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Experienced engineers are struggling to get hired

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Re: Experienced engineers are struggling to get hired

#111

Post by bb88 »

Simulacra wrote: post #88
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, maybe it's just Silicon Valley salaries? Or Silicon Valley hubris?

I think he's focusing too much on the runway, and not enough on growth frankly.

Investors these days want a return on investment in 18-24 months, not 5 years.

Re: Experienced engineers are struggling to get hired

#112

Post by swatcoder »

bb88 wrote: post #106
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…

> I had one person today - with lots of FAANG experience who’d recently gone freelance - tell me that they weren’t willing to work with me to write code but they were willing to do advising for $450/hr. We just weren’t on the same page. I don't know. If you're not hiring them full time, it might be a bargain, and save you a bunch of money. Particularly if you're trying to architect services from the ground up. Some p…

If this is your approach to hiring consultants, I'd like to set up a meeting. :)

Re: Experienced engineers are struggling to get hired

#113

Post by pylua »

rhelz wrote: post #94
elwebmaster wrote: post #9

Market is the worst it has ever been, at least in the last 10 years but even before because now supply significantly outnumbers demand. Most people on LinkedIn have a green badge. The economy is doomed. Keep rising interest rates to the sky.

> The economy is doomed. chuckle the economy is not doomed. Of course there's green badges on linked in, its not tik-tok, if you are on LinkedIn, you are probably there to look for a job. It seems like the sky is falling, but it's only tough in a few sectors of the economy. Unemployment is at historically low rates. We're not used to this kind of turbulence, because historically it has be us who have replaced employe…

Honestly, do people really believe the unemployment rates, or take them at face value?

The real rate of employment is much worse. Not to mention that pay has not kept up with inflation. What would the employment rate look like if it had?

Many low paying jobs are being created and since pay has not kept up it is barely a living wage.

Re: Experienced engineers are struggling to get hired

#114

Post by memset »

bb88 wrote: post #111
Simulacra wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, maybe it's just Silicon Valley salaries? Or Silicon Valley hubris?

I think he's focusing too much on the runway, and not enough on growth frankly. Investors these days want a return on investment in 18-24 months, not 5 years.

I agree to a point - regardless of what investors want, I might want to have runway to give me more time to iterate and experiment with ideas before running out of money. My point was also that this particular developer would consume a huge amount of opportunity cost for other types of hires or expenses that would move the business forward.

Re: Experienced engineers are struggling to get hired

#115

Post by bb88 »

swatcoder wrote: post #112
bb88 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I had one person today - with lots of FAANG experience who’d recently gone freelance - tell me that they weren’t willing to work with me to write code but they were willing to do advising for $450/hr. We just weren’t on the same page. I don't know. If you're not hiring them full time, it might be a bargain, and save you a bunch of money. Particularly if you're trying to architect services from the ground up. Some p…

If this is your approach to hiring consultants, I'd like to set up a meeting. :)

Sure, as long as you're okay being terminated without warning. And we're expecting results quickly. Like within the first hour.

Re: Experienced engineers are struggling to get hired

#116

Post by memset »

bb88 wrote: post #106
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…

> I had one person today - with lots of FAANG experience who’d recently gone freelance - tell me that they weren’t willing to work with me to write code but they were willing to do advising for $450/hr. We just weren’t on the same page. I don't know. If you're not hiring them full time, it might be a bargain, and save you a bunch of money. Particularly if you're trying to architect services from the ground up. Some p…

It’s always a question of ROI. It’s hard for me to identify any form of technical advice that would be worth that much at my current company stage. I’ve already allocated n% of shares to investors and advisors.

Before spending money I must identify a specific need. I can give a very specific need for code (features, launch dates, customer requests) but frankly do not have a need for technical advice by itself.

Re: Experienced engineers are struggling to get hired

#117

Post by bb88 »

memset wrote: post #114
bb88 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he's focusing too much on the runway, and not enough on growth frankly. Investors these days want a return on investment in 18-24 months, not 5 years.

I agree to a point - regardless of what investors want, I might want to have runway to give me more time to iterate and experiment with ideas before running out of money. My point was also that this particular developer would consume a huge amount of opportunity cost for other types of hires or expenses that would move the business forward.

Honestly, people in SV iterate with new startup ideas when the last startup fails.

Your first lover is never your wife.

Re: Experienced engineers are struggling to get hired

#118

Post by rhelz »

dullcrisp wrote: post #98
rhelz wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but...out of a thousand applicants--who presumably had college degrees/and or years of experience programming for other companies--there just has to be some who would have been successful at your company. I mean, if you lined up 600 random people grabbed from off the street, you'd find 6 to 10 of them with a genius level IQ. In fact, you'd have a good chance of finding somebody smar…

New hiring process: sample 600 people from the population at random, administer IQ tests, hire highest scorer. Voila, only geniuses!

Is there any evidence that would be worse than the way we're doing it now??

Re: Experienced engineers are struggling to get hired

#119

Post by bb88 »

memset wrote: post #116
bb88 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I had one person today - with lots of FAANG experience who’d recently gone freelance - tell me that they weren’t willing to work with me to write code but they were willing to do advising for $450/hr. We just weren’t on the same page. I don't know. If you're not hiring them full time, it might be a bargain, and save you a bunch of money. Particularly if you're trying to architect services from the ground up. Some p…

It’s always a question of ROI. It’s hard for me to identify any form of technical advice that would be worth that much at my current company stage. I’ve already allocated n% of shares to investors and advisors. Before spending money I must identify a specific need. I can give a very specific need for code (features, launch dates, customer requests) but frankly do not have a need for technical advice by itself.

> but frankly do not have a need for technical advice by itself.

Then it sounds like you made the correct decision.

Re: Experienced engineers are struggling to get hired

#120

Post by rhelz »

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…

> So many resumes are fake

Its a classic vicious circle: if your resume gets auto-dinged if it doesn't have the right keywords, applicants are highly motivated do lard up their resumes with keywords.

And then the companies observe they are getting tons of bogus resumes, and they think they can fix it by making the filters even harder to get through....

Everybody is incentivized to race to the bottom.

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