Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Experienced engineers are struggling to get hired

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 355 posts

Re: Experienced engineers are struggling to get hired

#301

Post by spicyusername »

Ancapistani wrote: post #153
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…

> And many candidates are asking for 400k+ salaries. I don’t understand this. Yes, for some engineers, in some roles, in some locations it makes sense - but that’s a tiny part of the overall market. I’m 40, live in a rural area in a Southern US state, and have right at twenty years’ experience. I’ve worked a big companies, have been the first tech hire at a startup, and have specialized somewhat in healthtech. I feel…

Many silicon valley companies pay a similar base, but make up the difference in equity. Most individual contributor tech roles cap out at a base between $150k to $250k.

Once you make $200k base and $200k+ in equity, you consider yourself worth $400k+. Even if the equity portion isn't really being paid by your company, it's being paid by the shareholders, it's still money in the bank.

This drastically closes the amount of positions you're willing to consider, as many companies either don't pay in equity at all, or aren't growth companies whose initial offer of equity will double or triple.

Re: Experienced engineers are struggling to get hired

#302

Post by theaussiestew »

gregjor wrote: post #123

Multiple causes have led to this. - A glut of people entering the field with no experience. - A more recent glut of people laid off who now expect or need inflated salaries to maintain their lifestyle and status. - Excessive focus by employers on very specific "skills" that don't necessarily translate to productivity or contributing to a team and project. - Employers not willing to train or mentor new hires, and expe…

Wow, insightful. I see myself in several of these descriptions. Got a blog with more writing?

Re: Experienced engineers are struggling to get hired

#303

Post by wenebego »

piyuv wrote: post #195
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…

Since when “migrants are stealing our jobs“ is a liberal take?

When people preface a statement with "Im pretty X, but ..." the statment usually isnt X

Re: Experienced engineers are struggling to get hired

#304

Post by throwaway4220 »

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?

lol no I wish I had stuck with my engineering degree and not gone into medicine

Re: Experienced engineers are struggling to get hired

#305

Post by aggcefbhtd »

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #269
rangestransform wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Meanwhile, boring old stuff like manufacturing was starved for programmers, and eventually gave up trying to get them. If you wanted to be fully honest, you would have said that they couldn't pony up for programmers, they were only “starved” by their own penny pinching ways.

In many cases it could truly be that programmers aren't worth enough for them to pony up. It isn't that they're being cheap. It's that it doesn't make financial sense. There are plenty of contexts where programmers are useful but still only worth "normal" salaries.

Of course, but that’s true of literally any investment you can make in a company, so it’s not super useful. “A new X is useful if I can pay significantly less than it actually costs”.

Re: Experienced engineers are struggling to get hired

#306

Post by EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK »

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #269
rangestransform wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Meanwhile, boring old stuff like manufacturing was starved for programmers, and eventually gave up trying to get them. If you wanted to be fully honest, you would have said that they couldn't pony up for programmers, they were only “starved” by their own penny pinching ways.

In many cases it could truly be that programmers aren't worth enough for them to pony up. It isn't that they're being cheap. It's that it doesn't make financial sense. There are plenty of contexts where programmers are useful but still only worth "normal" salaries.

Not only that, but how do explain to your shift supervisor or head of sales that a JavaScript wielding kid right out of college makes more than them?

Re: Experienced engineers are struggling to get hired

#307

Post by Danidada »

sneed_chucker wrote: post #288
dysoco wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider hiring remote if possible from South American countries like Argentina; just don't go super cheap on the salary, $100-150k/yo still is a lot to us and I'm sure you can get some really good engineers, PhDs, whatever with that salary. You can go lower if you don't need expert-level. I'll not apply because I doubt I'm qualified but if you have a link with the job posting I'd be glad to share with my circle.

Why bother with the legal headache of paying people internationally and a language barrier when you can get good people in the states for $100-150k as long as you're outside of super high COL areas?

Why bother? To save more than 300k per year per employee. Just pay them via Payoneer or a similar fintech. For 70k you can get Argentinean top talent. They are in the same timezone as US East+1 and the top talent has usually a pretty good English level

Re: Experienced engineers are struggling to get hired

#308

Post by mathattack »

rossdavidh wrote: post #275
Solvency wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I run a company and need a developer for a specific position, I am fully legally allowed to simply offer it to someone that I want to hire. Without ever posting a job description.

IANAL but my understanding is that many employers either understand themselves to be required to, or for some other reason the corporation requires it and the department which is hiring does the same thing described, albeit in this case to satisfy internal rules rather than external laws. But clearly this all varies by nation, state, city, industry, etc.

Also by size of company. Things change a lot at 50+. And rules about giving recently terminated employees the first shot if there was a layoff.

Re: Experienced engineers are struggling to get hired

#309

Post by Ancapistani »

randomopining wrote: post #256
Ancapistani wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope - I'm in a town of <15k people. The nearest city of the size of Birmingham or Atlanta is 2.5 hours away from me.

Are you remote or are there actually offices there of engineers?

I'm remote. There are a few of us around, but no community to speak of.

I've tried to build a local network, but haven't had much success yet.

Re: Experienced engineers are struggling to get hired

#310

Post by luzojeda »

twojobsoneboss wrote: post #170
luzojeda wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think just because we are cheaper.

So many more companies prefer hiring you all remote now, at the cost of local US remote workers Happy for you all but again it’s come at the cost of local US remote workers… the chickens have come home to roost of the WFH movement

Many good things for you guys have come at the cost of us third worlders for many decades, what do you expect me to say?
Post reply on HN