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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

#101

Post by VLM »

potatolicious wrote: post #63
VLM wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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, an…

"almost no one is willing to address the balance."

Ah I think I see our minor disagreement. My belief is the vast majority of the eighth of a million per year are NOT elite rock star caliber based on some crude estimates about graduation rates and so forth. I don't believe we have the educational capacity, world wide, to graduate 250 million computer science grads every 20 years outside the USA such that the elite top 1% from each graduating class year eventually H1Bs over into the USA. Even if we really did have 250 million outside the USA CS grads every 20 years, why would a perfect 100% of the 1% come here?

The percentage of elite hires almost by definition must be so low in that eighth of a million, so as to be a rounding error approx zero. That doesn't mean Mr Anecdote doesn't exist or they're evil or imply any political ridiculousness, it just means that elite level coders are such a tiny fraction of the population that shoving them into the debate sideways is intentionally derailing the real debate about the vast majority of people involved.

Beyond discussing the present and past, if we imploded the H1B system from an eighth of a million to perhaps two thousand, almost certainly the two thousand who actually survive the process would almost certainly be the elite 1% supercoders, so even pretty far out "solutions" would have no effect on supercoders, making it even less relevant to debate supercoders.

Another interesting way to put it, is most countries allow anyone in if they post enough money. I don't know what the USA charges, but $1M would be more than any other country I've ever heard of. So for a mere $2B, if H1B were utterly eliminated, you could still let all the supercoders in under the wealthy people rule at minimal cost. After all, if you're willing to pay $350K/yr for a supercoder, posting $1M for a wealthy person immigration is only about three years total cost.

Talking about the tiny population of supercoders is simply a distraction.

Re: The Myth of America's Tech Talent Shortage

#102

Post by smm2000 »

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…

I was hired by Microsoft as a fresh grad in 2005 for 84000 year. 84000 in 2005 according to CPI calculator (http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl) is $100,117.42 today. Add to that that two years ago Microsoft reduced stock grants and put more money into base salary and actual total compensation increase for fresh grads is negligible.

Re: The Myth of America's Tech Talent Shortage

#103

Post by charleslmunger »

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…

You're right, the only challenge from the interviews is stress and the unfamiliarity of coding on a whiteboard.

Re: The Myth of America's Tech Talent Shortage

#104

Post by jbooth »

ttrreeww wrote: post #94
jbooth wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's definitely possible that the blue-chip companies are missing an opportunity to develop talent out of that ecosystem, but it's also not their responsibility to do so. Most of us who are senior engineers at whichever high-flying company were, at one point, just working on some boring-ass webapp.

Re: The Myth of America's Tech Talent Shortage

#105

Post by VLM »

zenbowman wrote: post #76
VLM wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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?

The point of the article was only half the grads can get jobs in STEM right now. Then you factor in the usual ageism so those with jobs in tech only really get half a career at best, maybe less, of course other STEM fields aren't as discriminatory as tech. Then factor in the intense desire by .gov and .biz to drive down wages by increasing H1B. Then factor in the median (median not mean) american inflation adjusted income has been in decline for about two generations in a mostly consumer based economy (oh oh). A rising economy might not lift all boats but a sinking one doesn't help much either. Then factor in an intense push to increase the STEM labor supply in K12 by STEM school initiatives and so forth. If the odds of employment in the field are 50:50 now, I would estimate in a decade or two it seems reasonable to be worse than 25% employment. They could very well be in the top 25% of their class, but that sounds like risky odds to me.

If you were aiming at underemployment vs unemployment I do somewhat agree with you. There are already issues with receptionists and admin assistant jobs requiring advanced education, and seemingly all the waitresses I've met have a bachelors degree in "something". Anecdotally in the 70s when aerospace engineers with PHDs were driving taxicabs, I suppose a masters would at least guarantee a school bus driver job, making the education and training hugely wasteful because it has nothing to do with the job, but at least the employee gets to eat and may or may not have healthcare insurance. From that point of view I do agree with you that having a STEM degree means maybe they'll at least be able to get a job stocking shelves at the food store or something, and the kids without STEM will be unemployed completely.

Re: The Myth of America's Tech Talent Shortage

#106

Post by jtbigwoo »

ximeng wrote: post #48
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…

Why not advertise on hn whoishiring?

The commenter may not want his or her posting history associated with his or her employer.

Re: The Myth of America's Tech Talent Shortage

#107

Post by nthj »

dusklight wrote: post #97

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.

Which totally makes sense, and I'm unsure why students don't think this one through. It's like saying, "I want to be a career musician", spending 4 years learning music theory, and then expecting a job playing the piano with an orchestra.

If you want to make great music, you've gotta spend a lot of time playing the piano.

Re: The Myth of America's Tech Talent Shortage

#108

Post by TheCoelacanth »

potatolicious wrote: post #81
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.

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…

If this is the case, it seems that Facebook, Google and Microsoft should be campaigning to have the H1-B quota allocated to whoever is willing to pay the highest salary. That seems like it would be much easier to sell to Congress and it would have the nice side effect of pricing sweatshops like Infosys out of the H1-B market.

Re: The Myth of America's Tech Talent Shortage

#109

Post by harichinnan »

potatolicious wrote: post #93
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…

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…

Back in days when I was looking for a job, Infosys was the dream company to work for in India for a lot of top talent. They would hire only the toppers from top 10 colleges in India and that too with a proper puzzles test like all top US companies. So they hire people based only on academic credentials and then train them for 6 months in a "Infosys University".

I think the perception in US about the unqualified Indian engineers is because you might have seen engineers mostly in their budding years(1-3 years). As with everything else, those people do learn a thing or two as they gain more experience.

I came from India(never worked in Big Bodyshop like Infosys) and have been in US for 5 years now. I have seen really a lot of really dumb people and some really good people on both countries.

Check out the puzzles book that Infosys uses to hire people in India. http://books.google.com/books?id=F-idu9oxkdgC&printsec=f...

Re: The Myth of America's Tech Talent Shortage

#110

Post by TheCoelacanth »

drbacon wrote: post #68
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.

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…

If the salaries haven't reflected the shortage, it's not a shortage. It's just a bunch of people unsuccessfully trying to buy something below market price.
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