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Experienced engineers are struggling to get hired

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Re: Experienced engineers are struggling to get hired

#71

Post by sinatra »

hayst4ck wrote: post #62

I remember being a naive college student and hearing about a "software engineer shortage." I was too young and dumb to understand that meant that the owners of companies that needed software engineers wanted cheaper labor and that I was to play a part in the devaluation of engineering labor by helping supply exceed demand, thereby allowing company owners to commodify software labor to ultimately pay wages proportiona…

Usually it’s much easier to be liberal when doing so doesn’t cost you meaningfully. I’d encourage you to evaluate for yourself if your stances are truly fair and if you’re truly liberal considering how painful it is for an H1B to lose their job vs you. It’s also easy to say “but H1Bs get exploited!” Considering how many H1Bs come here, maybe they’d rather face this exploitation vs staying in their own country?

Re: Experienced engineers are struggling to get hired

#72

Post by skeeter2020 »

h02 wrote: post #14

And we're having a hard time finding experienced and skilled engineers... trying to hire for a senior nodejs role, over a thousand applicants (most people just hit apply without reading the description, over half are disqualified for not meeting the basic requirements), dozens interviewed, and we've only managed to hire 1 person that seemed close to being qualified, and he quit after 2 months of barely working. We're…

I've had a similar time trying to hire an ML developer with any experience. What I suspect the market has gotten tougher, but not uniformly. If it's bad for experienced people with some form of personal network, it's extra bad for those who were already terrible when the market was tight.

I also love how all the responses blame you and the company; maybe we've developed some unrealistic expectations over the past few years? I don't hear this sort of response outside of development.

Re: Experienced engineers are struggling to get hired

#73

Post by [deleted] »

geuis wrote: post #65
bb88 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're first question should be, "How much are you willing to pay?". And if they dodge it, it's not a good sign. Edited to add: Sure, be polite, but don't be trapped into 8/16/24 hours of interviewing over the course of a week/month/months before only to get a below average offer

My first question is usually "Hey, how are you? Good to meet you." Politeness usually leads the way.

[deleted]

Re: Experienced engineers are struggling to get hired

#74

Post by ohthatsnotright »

memset wrote: post #66

I am actively looking to hire - either freelance or full-time - an engineer to write open source golang code for my YC startup. However, I literally cannot afford FAANG salaries at my stage. It would literally bring my runway from n to n/5 years. And many candidates are asking for 400k+ salaries. I’d love to hire someone who knows what they’re doing but I’m just not able to find people who are both qualified and inte…

Here I was thinking $95/hr was pretty good for app development.

Re: Experienced engineers are struggling to get hired

#75

Post by bb88 »

tharkun__ wrote: post #68
geuis wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My first question is usually "Hey, how are you? Good to meet you." Politeness usually leads the way.

I swear I'm not making this up. I read Politeness as Pointless until I re-read it a third time.

I saw that as well.

Re: Experienced engineers are struggling to get hired

#76

Post by skeeter2020 »

whstl wrote: post #57
h02 wrote: post #14

And we're having a hard time finding experienced and skilled engineers... trying to hire for a senior nodejs role, over a thousand applicants (most people just hit apply without reading the description, over half are disqualified for not meeting the basic requirements), dozens interviewed, and we've only managed to hire 1 person that seemed close to being qualified, and he quit after 2 months of barely working. We're…

Same situation on the hiring side. I understand that people gotta hustle to eat, but we get hundreds of applications, and so many resumes are fake and just an attempt to get through the screening... plus lots of cheating, sometimes just good old ChatGPT or someone whispering behind the screen, other times with people giving perfect memorized answers but not a peep when I go off script. Makes me want to hold on to thi…

Same. I used to really like interviewing, but the AI cheaters combined with development as just a job has destroyed the experience. I did participate in interviewing an intern a few weeks ago who showed some passion and energy, and they got the role, so a small victory.

Re: Experienced engineers are struggling to get hired

#77

Post by throwaway4220 »

memset wrote: post #66

I am actively looking to hire - either freelance or full-time - an engineer to write open source golang code for my YC startup. However, I literally cannot afford FAANG salaries at my stage. It would literally bring my runway from n to n/5 years. And many candidates are asking for 400k+ salaries. I’d love to hire someone who knows what they’re doing but I’m just not able to find people who are both qualified and inte…

Wow this is about how much the average radiologist makes after 10 years of postgraduate studies

Re: Experienced engineers are struggling to get hired

#78

Post by jobmeplease »

One year ago I was looking. I applied to a 3 places, they rushed me through interviews and I got offers from every one. One was over 500k with 9 years of experience.

I chose to stay at my old job then left a few months ago. Took 3 months to get an interview and I've seen such shitty behavior. Company hiring for nonexistent positions. Ghosting after bad interviews. Heel dragging and super long interview turnaround times. I strongly suspect I'm going to take a pay cut when I do get an offer. My feeling is just that employers can be picky now, so they are. I hope things turn around soon

Re: Experienced engineers are struggling to get hired

#79

Post by halfcat »

alphazard wrote: post #35

Not all experience is equal, but people expect to be compensated for the "experience" (time since entering the workforce) they bring to the table regardless. That's the issue here. There is plenty of software that needs engineering, but we can't make a market. This specific person has 17 years of experience. Are they a staff level engineer, critical to their group? 17 years is more than enough time to become more com…

> we can't make a market

Bingo. It takes a buyer and a seller to close a deal.

Supply going the wrong way with layoffs, demand going the wrong way with interest rates.

Like a traffic jam, takes time to unwind the backlog.

Re: Experienced engineers are struggling to get hired

#80

Post by skeeter2020 »

smogcutter wrote: post #61
cccybernetic wrote: post #28

There's something to this. I’m a senior dev in NYC with ~7 years experience working across the stack (NextJS/ReactJS, Node, Python, Postgres, SQL Server, etc). I’m also not half bad at design. I haven’t been able to get a response much less an interview.

In no other professional field is someone with 7 years of experience considered “senior” anything. Edit to clarify my meaning: I’m not trying to come at you, just pointing out that this seems to be symptomatic of the problem as a whole.

it's definitely a more modern thing, even in Software Development. Probably part on the employee's demands jumping between roles with much shorter tenure, and partly on the employer to justify the higher salaries over the past few years.
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