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There is no talent shortage

apaitch.com

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Re: There is no talent shortage

#51

Post by sanxiyn »

zanny wrote: post #48
apaitch wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the outside looking in, it certainly doesn't seem like everyone is eager to snatch up mediocre graduates. I can't say I've done much research on the subject or crunched numbers, but I noticed two things: 1) Complaints about "talent shortages" from top companies and startups in the Valley and otherwise. 2) Companies evaluating people based on experience, GitHub profiles, open source contributions, etc. Not that i…

This is basically my scenario. Got the BS in CS by rushing my degree, but getting into FOSS is proving harder than I would expect, mainly because every project has "some" technology, from automake to some framework like qt or something else that I never learned and thus feel helpless trying to get into, especially on anything with more than 200k LOCs. Getting into something like that is getting through a brick wall w…

Actually the trick is to choose the project that uses technology you already know. If you know Java better than C++, contribute to Java projects. At least at first, do not choose FOSS projects to contribute based on how impressive it would look.

Re: There is no talent shortage

#52

Post by coryl »

michaelt wrote: post #35
coryl wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope most people know by now that "natural talent" isn't real. See books: Outliers, The Talent Code

Gladwell's theory, as I've heard it, is that mastery demands 10,000 hours of good quality practice. When your developers cost $75 an hour including overheads, paying people for those 10,000 hours is an extremely costly proposition.

Not sure what your point is, with due respect.

Everyone wants to hire master engineers, but it's not like master engineers are available for hire.

Re: There is no talent shortage

#53

Post by [deleted] »

rdl wrote: post #39
juiceandjuice wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've been searching for a month, you've been getting interviews, even repeat interviews, and you are complaining? Not to make little of your situation, but I don't think you really have a whole lot to complain about, especially because any place with a real HR department is going to take at least a month to get you into a job. Also, SF is expensive, and if you are staying somewhere expensive in the city while tryin…

Any employer who can't hire you in a week start to finish either doesn't actually want you or is too defective to be worthwhile. Maybe two weeks if it's out of the area and you need to fly to visit them for the final round of interviews. (the exception being for VP/COO at larger companies where a board would need to sign off)

[deleted]

Re: There is no talent shortage

#54

Post by sanxiyn »

coryl wrote: post #50
te_chris wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two pseudo-scientific books as proof. Seems legit. In all seriousness, this is ridiculous, of course natural talent exists, what gladwell et al are really getting at to me is that it's not enough to have natural talent and execute once. That isn't how success works in the real world, even if it outwardly appears that way. I have Los of friends who are artists and I moved cities last year from one where the local ar s…

of course natural talent exists Well then, what is natural talent, how do you objectify and measure it in a person, if it so obviously exists? Success is best correlated with time invested in skill development. Natural talent is bullshit, it's like attributing height to a basketball player's success.

You mean height is not correlated with basketball player's success?

Re: There is no talent shortage

#55

Post by jaekwon »

tejask wrote: post #5

My programming experience was unexpressed before college as I was mostly interested in basic sciences - mainly physics. It was only after high school did I seriously get into CS type of stuff as I started developing an intesrest in AI/algorithms. So for me, it is not hard to believe that there could be a lot of people with a hidden aptitude for programming. After all, programming is a means to an end. After high scho…

I started programming late into highschool as well, and only a TI83 at that. My first rendezvous with network/gui programming started in college (though I was a CS major). Now, more than half a decade after graduation and working in silicon valley, I'm hacking on more serious projects like writing operating systems. I don't think starting late has affected me negatively too much. Just keep at it, you'll reach your full potential before you know it.

Re: There is no talent shortage

#56

Post by JamesLeonis »

michaelt wrote: post #35
coryl wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope most people know by now that "natural talent" isn't real. See books: Outliers, The Talent Code

Gladwell's theory, as I've heard it, is that mastery demands 10,000 hours of good quality practice. When your developers cost $75 an hour including overheads, paying people for those 10,000 hours is an extremely costly proposition.

Gladwell was arguing that it takes 10,000 hours to go from a knowing nothing to becoming a master at any craft. At 8 hours a day, every single day, is ~3.5 years.

For programmers, most of the initial chunk of that time is through hobby programming or through formal training at a college or the like. That's 3000 hours that the company didn't pay for. That's probably the experience most programmers walk in to any company as a Jr Developer, and they are paid accordingly. Nobody is being offered $150k/yr with that level of experience. Maybe $30-$40 depending on where they are working, and then are promoted and given raises above that.

Re: There is no talent shortage

#57

Post by sentinel »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #49

Ok, really how common are people who have started 2 companies and written an OS by the time they start college? I did CS at a pretty good university (AAB A level requirement) and there were plenty of uber-nerds in the class but nobody had done anything like this. I did a bit of casual freelance work building basic PHP/HTML websites and fixing/building PCs before I started college, but never anything I would have drea…

I think you might be missing the point of the article.

Re: There is no talent shortage

#58

Post by jiggy2011 »

sentinel wrote: post #57
jiggy2011 wrote: post #49

Ok, really how common are people who have started 2 companies and written an OS by the time they start college? I did CS at a pretty good university (AAB A level requirement) and there were plenty of uber-nerds in the class but nobody had done anything like this. I did a bit of casual freelance work building basic PHP/HTML websites and fixing/building PCs before I started college, but never anything I would have drea…

I think you might be missing the point of the article.

Not really, no wonder companies have problems hiring if they are after some mythical person who does not represent the top 1% of programmers, more like the top 0.001% (even Linus Torvalds or Bill Gates don't tick all the boxes here).

In fact I would be surprised if someone with that level of accomplishment so young would even consider taking any job with any company, more likely they are already putting together an MVP of the thing that will replace google.

Re: There is no talent shortage

#59

Post by coryl »

sanxiyn wrote: post #54
coryl wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

of course natural talent exists Well then, what is natural talent, how do you objectify and measure it in a person, if it so obviously exists? Success is best correlated with time invested in skill development. Natural talent is bullshit, it's like attributing height to a basketball player's success.

You mean height is not correlated with basketball player's success?

Not sure if you were being sarcastic?

My point was, skill and hours practiced are far better predictors of success than a voodoo attribute like natural talent. In the above case, I tried to use height as an example of a "natural ability" person could be advantaged in.

Re: There is no talent shortage

#60

Post by JamesLeonis »

Maybe it's just me, but this seems to be in response to an earlier HN post about the entrepreneur prodigy [1] as well as a vague stab at the 10x programmer myth.

[1]: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4140048

Largely though "Norman" is more attractive than "John" to businesses because he displays strong signals both in talent and work ethic. "John" might be a hard worker and have talent himself, but because he has no obvious projects or other public displays of talent his signal to employers is weak. What "John" needs is something that sends a comparatively strong signal. In a way, this sounds like a call to action to figure out how programmers can build a sufficiently strong signal for employers to see. How do we separate the signal from the noise?

Interestingly, this signalling problem arises with employers as well. Look how many articles are posted here about "How to attract the best talent."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_(economics)

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