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The Myth of America's Tech Talent Shortage

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Re: The Myth of America's Tech Talent Shortage

#61

Post by gav »

whiddershins wrote: post #23

Every time I try to hire someone to do any tech work for me, I am convinced there is a shortage of tech talent. It is cray hard to hire people, leaving aside price. It is hard to even get people to discuss working for me, before compensation is even discussed. And I live in NYC, not under a rock. And I'm friendly. Sure seems like a tech shortage to me.

We've been having problems hiring in NYC, there's definitely a shortage of good tech talent here.

Just an anecdote: in the last month or so we've had two candidates not show up to an interview because they've already accepted another job.

Re: The Myth of America's Tech Talent Shortage

#62

Post by VLM »

angersock wrote: post #51
VLM wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I tend to equate STEM with 'profitable future'." There's a large number of extremely wealthy and extremely powerful people working publicly as hard as they can against that belief, and the government has been purchased to be on their side. Very few things unite everyone in power both in .biz and .gov quite as well as the destruction of STEM as a middle class or better lifestyle. My advice is be very careful when goi…

That's quite a claim there--would you mind elaborating on your reasoning? Perhaps it's just due to my current existence in a very productive city, but STEM (and vocational training) seem to be both very much in demand and rewarded.

To elaborate I would advise reading the article and the HN posts.

Re: The Myth of America's Tech Talent Shortage

#63

Post by potatolicious »

VLM wrote: post #56
potatolicious wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article makes the fundamental mistake almost all other articles of its topic do: it assumes that software development is a monolithic entity, when it is instead a collection of extremely dissimilar camps. Part of this is the fault of government - in almost all statistics the $200K systems architect at Google is rolled into the same column as the $45K coder pounding out VB6 apps for the company intranet. This art…

"The more accurate title is: "top level developers in extreme shortage," Vs the article "134,780 H1-B visas that were approved in 2012." A good analogy to the debate is we're talking about a shortage of, and reasonable desire to import any legendary epic level multi-platinum award winning rock star, but in actual practice we're importing anyone who's ever touched a guitar in order to keep domestic wages low by pushin…

No, in actual practice we're doing both. Like I said before, anyone who portrays the current H-1B issue as purely one-sided is either underinformed or is pushing an agenda.

134,780 H-1B visas were approved in 2012, what is the distribution of salaries? The fact that the US let 134,780 people into the country last year says absolutely nothing about how many of these people are cheap, barely-qualified foreign labor, and how many are the multi-platinum award winning rock stars. It's quite obvious to even a lay observer that both categories of hiring are occurring in large amounts in this pool, but almost no one is willing to address the balance.

Painting the entire H-1B pool with a single brush is, to be blunt, extremely ignorant of how it actually is in reality.

And seeing the state of the industry, a simple mean would be an inaccurate picture also, given the extremely lopsided distribution (i.e., lots of people making $200K, lots of people making $60K). What would be far more useful is an actual, comprehensive look at the distribution of H-1B visas. The total count is meaningless except in the populist "raaaah our jerbs!" way.

Re: The Myth of America's Tech Talent Shortage

#64

Post by kyllo »

freyr wrote: post #54
kyllo wrote: post #42

This article makes a big mistake in conflating software development with STEM in general. It shows a stock photo of a guy looking through a microsope (btw why is he looking through the lens if the microscope is plugged into a monitor? Seems redundant...), when the focus of the article is Microsoft, Google, and Facebook wanting to raise the H1-B visa cap so they can bring in more cheap coders from India. Is there a sh…

> There is massive, and growing, demand in all sectors for software developers, and our universities aren't graduating them faster than demand growth, and as a result software dev salaries are rising (or at least not falling). This is a direct contradiction to what's claimed in the article, namely that dev salaries are not rising to the extent that would be expected if there were a true shortage.

Yeah, I don't have data on hand to support this, but I also doubt that software dev salaries are really rising fast enough to indicate an actual shortage, or at least a new or growing shortage.

I think the problem employers see is not that software dev salaries are rising, just that they are high compared to other job descriptions, and have been for years. Starting salaries for an entry-level software developer (with a bachelor's in CS) are roughly double the starting salaries for non-programmer entry-level positions that require a bachelor's degree--and employers don't like that.

Re: The Myth of America's Tech Talent Shortage

#65

Post by freyr »

potatolicious wrote: post #38
skwirl wrote: post #16

As someone who has been working as a software developer for five years since graduating, the claims made by this article are completely contrary to my personal experience. Finding good developers is hard. We spend months trying to hire for positions, sometimes interviewing dozens of people, before we find someone. And we pay well, use modern technologies, have a great group of existing developers, and don't expect an…

This article makes the fundamental mistake almost all other articles of its topic do: it assumes that software development is a monolithic entity, when it is instead a collection of extremely dissimilar camps. Part of this is the fault of government - in almost all statistics the $200K systems architect at Google is rolled into the same column as the $45K coder pounding out VB6 apps for the company intranet. This art…

"The reality is that we need to expand immigration in the former category and hit the brakes on the latter, but this also doesn't fit nicely into the "immigration is purely a means for exploitation" narrative that some people are trying to spin."

The reality that we need to attract more top talent, and the reality that companies are lobbying for more cheap labor are not mutually exclusive.

That said, the shortage of top developers could be attributed to any number of things, including:

* There is a limited number of top performers in all fields. This is natural, and cranking out more college grads won't change anything.

* Top performing students are choosing other fields, perhaps ones that pay better (finance, medical, consulting, basically any field with a higher glass ceiling)

* Or they choose jobs with better perceived job security. You don't constantly hear about outsourcing, indentured employment, and 10-years-to-irrelevance in most fields.

* The students lack the pre-requisite education to excel in CS (this probably isn't a huge problem among the top performers, but you can't avoid the fact that the elementary education system generally sucks and many prospects probably fall in the cracks).

* Companies (and by extension, our law makers) are taking a short-term outlook by prioritizing the immigration of lower-tier and middle-tier coders?

Re: The Myth of America's Tech Talent Shortage

#66

Post by marshray »

kyllo wrote: post #42

This article makes a big mistake in conflating software development with STEM in general. It shows a stock photo of a guy looking through a microsope (btw why is he looking through the lens if the microscope is plugged into a monitor? Seems redundant...), when the focus of the article is Microsoft, Google, and Facebook wanting to raise the H1-B visa cap so they can bring in more cheap coders from India. Is there a sh…

> why is he looking through the lens if the microscope is plugged into a monitor?

Must be one of those newfangled stereographic retina-resolution microscopes.

Re: The Myth of America's Tech Talent Shortage

#67

Post by tbrownaw »

skwirl wrote: post #16

As someone who has been working as a software developer for five years since graduating, the claims made by this article are completely contrary to my personal experience. Finding good developers is hard. We spend months trying to hire for positions, sometimes interviewing dozens of people, before we find someone. And we pay well, use modern technologies, have a great group of existing developers, and don't expect an…

I know quite a few people who majored in CS, were able to grind through it to get their degree, but can't stand the thought of doing this for a career. Their motivations for going into the field out of high school vary, and many are misguided, but how can you really hold a 17 year old to making a 40 year life decision?

17 is just a year away from being able to get married or join the army. Those seem like a bit bigger deal, especially since you can switch majors before graduating (for example my first roommate, who switched from CS to... something to do with business I think).

Re: The Myth of America's Tech Talent Shortage

#68

Post by drbacon »

freyr wrote: post #54
kyllo wrote: post #42

This article makes a big mistake in conflating software development with STEM in general. It shows a stock photo of a guy looking through a microsope (btw why is he looking through the lens if the microscope is plugged into a monitor? Seems redundant...), when the focus of the article is Microsoft, Google, and Facebook wanting to raise the H1-B visa cap so they can bring in more cheap coders from India. Is there a sh…

> There is massive, and growing, demand in all sectors for software developers, and our universities aren't graduating them faster than demand growth, and as a result software dev salaries are rising (or at least not falling). This is a direct contradiction to what's claimed in the article, namely that dev salaries are not rising to the extent that would be expected if there were a true shortage.

That's a good point. I have difficulty reconciling two opposing feelings: I feel like the US is not producing enough developers/engineers, and I feel like the salaries do not reflect the shortage.

I have been working as a developer (and also an analyst) in the DC area for 6 years. The talent pool around here is very shallow. The companies for which I have worked are constantly looking to hire programmers. It is very difficult to find qualified applicants. Roughly half of developers at my current company are on H1-B visas. I think H1-B is both a form of indentured servitude and somewhat necessary (at least in the DC area). I wish there were a better way to employ immigrants, so that they could more easily job-hop or go out on their own.

OTOH, I think the salaries have not reflected this shortage. Maybe I am just a poor negotiator.

Perhaps Boston, Austin and other hot beds are different (i.e. deeper talent pools, more opportunistic employers). But I see my employers struggle to find developers, and poor salaries blamed on the economy.

Re: The Myth of America's Tech Talent Shortage

#69

Post by jeremyjh »

VLM wrote: post #12
gnoway wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

kneejerk reaction: like what? I haven't thought a lot about this, but I tend to equate STEM with 'profitable future'. What other industries/disciplines are you thinking of?

"I tend to equate STEM with 'profitable future'." There's a large number of extremely wealthy and extremely powerful people working publicly as hard as they can against that belief, and the government has been purchased to be on their side. Very few things unite everyone in power both in .biz and .gov quite as well as the destruction of STEM as a middle class or better lifestyle. My advice is be very careful when goi…

>"I tend to equate STEM with 'profitable future'." There's a large number of extremely wealthy and extremely powerful people working publicly as hard as they can against that belief, and the government has been purchased to be on their side.

This is the part I would like to hear more about. It is not addressed in the article or other comments.

Re: The Myth of America's Tech Talent Shortage

#70

Post by eikenberry »

kyllo wrote: post #42

This article makes a big mistake in conflating software development with STEM in general. It shows a stock photo of a guy looking through a microsope (btw why is he looking through the lens if the microscope is plugged into a monitor? Seems redundant...), when the focus of the article is Microsoft, Google, and Facebook wanting to raise the H1-B visa cap so they can bring in more cheap coders from India. Is there a sh…

> But programming is not STEM, and these jobs are not scientific research jobs.

STEM stands for 'Science Technology Engineering Mathematics'. Programming is part of the middle 'TE' bit plus a little of the 'M'.

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