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The Real Truth About the STEM Shortage

businessinsider.com

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Re: The Real Truth About the STEM Shortage

#51

Post by ng12 »

avemuri wrote: post #44
jellicle wrote: post #32

Except that this isn't the truth. H1B imported engineers aren't the best in their field, working for top wages. They're middling-low, working for below-average wages. They pull down wages for the entire software engineering field by about 6%, say the studies. If H1B's are really the best software engineers in the world, why are they being hired for less than the average wages in the U.S. for average engineers? I appr…

Source? I'm questioning it simply because I remember from browsing US News stats during my grad school applications that pretty much every graduate department in STEM fields was 20-50% foreign students. I only looked at the top 20-30 schools, but that's a pretty substantial cohort. Maybe there are sweatshops out there that hire middling-low candidates at below market wages, but it's hard to dismiss the presence of a…

Being in graduate school has nothing to do with being the best in the field. Very few American-educated STEM majors (or, at least in CS) go on to grad school since they can easily get the same job with a BSc as a foreign student with a MS.

Getting a masters can help fast-track you in the visa process and make your resume more attractive for employers who are largely ignorant about Indian/Chinese/etc education systems. It's more of a competitive necessity for a foreign student.

Re: The Real Truth About the STEM Shortage

#52

Post by laurentoget »

The main argument of the article is 'If there was a shortage in STEM salaries would rise'.

Comparing the salary ranges in London and Silicon Valley on the two recent polls on HN seems like a pretty flagrant sign that the salary may not have risen recently but developers definitely commend a good bit more money in the US than in London. ( the mode for london seems to be between LBP 30k and 50k, which is $45k-$75k, whereas bay area salary mode is between $120k and $130k )

Disclosure: While having my salary multiplied by 3 was not the main reason for me to move from academia in france to industry in the US, it certainly was a plus.

Re: The Real Truth About the STEM Shortage

#53

Post by Glyptodon »

aghull wrote: post #25

I have a lot of problems with this article. > What there is is a shortage of ultra-elite American-born talent, and Silicon Valley wants to hire the very best in the world. The view from Silicon Valley is that a lot of the US talent, while bountiful in number, just doesn't stack up. So you're saying that the US has a shortage of the world's best talent? And that Silicon Valley wants to be able to hire the world's best…

I have a huge issue with what the article says because we constantly also hear about how foreign scientists and engineers aren't as creative, innovative, or competitive and how countries like Japan, China and India have issues fostering creativity, independence, innovation, individualism, etc., which are supposedly exactly what we need in developers.

Likewise the most talented scientists, engineers, and developers I know are always the ones who have a harder time finding work. Why? Because they can intimidate potential bosses and co-workers without meaning to. Because they're indifferent a lot of marketing schlock or the jargon flavor of the month. And because really smart people constantly undersell themselves. In fact, smart people who don't are most likely narcissistic. (Yes, this means most 'rockstar' 'talent' is neither.)

The average person, regardless of what hip SV types spouting the kool-aid say, is unlikely to feel comfortable hiring someone who makes them feel threatened, confused, or inferior. Even with the best intent to hire people 'more talented' than the manager or existing developers, there're many other divides that preclude there being more than a small difference in skill.

Re: The Real Truth About the STEM Shortage

#54

Post by ktsmith »

khuey wrote: post #41
jellicle wrote: post #32

Except that this isn't the truth. H1B imported engineers aren't the best in their field, working for top wages. They're middling-low, working for below-average wages. They pull down wages for the entire software engineering field by about 6%, say the studies. If H1B's are really the best software engineers in the world, why are they being hired for less than the average wages in the U.S. for average engineers? I appr…

Truly world-class engineers can be brought to the US on O visas. H1Bs are trying to fill a need for good or even great, but not amazing, engineers. Which is why it's a tragedy that so many of the spots go to shitty outsourcing firms for mediocre wages.

Depending on the field getting an O visa can be exceptionally hard as they are intended for exceptional people. One of my clients has four or five employees with O visas and these people are all top of their field including a nobel laureate. You could easily be in the top 5% of your field and get rejected for an O.

Re: The Real Truth About the STEM Shortage

#55

Post by dyno12345 »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #35
crazygringo wrote: post #10

I just always assumed this was the case, since everyone talks about wanting to hire only "A" engineers. But I'm not so sure we Americans should be "offended" by this. This article says: > The view from Silicon Valley is that a lot of the US talent, while bountiful in number, just doesn't stack up. But Silicon Valley doesn't want to just come out and say this, since it will sound offensive to a lot of American-born gr…

It's very definitely a pay issue. It's also a hiring issue: most of Silicon Valley deliberately makes it as difficult as possible to pass the hiring bar. There is one company with whom I've interviewed once, gotten an offer, and then been rejected when I applied later in a separate round after a year and a half doing other things. There's another company where I interviewed once, got an offer, did something else, int…

SV firms want greater level of engineer perfection 1) than they actually need and 2) than their testing methods can actually detect.

#1 I can almost understand as an emotional thing, #2 I find much more frustrating

Re: The Real Truth About the STEM Shortage

#56

Post by [deleted] »

stcredzero wrote: post #16
latch wrote: post #5

My take on this is that anywhere you look, most developers are poor to mediocre. The problem isn't specific to America. What is [mostly] unique to America is that immigration restrictions is the only thing stopping them from swooping up above-average talent from other countries (in no small part thanks to good salaries and the near-mythical nature of the valley) In other words, Portugal (as a random example) has the…

One company I worked for didn't look for and hire rockstar talent. They had a shop in India with lots of diligent guys who followed instructions, a decidedly inelegant architecture with lots of "repeating yourself," and a good position in an industry where just getting data from one place to another and usefully aggregating it made you tons of money. Don't underestimate the value of being in the right market and simp…

[deleted]

Re: The Real Truth About the STEM Shortage

#57

Post by tosseraccount »

crabasa wrote: post #48
tosseraccount wrote: post #26

There is no tech labor shortage. [ source : http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/h1b.html ] If there was a labor shortage, wouldn't real U.S. wages have been going up? If I want a $5 Prime Rib Eye steak, and can't find it, is there a beef shortage? Raise wages, and the talent will come.

> Raise wages, and the talent will come. I'm astonished by this attitude. I hate buzzwords like "human capital", but it should be obvious that it's incredibly time consuming and resource intensive to produce people who can program in mainstream languages and platforms. This is not simply an issue of mining more coal or growing more corn.

All business is ruled by the laws of economics. Supply and Demand determine prices. Silicon Valley is not exempt, nor ... and more to the point ... should it be.

Re: The Real Truth About the STEM Shortage

#58

Post by tosseraccount »

roasm wrote: post #20

There isn't just a shortage of ultra-elite local talent, there's even a shortage of halfway competent local talent. I've done a lot of hiring, mostly from colleges, and I can tell you that there are some schools that should just shut down their CS departments. You know there's a problem when you've given someone a 4 year degree, and they can't even get through a for loop. There's a reason fizz buzz is an interview qu…

"There isn't just a shortage of ultra-elite local talent, there's even a shortage of halfway competent local talent."

Don't all businesses and consumers complain about finding quality on the cheap? This is not special to tech nor specific to a region, right?

Re: The Real Truth About the STEM Shortage

#59

Post by zanny »

crabasa wrote: post #48
tosseraccount wrote: post #26

There is no tech labor shortage. [ source : http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/h1b.html ] If there was a labor shortage, wouldn't real U.S. wages have been going up? If I want a $5 Prime Rib Eye steak, and can't find it, is there a beef shortage? Raise wages, and the talent will come.

> Raise wages, and the talent will come. I'm astonished by this attitude. I hate buzzwords like "human capital", but it should be obvious that it's incredibly time consuming and resource intensive to produce people who can program in mainstream languages and platforms. This is not simply an issue of mining more coal or growing more corn.

Except he is exactly right. If the salaries are competitive enough, all the smart people who are currently attracted to sitting around in wall street making millions doing nothing truly productive might think twice and consider CS or SE.

It isn't an instantaneous turnaround - new talent doesn't come out of the woodwork overnight - but give it 5 - 6 years and if average salary went up another 30k you'd have a % more college students entering the field due to the market demands for it.

That is how it always works with worker shortages.

Re: The Real Truth About the STEM Shortage

#60

Post by [deleted] »

Glyptodon wrote: post #53
aghull wrote: post #25

I have a lot of problems with this article. > What there is is a shortage of ultra-elite American-born talent, and Silicon Valley wants to hire the very best in the world. The view from Silicon Valley is that a lot of the US talent, while bountiful in number, just doesn't stack up. So you're saying that the US has a shortage of the world's best talent? And that Silicon Valley wants to be able to hire the world's best…

I have a huge issue with what the article says because we constantly also hear about how foreign scientists and engineers aren't as creative, innovative, or competitive and how countries like Japan, China and India have issues fostering creativity, independence, innovation, individualism, etc., which are supposedly exactly what we need in developers. Likewise the most talented scientists, engineers, and developers I…

[deleted]
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