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The Myth of America's Tech Talent Shortage

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Myth of America's Tech Talent Shortage

#71

Post by zenbowman »

The article makes the mistake of assuming that everyone who graduates with a computer science degree can actually work as a professional programmer.

Cheating and copying were extremely widespread when I did my undergraduate and even graduate level computer science work at a top-20 engineering school. Maybe 10% of students were actually people I could consider hiring.

This goes for both American and foreign students, I don't make the false claim that Americans are not as smart as foreigners or don't work as hard. Dishonesty and dishonor was the norm, and in my experience, most of the people who actually did their own work and had a knack for engineering went on to do very well.

Re: The Myth of America's Tech Talent Shortage

#72

Post by mixmastamyk »

migrantgeek wrote: post #29

I don't doubt that companies are trying to get a piece of legislation passed that allows them to pay employees less. Increasing margins, that's what companies do. I do take issue with the idea that the talent shortage is a myth. I work for a company willing to pay a six figure starting salary plus good benefits in what's supposed to be a recession and we cannot fill our headcount. My team has been looking to fill 2 h…

> but they can't whiteboard even simple problems.

Not sure how accurate that statement is, but as quality software is not written on whiteboards under pressure you may be looking at the wrong things.

There's a guy here that frequently brings up the work-sample test, and some data exists confirming it to be a indicator.

Re: The Myth of America's Tech Talent Shortage

#73

Post by nickbarnwell »

dpritchett wrote: post #14
dspeyer wrote: post #4

> Could it be that schools aren't teaching their students the right stuff, that despite their fancy credentials, today's grads lack the programming chops or logical prowess needed to succeed at a Google or Microsoft? Not so much. Having done interviews at Google, and given a lot of very low scores to people with impressive degrees, I'm inclined to say yes. The author thinks that this would cause wages to rise, but th…

Given that there's not an actual college major titled "Google SWE II", I'm not sure what sort of standards you're expecting out of people. (What I understand to be) Google's favorite tools - C++, Java, algo/data structure theory - don't exactly describe a holistic CS/SE/MIS curriculum. I'm sure a specifically designed trade school curriculum could train intelligent people up to ace valley hiring tests in two years or…

Anyone who's gone through a holistic CS curriculum should be able to fairly easily pass the Google/Facebook/MS/Palantir-esque interview process (for new grad positions) with flying colours. The typical algorithmic questions they give are things likely seen verbatim in second year maths and algorithm/data-structure courses, while the system design stuff is fairly pedestrian. Specific knowledge of any language was unnecessary, and they really honed in on CS fundamentals.

I do think they probably miss out on some smart people who scraped by in classes to pursue personal interests and could easily learn the material, but given the state of most new graduates it's probably a fair trade-off.

(Disclaimer: I interned at Google after my Freshman year. I'm an English Lit. major and completely self-taught; I did not think the interviews were particularly difficult)

Re: The Myth of America's Tech Talent Shortage

#74

Post by yajoe »

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.

To throw some numbers at this question about salaries. Here is the Standard Offer for a college hire Level 59 Microsoft SDE (Developer) to Seattle over the years as I've observed them.

  2005-2006: 70k
  2007-2008: 80k
  2009-2010: 85/90k (there was a macro recession here)
  2011-2012: 100k/105k
  2013: 105k--110k (tbd)
In 6 years that's a 50% increase. What other industry has as much salary growth for front-line or entry-level people? I believe in a shortage. The most likely cause is this VC-infused hiring bubble going on that may burst and put a lot of people back on the market.

What's tragic is that Microsoft people who started in 2006 and had 70% careers are often making similar money as the entry-level folks. Combine that with a toxic environment and stagnant products, and it's pretty easy to understand why great people leave the company. It's also pretty easy to understand why Microsoft wants to import H1Bs that often are terrified of getting deported back and will do anything to keep their jobs.

Re: The Myth of America's Tech Talent Shortage

#76

Post by zenbowman »

VLM wrote: post #19
davidw wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a vocation choice STEM is as likely to be as unrewarding as trying to become a rock star, a pro NBA player, You could always point your kids towards economics - they'd spot the flaw in the above pretty quickly: a lot of STEM stuff is not zero-sum. If more people work on building more stuff, it's probably a net gain for the world. The NBA, on the other hand, by definition, can only have one champion per year, and…

"it's probably a net gain for the world." The problem is my kids live here, where none of the benefits accrue. We could immigrate to India? I do agree that in a very cold hearted sense, "the world" is better off with my kid in a homeless shelter and 100 people in India finally getting enough rice to eat, vs my kid being rich and 100 people in India starving to death. But once you're a parent, its very hard to be obje…

Why do you assume your kids will be unemployed?

Re: The Myth of America's Tech Talent Shortage

#77

Post by marshray »

VLM wrote: post #3

A quote from the article also applies to the recent fad of promoting STEM education in K-12 etc. "Roughly twice as many American undergraduates earn degrees in science, technology, engineering, and math disciplines than go on to work in those fields." Maybe if my kids grade school gets their way, we can boost that to four times, or even more. Those numbers are almost as bad as recent law school grad stats. Needless t…

> As a vocation choice STEM is as likely to be as unrewarding as trying to become a rock star, a pro NBA player, or a fine arts painter

Baloney. :-) If we total up the number of people who support a middle-class or better lifestyle solely with income from activities as "a rock star, a pro NBA player, or a fine arts painter" I think we'd see multiple of orders of magnitude fewer than those doing the same in STEM fields.

For example: "as of 2009, GlaxoSmithKline employs an estimated 99,913 people around the world, and 12,800 of these employees work in GSK’s research teams to discover new medicines" http://www.numberof.net/number-of-gsk-employees/

Compared to: "Each team may have 15 players on their roster, 12 of which may dress for each game. Since there are 30 teams in the league, at any one time there is a maximum of 450 players on NBA rosters" http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_total_number_of_player...

Re: The Myth of America's Tech Talent Shortage

#78

Post by dpritchett »

nickbarnwell wrote: post #73
dpritchett wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that there's not an actual college major titled "Google SWE II", I'm not sure what sort of standards you're expecting out of people. (What I understand to be) Google's favorite tools - C++, Java, algo/data structure theory - don't exactly describe a holistic CS/SE/MIS curriculum. I'm sure a specifically designed trade school curriculum could train intelligent people up to ace valley hiring tests in two years or…

Anyone who's gone through a holistic CS curriculum should be able to fairly easily pass the Google/Facebook/MS/Palantir-esque interview process (for new grad positions) with flying colours. The typical algorithmic questions they give are things likely seen verbatim in second year maths and algorithm/data-structure courses, while the system design stuff is fairly pedestrian. Specific knowledge of any language was unne…

I think we agree with each other.

I did a master's in CS from a school not known for CS and I'm pretty sure I'd fail Google's interviews unless I could put in a few weeks of focused preparation. Meanwhile I'm happily employed in Memphis and Google seems to have a recruiting pipeline in place that works for them.

Re: The Myth of America's Tech Talent Shortage

#79

Post by freyr »

kyllo wrote: post #64
freyr wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

True. It would be interesting if they could break out salary growth for top developers vs. average developers. The common sentiment here seems to be that there's a shortage of highly talented developers. If this is true, then their salaries may in fact be rising at a higher pace.

"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."

That's also true, but it's also interesting to consider from the perspective of a talented student considering CS. If he believes everything he reads, (a) he'll start with a decent salary but probably hit a glass ceiling relatively quickly (a much lower ceiling than, say, a doctor or management consultant or trader), (b) his skill set is in constant danger of becoming outdated due to the unusually high pace of skill turnover, at which point he'll be replaced by an H-1B holder or new CS grad, (c) he'll be expected to move to Silicon Valley (or NYC, apparently) where the cost of living will negate his higher salary. If any of these things actually come to pass, the relatively high starting salary he made the first few years out of school won't be much consolation.

Re: The Myth of America's Tech Talent Shortage

#80

Post by heresyforme »

migrantgeek wrote: post #29

I don't doubt that companies are trying to get a piece of legislation passed that allows them to pay employees less. Increasing margins, that's what companies do. I do take issue with the idea that the talent shortage is a myth. I work for a company willing to pay a six figure starting salary plus good benefits in what's supposed to be a recession and we cannot fill our headcount. My team has been looking to fill 2 h…

Shoot, I'd be willing to give it go and if I'm behind I'd be willing to take a pay cut for the 3-4 weeks it would take me to get up to speed.
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