Why isn’t there a glut of good software engineers? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why isn’t there a glut of good software engineers?

#21

Post by willholloway » Wed, May 01, 2013, 5:40 PM UTC

The author of this would have his answer if he understood the IQ floor necessary to be a good engineer, access to computers at a young age and willingness to troubleshoot obscure problems is relatively rare in the population.

There are far less high IQ individuals in the world than the world needs right now.

We can teach coding to young people, but as of now we can't reliably increase IQ.

We have studies that prove agents such as piracetam administered to pregnant rats increase the intelligence of their offspring.

If the Tech titans that want cheaper labor really want to solve the problem of lack of quality engineers they could think long term and throw massive amounts of funding at neuroscience and nootropic research.

In the information age we all live and die by our wits. Policy and R&D money should be directed at raising the mean intelligence of the population through novel scientific breakthroughs.

Far easier though to just lobby for government policies that make it easier to import the rare kind of people Google, Microsoft and Facebook need.

So we have a situation where no one is focused on solving the root of the problem (a need to increase the cognitive abilities of humans) and no one is lobbying to protect the financial interests of working coders in the United States.

Re: Why isn’t there a glut of good software engineers?

#22

Post by npsimons » Wed, May 01, 2013, 5:41 PM UTC

tempi35 wrote: post #9

ben336 wrote: post #5

The article starts with the primary assumption that programming is a commodity skill, then is astounded when the world doesn't back up his theory. Not exactly going to learn a lot like that.

Why programming isn't a commodity skill? Or will become such commodity soon? Programming is like a house builder. Yes there are better and more experienced builders, but most of them can build a house top to bottom with no problem.

Well, see, that's the difference between a house builder and a programmer. Not just anyone can write a program with "no problem". Sure, sure, anyone can learn to write one off hacks (much like building couch forts), but building something that doesn't fall down when the first woodpecker comes along takes a lot more experience, training, thought, effort and time.

Re: Why isn’t there a glut of good software engineers?

#23

Post by paulbaumgart » Wed, May 01, 2013, 5:41 PM UTC

beeffective wrote: post #7

Why doesn't the pay reflect the supply and demand? I consider myself a decent developer with 9 years of industry experience in several domains and my salary is only $88k. It sounds like based on the demand, I should be pulling in a lot more.

Where are you located? Geography is still a big factor in hiring decisions, so demand is not evenly distributed. In Silicon Valley, $88k is what good-but-not-great fresh college graduates get paid.

Re: Why isn’t there a glut of good software engineers?

#24

Post by MatthewPhillips » Wed, May 01, 2013, 5:41 PM UTC

beeffective wrote: post #7

Why doesn't the pay reflect the supply and demand? I consider myself a decent developer with 9 years of industry experience in several domains and my salary is only $88k. It sounds like based on the demand, I should be pulling in a lot more.

Because the demand isn't actually high.

Re: Why isn’t there a glut of good software engineers?

#25

Post by ctdonath » Wed, May 01, 2013, 5:42 PM UTC

beeffective wrote: post #7

Why doesn't the pay reflect the supply and demand? I consider myself a decent developer with 9 years of industry experience in several domains and my salary is only $88k. It sounds like based on the demand, I should be pulling in a lot more.

Maybe because we're in it for the work, not the money. $75-100K is enough to provide a comfortable life suitable for supporting that work. Not enough of us hold out for bigger offers to push the line up; pay enough to support coding something interesting 8-10 hours a day and we're happy.

A friend noted "as engineers, we would do this stuff for free - it's just all the ancillary BS we get paid to put up with."

Re: Why isn’t there a glut of good software engineers?

#26

Post by kbenson » Wed, May 01, 2013, 5:42 PM UTC

tempi35 wrote: post #9

ben336 wrote: post #5

The article starts with the primary assumption that programming is a commodity skill, then is astounded when the world doesn't back up his theory. Not exactly going to learn a lot like that.

Why programming isn't a commodity skill? Or will become such commodity soon? Programming is like a house builder. Yes there are better and more experienced builders, but most of them can build a house top to bottom with no problem.

I would say programmers are like skilled laborers in this simile. Some are plumbers, some are electricians, some are woodworkers, some are handymen. I wouldn't hire a plumber to wire a house, nor an electrician to plumb it. Either might be able to do the job, or might not. A handyman probably can, but most likely not with the same quality, or knowledge about how to fix more specific or harder problems.

I don't expect a programmer that's been steeped in the world of UNIX daemons to write a good customer facing website on their first attempt, and I wouldn't expect a front-end Javascript programmer to know how to deal with multiprocess programming in C/C++. Asking them to do so may not result in something "with no problem". At least not in an acceptable time frame.

Re: Why isn’t there a glut of good software engineers?

#27

Post by arocks » Wed, May 01, 2013, 5:43 PM UTC

tempi35 wrote: post #9

ben336 wrote: post #5

The article starts with the primary assumption that programming is a commodity skill, then is astounded when the world doesn't back up his theory. Not exactly going to learn a lot like that.

Why programming isn't a commodity skill? Or will become such commodity soon? Programming is like a house builder. Yes there are better and more experienced builders, but most of them can build a house top to bottom with no problem.

> Programming is like a house builder.

Sorry, but that analogy is completely wrong. I would recommend reading Fred Brook's "The Mythical Man-Month" (among many other books on software estimation) to understand why.

He argues that unlike activities involving physical mediums like house building, computer programming creates with an intractable medium. You would be surprised, in the field of programming, that many so-called "programmers" cannot even build a simple house that is stable on its own foundations.

Re: Why isn’t there a glut of good software engineers?

#28

Post by diego » Wed, May 01, 2013, 5:44 PM UTC

For the same reason there isn't a glut of NBA players. Anyone can play, few people can become good enough. Next question.

Edit: disagree? Downvote if you want, but please counterpoint.

Re: Why isn’t there a glut of good software engineers?

#29

Post by solistice » Wed, May 01, 2013, 5:45 PM UTC

sehugg wrote: post #11

by now most of the world’s programming would be happening in low-to-medium-wage countries and that customers wouldn’t have to pay a lot for high quality software. But it hasn’t happened (e.g., see my posting about California’s state government spending $327 million on a straightforward ecommerce site Uh, the reasons government IT projects are typically huge wasteful boondoggles are not because programmer salaries are…

I was puzzeled over that number too, as putting up a site like that, even if you are buying the servers from scratch and hire a first rate web dev, shouldn't cost more than 10-20k$. I went through to the linked artice, and appeareantly, most of it went for consultants. I mean there are consultants out there that are worth their money, and I bet the site is kai-zen optimized very nicely, even though I can't tell, but 327 million $ is quite a hump for that website. The main problem seems to be that government contracting is not a regular market, else joe's jquerry shack would have ourrun and outpaced accenture in both cost and quality.

Re: Why isn’t there a glut of good software engineers?

#30

Post by jskulski » Wed, May 01, 2013, 5:45 PM UTC

tomkarlo wrote: post #17

Because there’s a longstanding view that since programmers love what they do, they shouldn’t be compensated as highly as other fields with demanding requirements. Employees at large tech firms are as profitable as bankers, yet they get paid a fraction as much compensation. Not to mention that it generally takes years and years of unpaid homework / hobby work to learn how to be a good software developer - just taking…

I see your point but I think "forgo" is a strong word. I have made and will continue to make a great salary with great benefits and be able to choose companies based on cultural fit.

That's something that I would never give up for an extra 50k a year.