The Bogus High-Tech Worker Shortage • Hacker News Board

Re: The Bogus High-Tech Worker Shortage

#81

Post by jcnnghm » Wed, Jul 24, 2013, 11:41 PM UTC

gohrt wrote: post #72

jcnnghm wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whereas the reason there are open positions for programmers at high tech companies is that these companies want star programmers Maybe they should try paying like stars. What percentage of engineers that aren't founders or within the first five employees make over $300,000 a year? The money is in Silicon Valley, Google's 2011 net income was $299,874/employee [1], but the vast majority of engineers aren't going to be…

You seem to be ignoring tha tech companies give employees equity (RSUs) as well as salary.

The finance industry majorly stepped up stock grants after the financial crisis to decrease moral hazard. How often do you hear about SV engineers getting million dollar spot bonuses? Tech bonuses are peanuts compared to finance bonuses. And cash is king, you're already overexposed to your employers stock because you rely on them for income, you are better off with a pile of cash.

Re: The Bogus High-Tech Worker Shortage

#82

Post by muzz » Wed, Jul 24, 2013, 11:41 PM UTC

wunna wrote: post #46

pg wrote: post #2

It's not bogus. Many if not most of the big high tech companies have open positions they can't find people for. If anyone is curious where the mistake is in this article's reasoning, it's in the assumption that people are more or less interchangeable, and that all you have to do is train them to be Xes, and you can have as many Xes as you want. Whereas the reason there are open positions for programmers at high tech…

The stock response such arguments is: "there is no shortage of programmers, just a shortage of programmers at a given salary". Yeah right! "There is no poverty. just shortage of people with money" :

What you call a "stock response" is also known as the role of price in equating supply and demand in free markets

Re: The Bogus High-Tech Worker Shortage

#83

Post by pg » Wed, Jul 24, 2013, 11:45 PM UTC

don_draper wrote: post #71

pg wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The finance companies competing for programmers are also American. So even assuming that SV companies could draw star programmers away from Goldman Sachs by paying them more, there would still be exactly the same net shortage of them in the US.

The finance companies pay considerably more than Silicon Valley companies thus don't have the same problem with filling positions as SV does. Do you disagree with that? Search 'finance companies lobby h1b visa'. Nothing Then search 'bay area companies lobby h1b visa'. Tons of results.

I don't know whether finance companies pay or whether they have less problem hiring people. But what difference would it make it that were the case? We're talking about the same pool of people. The specific companies where the shortfall appears doesn't make any difference to the argument for immigration.

Re: The Bogus High-Tech Worker Shortage

#84

Post by muzz » Wed, Jul 24, 2013, 11:48 PM UTC

blhack wrote: post #77

aidenn0 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the league minimum for an MLB player is quite high, and has been going up. Why is the starting salary for highly recruited devs relatively flat?

I'm pretty sure the starting salary for the types of people PG is describing here is "whatever I want".

He refers to "open positions for programmers at high tech companies", so I would have to disagree

Re: The Bogus High-Tech Worker Shortage

#85

Post by WildUtah » Wed, Jul 24, 2013, 11:48 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #18

achompas wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anyone is curious where the mistake is in this article's reasoning, it's in the assumption that people are more or less interchangeable, and that all you have to do is train them to be Xes, and you can have as many Xes as you want. What about the assertion that companies are struggling to fill these roles because (a) they demand more from potential candidates while (b) offering no more in wages than what we saw 10…

The finance companies competing for programmers are also American. So even assuming that SV companies could draw star programmers away from Goldman Sachs by paying them more, there would still be exactly the same net shortage of them in the US.

If the finance companies couldn't hire top techies, they'd be fine.

It's a Red Queen race; whoever runs the fastest front-running operation skims all the rent from naïve institutional and individual investors. If everybody is 200ns slower, everybody is in the same position as before. All the talent invested in saving a few ns does no good to the world; it just changes the relative position of finance companies.

They might even be happier if there were fewer techies they could hire.

Re: The Bogus High-Tech Worker Shortage

#86

Post by WildUtah » Wed, Jul 24, 2013, 11:54 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #2

It's not bogus. Many if not most of the big high tech companies have open positions they can't find people for. If anyone is curious where the mistake is in this article's reasoning, it's in the assumption that people are more or less interchangeable, and that all you have to do is train them to be Xes, and you can have as many Xes as you want. Whereas the reason there are open positions for programmers at high tech…

Big high tech companies with open positions for stars would benefit most from a bidding system for a fixed number of visas. That way, the companies that really need top people could just pay enough cash to get a visa and be assured of having one available. The whole system could operate much faster, too.

But what's being proposed is a vast expansion in the number if visas available. Most of the new ones will go to the same mediocre outsourcing company drones that fill the current quotas.

It's just an expansion of the current system that rewards blizzards of similar applications from cheap workers with faked credentials. (Or credentials that document some kind of educations and experience without reflecting any talent)

A bidding system would wipe out those drones in favor of American workers. Meanwhile, everyone who needs stars would get them. Of course, bidding hasn't been on the table since the early 1990's. Republicans were inalterably opposed to it then because it would support middle class wages and Democrats oppose it now because they expect a mass of immigrants to eventually vote for them.

Re: The Bogus High-Tech Worker Shortage

#87

Post by CleanedStar » Wed, Jul 24, 2013, 11:55 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #2

It's not bogus. Many if not most of the big high tech companies have open positions they can't find people for. If anyone is curious where the mistake is in this article's reasoning, it's in the assumption that people are more or less interchangeable, and that all you have to do is train them to be Xes, and you can have as many Xes as you want. Whereas the reason there are open positions for programmers at high tech…

> you can't train people to be stars Just like you can't train people to be star athletes. Except you can. Star athletes get free college tuition. Star college athletes get sent to training camps and minor leagues where they get paid and are trained on their game so they can make it to the professionals. They go through training there as well.

A tuition free university, University of Helsinki, is what Linux came out of. Free CS classes. A star was trained there.

The mentality of "you can't train stars" is bogus...it's more "we don't want to invest anything and want everything handed to us free and easy, and if we don't get it that way we'll complain about a shortage of stars"

It's great that it's been deduced that organizer labor is behind this article, and thus it's not neutral and has a hidden agenda. I'm sure someone who takes a 6% stake of high-growth companies for $14,000 is completely neutral with no hidden agenda. Also it's false that "none of these programmers are unionized". Programmers are represented by unions such as the IAMAW, CWA etc. It's possible 3 person startups have no union representation, but that's not out of the norm.

Re: The Bogus High-Tech Worker Shortage

#88

Post by muzz » Thu, Jul 25, 2013, 12:00 AM UTC

pg wrote: post #83

don_draper wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The finance companies pay considerably more than Silicon Valley companies thus don't have the same problem with filling positions as SV does. Do you disagree with that? Search 'finance companies lobby h1b visa'. Nothing Then search 'bay area companies lobby h1b visa'. Tons of results.

I don't know whether finance companies pay or whether they have less problem hiring people. But what difference would it make it that were the case? We're talking about the same pool of people. The specific companies where the shortfall appears doesn't make any difference to the argument for immigration.

If price is allowed to rise, demand drops.

Re: The Bogus High-Tech Worker Shortage

#89

Post by don_draper » Thu, Jul 25, 2013, 12:01 AM UTC

pg wrote: post #83

don_draper wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The finance companies pay considerably more than Silicon Valley companies thus don't have the same problem with filling positions as SV does. Do you disagree with that? Search 'finance companies lobby h1b visa'. Nothing Then search 'bay area companies lobby h1b visa'. Tons of results.

I don't know whether finance companies pay or whether they have less problem hiring people. But what difference would it make it that were the case? We're talking about the same pool of people. The specific companies where the shortfall appears doesn't make any difference to the argument for immigration.

We're talking about supply and demand. Wall Street understands that if the demand for talent is higher than the supply then the solution is to pay more, not whine about it.

Re: The Bogus High-Tech Worker Shortage

#90

Post by muzz » Thu, Jul 25, 2013, 12:02 AM UTC

blhack wrote: post #80

achompas wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a fan of this analogy, as it perpetuates the idea that SV companies need a humongous collection rockstar ninja h4x0rs. I suspect that's not the case for the majority of positions--there's probably a shortage at the tail of the job distribution, but not at the mode.

Sure. I don't think anybody is arguing that every single programmer needs to be a pirate rockstar ninja-hacker, but there is a need, in some places, for those people.

Those people exist. If you pay enough for them, you can hire them.