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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

#91

Post by lmg643 »

freyr wrote: post #85
potatolicious wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they're not rising. Or rather more accurately, because only one segment of the industry is rising while the rest stay stagnant. The offers being thrown around by Facebook, Google, et al, aren't anything to scoff at, and as another poster pointed out already, have gone up substantially in a just a few short years (that 50% number is accurate for new grads, it's higher for those with experience). But the bulk o…

That's an interesting point. So we can differentiate between top-talent coders who are in high demand from top companies, and the bulk of programmers working for far less at companies like Infosys, Wipro, etc. But who are Facebook, Google, Microsoft (not to mention, Infosys, Wipro, etc.) trying to hire through the H-1B program? Top talent? Average coders? Why doesn't Facebook, Google, Microsoft, etc., first recruit f…

It's also interesting that everyone agrees that the only thing in short supply is the highest quality programmers, but immigration policy is focused on increasing the total number of immigrants and not just the highest quality ones. Under our current strategy, we'll get a similarly small proportion of top quality programmers along with 97% who are basically there to keep down operating costs for MSFT (or Infosys, Wipro etc - arguably "bad actors" from the perspective of how Silicon Valley likes to do business).

If we were serious about alleviating the shortage of top quality hires, we'd have a way to increase the quota of "the best" technical talent and not the current blanket approach, which really favors major employers trying to save costs. Maybe we let google design a technical test for anyone who wants to work here in a technical role. :)

I think Facebook is sincere in their desire for quality talent, but since their CEO happens to be one of the youngest billionaires in the world, who has only worked at one company which he founded as a pup, he is equally inexperienced in "the real world" (eg, how many other companies operate and what they use H1B for) and probably a very poor choice for a leader on immigration reform.

Re: The Myth of America's Tech Talent Shortage

#92

Post by polyfractal »

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…

> btw why is he looking through the lens if the microscope is plugged into a monitor? Seems redundant...

Actually, this is pretty common, especially if you are doing fluorescence microscopy (complete derail from your main point, sorry):

- The optics leading to the eye-piece is usually superior to the quality of the camera. You'll have a cleaner, crisper picture looking through the eyepiece

- Most cameras tend to have a refresh rate which is laggy.

- Eyepiece optics tend to have a wider field of view, making it a lot easier to find interesting areas to focus on

- Especially for fluorescence, using the eyepiece helps block out background light, letting you focus on faint details. Some details are just really hard to make out on the computer screen, without fiddling with contrast/brightness settings

- You may have the computer settings at a particular level where "browsing" the field is impossible. E.g. your "picture taking mode" is set to long exposures, or very quick exposures with high contrast. These settings make it difficult to actually use the computer for anything except taking the picture.

- You are taking pictures in fluorescence, but selecting/focusing with bright-field.

Re: The Myth of America's Tech Talent Shortage

#93

Post by potatolicious »

freyr wrote: post #85
potatolicious wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they're not rising. Or rather more accurately, because only one segment of the industry is rising while the rest stay stagnant. The offers being thrown around by Facebook, Google, et al, aren't anything to scoff at, and as another poster pointed out already, have gone up substantially in a just a few short years (that 50% number is accurate for new grads, it's higher for those with experience). But the bulk o…

That's an interesting point. So we can differentiate between top-talent coders who are in high demand from top companies, and the bulk of programmers working for far less at companies like Infosys, Wipro, etc. But who are Facebook, Google, Microsoft (not to mention, Infosys, Wipro, etc.) trying to hire through the H-1B program? Top talent? Average coders? Why doesn't Facebook, Google, Microsoft, etc., first recruit f…

Because the masses of underpaid Infosys developers are really bad. I used to work at a name-brand, large corporation known for hiring top-end talent, and did a lot of interviewing while there.

Inevitably the people who are looking to jump ship from Infosys or other low-end consultancy are woefully underqualified for even entry-level positions. I've actually interviewed people from these shops who cannot write Hello World in a language of their own choosing, I've also had people who didn't know what a tree data structure was. I'm unsure how Infosys et al can farm these guys out for such high hourly rates, it's surely criminal.

Sniping from Infosys and Wipro isn't worth it for top companies because there's hardly anyone there worth sniping. They do try sometimes though, since inevitably there is a diamond in there just waiting to get the hell out of dodge. There is effectively zero intersection between the types of developers Google wants, and the types of developers Infosys wants.

As for who Google/Microsoft/etc are trying to hire... I wouldn't call it "top talent" exactly. The H-1B pool in these companies isn't a parade of who's whos of the software industry, though some of them are certainly top-1% coders. It's more like "very good coders" - people who know the tech, learn fast, have solid fundamentals, and get shit done - which is more than can be said for the majority of the talent pool. Simply eyeballing it, I'd say that Facebook/Google/etc are targeting the top 5-10 percentile of coders.

Re: The Myth of America's Tech Talent Shortage

#94

Post by ttrreeww »

jbooth wrote: post #87
freyr wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting point. So we can differentiate between top-talent coders who are in high demand from top companies, and the bulk of programmers working for far less at companies like Infosys, Wipro, etc. But who are Facebook, Google, Microsoft (not to mention, Infosys, Wipro, etc.) trying to hire through the H-1B program? Top talent? Average coders? Why doesn't Facebook, Google, Microsoft, etc., first recruit f…

Yes, they're trying to hire top talent through the H-1B program. Immigration status is orthogonal to talent. That's the reason they're generally not trying to recruit from the masses of underpaid infosys developers.

And that is the reason why there is a mass of underpaid talents.

Re: The Myth of America's Tech Talent Shortage

#95

Post by [deleted] »

jbooth wrote: post #87
freyr wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting point. So we can differentiate between top-talent coders who are in high demand from top companies, and the bulk of programmers working for far less at companies like Infosys, Wipro, etc. But who are Facebook, Google, Microsoft (not to mention, Infosys, Wipro, etc.) trying to hire through the H-1B program? Top talent? Average coders? Why doesn't Facebook, Google, Microsoft, etc., first recruit f…

Yes, they're trying to hire top talent through the H-1B program. Immigration status is orthogonal to talent. That's the reason they're generally not trying to recruit from the masses of underpaid infosys developers.

[deleted]

Re: The Myth of America's Tech Talent Shortage

#96

Post by GFischer »

jbooth wrote: post #87
freyr wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting point. So we can differentiate between top-talent coders who are in high demand from top companies, and the bulk of programmers working for far less at companies like Infosys, Wipro, etc. But who are Facebook, Google, Microsoft (not to mention, Infosys, Wipro, etc.) trying to hire through the H-1B program? Top talent? Average coders? Why doesn't Facebook, Google, Microsoft, etc., first recruit f…

Yes, they're trying to hire top talent through the H-1B program. Immigration status is orthogonal to talent. That's the reason they're generally not trying to recruit from the masses of underpaid infosys developers.

I don't know about Infosys, but we have a TCS (Tata Consultancy Services) branch here in Uruguay, and it is very common for junior developers to do a few years there, and then quickly realize they've "outgrown" the company and get recruited somewhere else or start their own company - and those "child" companies recruit the cream of the remaining crop, leaving the worse/less motivated employees at the mother company.

TCS does try to keep some of the better ones around, but from the outside I cannot know how succesful they are.

Re: The Myth of America's Tech Talent Shortage

#97

Post by dusklight »

Speaking as someone who has interviewed quite a lot of people, I would say we have an ample supply of kids who started programming in college and successfully graduated with a 4-year degree, or even a masters. But we have a huge shortage on people who can actually write code and be hireable.

Re: The Myth of America's Tech Talent Shortage

#98

Post by rayiner »

yajoe wrote: post #74
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.

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-leve…

> What other industry has as much salary growth for front-line or entry-level people? I believe in a shortage.

From 2005 to 2008, first year analyst/associate salaries at Wall Street banks, consulting firms, and law firms jumped 30% or more. In neither case was there a real shortage of people across the industry. Instead, it was just a matter of a few top firms bidding up salaries for the top young graduates in response to a temporary boom. Certainly nobody was calling for increased immigration to address any perceived "talent shortage."

This is exactly what is happening in Silicon Valley right now. You're seeing a spike in salaries for the few top people at the few top employers as the result of a temporary boom in the sector. You're not seeing a long-term trend of the industry needing more CS graduates than our domestic institutions can provide.

Re: The Myth of America's Tech Talent Shortage

#99

Post by jtbigwoo »

When someone says "I can't find enough qualified people for X", the reader should always append "for what I am willing to pay."

Miraculously, there never seems to be a shortage of qualified Wall Street traders, university administrators, or any number of other highly paid professions.

Re: The Myth of America's Tech Talent Shortage

#100

Post by lmickh »

VLM wrote: post #58
mseebach wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about accounting makes it inherently less outsourceable than programming? In a world where STEM is not a practical career, presumably because it's all done in low-wage countries overseas, how is accounting still being done in-house?

Strange as it sounds, fraud prosecution. If a software dev lies or the product is buggy nothing really happens to anyone, but at least in theory a fraudulent or incompetent accountant could go to jail, and that's not happening in Outsourceland, so fundamentally at least some of it has to be done locally. Most of the lowest level of data entry and paper shuffling has long since been disposed of via automation, so alre…

When I was in school for a B.S., I settled on accounting for this very reason. There was already talk about massive outsourcing of IT and tech jobs in the late 90's. I was already working in the tech field before I graduated so experience was not an issue. Today it is easy to contribute to open source as well.

I figured worst case is I got laid off and picked up a job as an account. If someone was going to outsource accounting, they would have done it by now.

On the plus side, I've never had anyone complain about my lack of an CS or MIT degree and I'm not stumped by "business decisions" like other engineers are. Somethings actually make sense when you understand the difference between capital expense and normal expense.

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