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Experienced engineers are struggling to get hired

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Re: Experienced engineers are struggling to get hired

#201

Post by Ancapistani »

selimthegrim wrote: post #191
greenie_beans wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sounds like you're in bham or atl? and you're right. i know numerous talented engineers in the south who you can pay less and get as good or better of a job done than a FAANG engineer. tbh i might be biased towards a non-FAANG engineer. them southern devs be scrappy.

Why should I (in NOLA) take a salary that I got as a team lead 10 years ago on the West Coast?

In my case - because I can. It's part of my value proposition from my employer's perspective.

I try not to think about it in terms of total compensation, but of marginal income (net income - cost of living).

My taxes here are lower, and my cost of living is much lower. I own a 5-bedroom home on half an acre that I paid $125k for. My mortgage is $850 / month. My entire monthly expenditures, including food and such, are around $3,500.

Re: Experienced engineers are struggling to get hired

#202

Post by rlawson »

edgyquant wrote: post #180
throwaway4220 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Why do you believe radiologists somehow are more deserving than high level engineers?

Ha! I have a son who is a radiologist and what docs have to go through makes the worst sprint of your life look like a walk in the park. And they train that hard for years.

Patients can die if he messes up. The worst thing when I mess up is the product is a few days late.

I have been coding for 25 years, make half of what he does and he deserves every penny of the difference.

Re: Experienced engineers are struggling to get hired

#203

Post by reaperman »

pdimitar wrote: post #189
maldev wrote: post #187

I have ~11 yoe and have near 100% callback rate(50% for remote). All positions from 200-450. Friends have similar rates. And ~70% offer rates. Always confused reading these. But I'm also a low level developer, and only ask for ~250-3 salary/bonus. It feels like the people complaining are either really bad, have poor resume's, or have visa requirements. I tweaked my resume after not getting many callbacks and now have…

Instead of calling people you never met bad, maybe you can share your techniques of tweaking the resume? I've never in my life worked for more than $110K annually and I have 22 years of experience. Can do practically anything on the backend and quite a lot in terms of system administration. This is also VERY sensitive to location, even if I'm working remote ever since 2011.

I’d be very curious about which schools you both went to. That seems to make a large difference in career trajectory. Probably the #1 differentiator for first 5-8 years of career path. Edit: Other than country of residence.

Re: Experienced engineers are struggling to get hired

#204

Post by yunwal »

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…

Just FYI, I’m unable to easily find your job listings. LinkedIn shows nothing and I don’t see a careers page on the website.

Re: Experienced engineers are struggling to get hired

#205

Post by pdimitar »

reaperman wrote: post #203
pdimitar wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of calling people you never met bad, maybe you can share your techniques of tweaking the resume? I've never in my life worked for more than $110K annually and I have 22 years of experience. Can do practically anything on the backend and quite a lot in terms of system administration. This is also VERY sensitive to location, even if I'm working remote ever since 2011.

I’d be very curious about which schools you both went to. That seems to make a large difference in career trajectory. Probably the #1 differentiator for first 5-8 years of career path. Edit: Other than country of residence.

I am not from the USA. Never studied programming officially either, was just a hobby and I winged it and got good fast.

I am also from Eastern Europe.

These things make a huge difference.

But I admit I get ticked off by privileged people who think that all you have to do is pick up the phone.

No, for 99% of all programmers everywhere and who didn't go to the prestigious schools in USA, it's definitely much harder than that.

Re: Experienced engineers are struggling to get hired

#206

Post by codewench »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #156
rossdavidh wrote: post #52

So, as a 56yo who's been programming professionally since 2004, currently having trouble finding enough contract work, a bit of perspective: When there are more openings than qualified people, even when you reduce qualifications to what is actually necessary, it seems like there's "nobody" available. Now, when the shoe is on the other foot, it seems like "nobody" is hiring. It's harsh, but it also doesn't take that m…

"There is no kind way to put this: a lot of stupid stuff got done with a lot of smart programmers in the last ten years." Any reasonable person would agree, but would the people in Silicon Valley agree.

They are fairly entrenched in their approach, which has been good for individual developers for sure, but has (in my opinion) produced little of actually legitimate societal value.

Re: Experienced engineers are struggling to get hired

#207

Post by twojobsoneboss »

beezlebroxxxxxx wrote: post #32
mathattack wrote: post #13

My observation is that companies are getting much more precise on their needs. The days of “you’re smart and have a technical background” have given way to “there’s a dozen people in the market who have the exact experience we need, so we will limit our pool to them.” This is especially painful for college grads, who don’t have specific experience to fall back on.

I think there's also a growing realization that, along with what you've said, putting large emphasis on leetcode skills, or using leetcode at all, is not leading to the best hiring results. That doesn't mean leetcode shouldn't be used in interviews --- I'm sure, for better or worse, leetcode style questions are here to stay in tech interviews; but, that there's a growing sense that people who are simply good at bingi…

Is this really true? Been hearing the opposite, that everyone and anyone is using LC for interviewing now

Re: Experienced engineers are struggling to get hired

#208

Post by monktastic1 »

phillipcarter wrote: post #162
jaredklewis wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but FAANG stock is very liquid. I’d you squint, it’s cash.

It is, but X over 4 years instead of X over one year is a pretty big difference. I suspect a lot of the ex-FAANG folks know this and are trying to push for it thinking they'll get that deal.

At some of these companies, vests happen monthly (at least, after the first year). It's effectively cash, adding 200k+ annually to a salary of 200+.

Re: Experienced engineers are struggling to get hired

#209

Post by gamblor956 »

pdimitar wrote: post #189
maldev wrote: post #187

I have ~11 yoe and have near 100% callback rate(50% for remote). All positions from 200-450. Friends have similar rates. And ~70% offer rates. Always confused reading these. But I'm also a low level developer, and only ask for ~250-3 salary/bonus. It feels like the people complaining are either really bad, have poor resume's, or have visa requirements. I tweaked my resume after not getting many callbacks and now have…

Instead of calling people you never met bad, maybe you can share your techniques of tweaking the resume? I've never in my life worked for more than $110K annually and I have 22 years of experience. Can do practically anything on the backend and quite a lot in terms of system administration. This is also VERY sensitive to location, even if I'm working remote ever since 2011.

There are only a handful of companies in the U.S. willing to pay 200k+ for contract programmers, and these invariably involve highly specialized needs. And if they're in a specialized niche, then their numbers and experience aren't relevant outside of that niche. Note that the parent poster was saying he is a "low level" programmer, meaning close to the hardware, which is niche role.

If you know someone claiming to make 200k+ as a non-specialized programming contractor, they're probably just making numbers up to impress the internet. Regular (non-tech) companies don't pay those sorts of rates to non-specialized programmers, and startups can't afford those rates. That leaves primarily FAANG or large tech companies, in which case YOE is irrelevant; they hire based on pedigree and who you know.

Re: Experienced engineers are struggling to get hired

#210

Post by JonChesterfield »

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…

Open source should help. Lots of people are cheaper if their work is public (it's better personal marketing and it means they've still got access to the code if they quit or the company folds).

It's worth giving serious consideration to whether the expensive 500k a year dev will outproduce five 100k, or ten 50k developers. There are serious non-linear scaling properties to increasing the headcount of engineering teams.

The traditional answer to this problem is equity, but note that engineers have noticed that illiquid equity is a different thing to salary.

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