). It seems to be a view perpetually shared by someone who knows someone who heard something and then treats it as the norm.

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

#830
post #515

The theme that resonates most with me here in the comments is lack of willingness on the side of companies to actually develop talent. For example a personal career goal of mine is to finally bridge the gap from individual contributor into management. But nobody seems to be open to taking on a manager unless they have X-years of management experience, and the companies I've worked for have always preferred hiring man…

> lack of willingness on the side of companies to actually develop talent.

Do you have any ideas about how to match the kind of compensation so that it is aligned with that investment. If I employ somebody and build up their skills, what's to stop them from just jumping ship and capturing the payoff for my investment all for themselves?

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