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The myth of America's missing software engineers

management.fortune.cnn.com

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Re: The myth of America's missing software engineers

#81

Post by CleanedStar »

A century and a half ago, Karl Marx said the only force outside of nature which could create value was labor. This was not a new concept, but in line with what economists before such as Adam Smith had thought.

A counter-argument arose from what he may have called the "capitalist hegemons" that value arose through supply and demand and marginal utility. That if there was enough demand for something, prices would rise and a supply would come into being.

Yet nowadays these hegemons seem to be saying something different. There is a demand for IT talent. There are billions of people in the world, so it seems obvious that if you set hours at 40 a week and then raise the salary enough, eventually the demand will be filled.

The bottom line is they don't want to raise the salary.

It is possible other factors are in the way. If, to take one example, Pell Grants were higher and easier to get, maybe there would be more CS graduates. The opposite is happening with Pell Grants - they have been cut back, and are covering less college costs than they have in history.

This means less CS graduates. This means you'll have to pay more for the ones who come out, because less are coming out.

It's a strange contradictory thinking. Employers preach supply and demand, yet think it does not apply to their desire for engineers. Set hours at 40 a week and pay for them. If you want people to work more, you'll have to pay more.

There is not a shortage of engineers. There's just a flood of people who want a very accomplished, knowledgeable engineer, and want them to work on boring, brain-dead projects for 60 hours a week, and to pay them nothing and treat them like junk.

I have 10,000 jobs open right now. I need experts in Java, Python etc. I'll pay you minimum wage. You need to work 12 hours a day. See, I just added 10,000 new job openings to the shortage. How come I can't find anyone to fill these jobs?

Re: The myth of America's missing software engineers

#82

Post by bradleyjg »

geebee wrote: post #59
seldo wrote: post #23

"It would make sense that an employer would try to offer a lower salary to an employee it helped move to the United States since that employee also gains the benefit of getting sponsored, but the analysis found the opposite." This makes me want to punch the screen. It is ILLEGAL to pay an engineer on an H-1B less than the median salary for that position, precisely because people were worried that foreign labour would…

Keep in mind that preventing a wage increase is, over time, no different from undercutting wages. Typically, a shortage would spur an increase in wages - so allowing people to pay only the "prevailing" wage could still end up suppressing wage growth. One way around this would be to set a higher pay standard for H1B hires (perhaps requiring pay at the 90ile%+ level for the position, or creating a "prevailing wage + 25…

Employers have to pay the industry prevailing wage or the wage actually paid to comparable US national employees. So the law already does what you are suggesting.

Re: The myth of America's missing software engineers

#83

Post by bradleyjg »

pekk wrote: post #29
moocowduckquack wrote: post #12

" Bright.com, a California-based company that uses big data analysis to pair jobseekers with employers, released a report last month that showed that the supposed dearth of high-skilled engineers in the United States may be fiction after all. " Which would presumably be a useful result for Bright's business, if it is true, as it would mean that companies simply are not looking hard enough, which is Bright's business.…

In the place of analysis you have put a lot of snark which seems to be analysis. If another company with a different business had posted - one with an incentive to say there is a shortage of high-skilled engineers, like most big companies hiring engineers - would you be implying their claims are false too? If not, you are being partial; if so, your method is just to say that whatever anyone says must be wrong because…

> If you are in the business of producing (say) cars, you have to make capital investments, including investments in human capital - why should software be a special snowflake?

It's perfectly legal for a car company to import sub-assemblies from abroad. Why should we have free movement of capital and goods, but not labor?

Re: The myth of America's missing software engineers

#84

Post by snowwrestler »

aryastark wrote: post #32
jcnnghm wrote: post #5

I posted this in response to a comment the last time this came up. That article was killed, so I'm reposting: 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 Vall…

Yep. This is how backwards our industry is. It wants to pay peanuts for rockstar coders, but doesn't realize that no one is both dumb enough to work for snack food Tuesdays and smart enough to have a PhD in CS. The problem is exasperated by these companies treating engineers like children. "Toss them another Mt. Dew, and they'll work another all-nighter." With all the VC and buyout money out there, a true rockstar is…

So what are these Ph.D. engineers doing, then? Sitting at home with their degrees waiting for a big enough offer? I think not. They are employed somewhere, which means that actually they are not counterproof of a shortage.

Raising salary always comes up as the "answer" to the talent shortage, but it's a highly localized answer. Sure a company can fill all their openings by raising their salaries--they'll do it by recruiting currently-employed engineers from another company.

That doesn't "fill a hole" industry-wide. It just moves it to another company. If there are more holes than qualified engineers, there's a shortage.

To make the case that talent shortages are caused by low salaries, you'd need to show me a lot of people who are qualifed but currently willfully unemployed, waiting for the right offer. I'm not aware of many engineers who fit that description.

Re: The myth of America's missing software engineers

#85

Post by [deleted] »

zeteo wrote: post #15

My company (which, according to Glassdoor, is paying above-average tech salaries) recently started offering ~$100 per lead for software engineering referrals. If the person ends up being hired, their referrer also gets a ~$2000 bonus. A recruiting firm that can truly locate these missing engineers would be making a killing in the marketplace right now.

[deleted]

Re: The myth of America's missing software engineers

#86

Post by malandrew »

seldo wrote: post #23

"It would make sense that an employer would try to offer a lower salary to an employee it helped move to the United States since that employee also gains the benefit of getting sponsored, but the analysis found the opposite." This makes me want to punch the screen. It is ILLEGAL to pay an engineer on an H-1B less than the median salary for that position, precisely because people were worried that foreign labour would…

There probably should be some sort of requirement where the H1-B visa holder's peers are required to anonymously rate the abilities of the H1-B visa holder relative to themselves after something like 6 months of employment. This wouldn't prevent the hiring of workers at a lower rate but would provide a quick enough correction to such fraud. It would also make sure that H1-B visa holders are paid a fair wage relative to the value they bring.

Prior to getting an H1-B employee the employer would be required to register a minimum number of employees that will be a peer of the new employee (no bosses or anyone else that may be in cahoots). After 6 months, the government agency responsible for such visas would send a survey to those peers asking them for their title and salary and stating the title and salary of the H1-B employee. They are then asked to rank the title and salary of the employee against their own as well as the skills of the employee relative to their own.

Re: The myth of America's missing software engineers

#87

Post by rayiner »

temuze wrote: post #19
dbecker wrote: post #11

As someone occasionally involved in hiring, the important question isn't whether we have "enough" software engineers. It's easy to fill seats. The question is whether we have "good enough" software engineers. And, as long as we're trying to improve as a company, we'll always want better engineers.

You're 100% right. Why make it difficult for really smart people to immigrate to the US? Better engineers are always welcome at any company. In any case, there's reason to believe many of educated immigrants will become entrepreneurs and create jobs themselves.

The problem is that you have no way of letting in just the "really smart people" and end up letting in a whole bunch of people who aren't better than the ones you already have, who will have trouble finding work when the next tech bubble pops. Tech is a highly cyclical industry, and it's shortsighted to start letting a bunch of people immigrate on every bubble cycle.

Re: The myth of America's missing software engineers

#88

Post by ilaksh »

I think that engineers need to control enforcement of these policies and what the policies are automatically. Until law becomes an information technology you are not going to make any headway on everyone gaming the system and taking advantage of loopholes like hiring foreign workers because they are cheaper.

So we really need that but another aspect of this is just massive global inequality which to me is an amazing civil/humanitarian rights issue. Its amazing that everyone just accepts it.

I think when it comes down to it we should be bringing more brilliant people out of crappy oppressed resource starved countries into our wealth hogging country. But we shouldn't have to lie about the reasons for doing it or pay them less just because we can get away with it.

Re: The myth of America's missing software engineers

#89

Post by jcnnghm »

snowwrestler wrote: post #84
aryastark wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. This is how backwards our industry is. It wants to pay peanuts for rockstar coders, but doesn't realize that no one is both dumb enough to work for snack food Tuesdays and smart enough to have a PhD in CS. The problem is exasperated by these companies treating engineers like children. "Toss them another Mt. Dew, and they'll work another all-nighter." With all the VC and buyout money out there, a true rockstar is…

So what are these Ph.D. engineers doing, then? Sitting at home with their degrees waiting for a big enough offer? I think not. They are employed somewhere, which means that actually they are not counterproof of a shortage. Raising salary always comes up as the "answer" to the talent shortage, but it's a highly localized answer. Sure a company can fill all their openings by raising their salaries--they'll do it by rec…

They aren't unemployed, they entered industries other than engineering, like finance, medicine, or law, because they expected higher pay there.

Re: The myth of America's missing software engineers

#90

Post by rayiner »

jcnnghm wrote: post #5

I posted this in response to a comment the last time this came up. That article was killed, so I'm reposting: 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 Vall…

I should post for reference:

At Goldman/JPM/MS, the going rate (inclusive of bonus) right now seems to be:

100-150k for analysts (1-3 years out of undergraduate); 200-300k for associates (3-5 years out); 300-500k for VPs (6-8 years out); 500k+ for MDs (8+ years out)

And we're not talking about the guys bringing in a billion dollars as traders. This is for the rank-and-file.

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