Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I Don't Agree That There Really Is a Tech Worker Shortage

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 153 posts

Re: I Don't Agree That There Really Is a Tech Worker Shortage

#31

Post by wmkn »

nolok wrote: post #23
SethMurphy wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you provide an example of your definition of a simple program and the resources they had to write it?

Not parent, but I've sat though way too many interviews where the candidate failed the "FizzBuzz" test, either through super convoluted code that barely works or with complete failure to produce the expected results. And that is while sitting at a desktop computer, full internet access and no one eyeing behind them.

So you are saying that many people failed to type "FizzBuzz code" in Google? I do not really buy that.

Re: I Don't Agree That There Really Is a Tech Worker Shortage

#32

Post by justincormack »

chrisseaton wrote: post #19
MichaelCrawford wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the specific reason that resumes are often, if not actually outright faked, at least "enhanced", I've been contemplating starting a business in which I would perform resume screening for folks like you, for a fee. I don't really know how to structure it yet. I don't want to be a recruiter or headhunter. What I would like to do is to offer folks such as yourself, who already have resumes, my opinion as to the qual…

The only concrete things that you've suggested you would do is call colleges and previous employers' HR departments. That's both pretty trivial, and there are lots of companies that already provide that service. They're usually marketed as background checks to do just before the offer, as you say, but I'm sure they could also do it up front as you're proposing.

HR departments normally have legal advice to say as little as possible. It would be hard to get a tech opinion out of them.

Re: I Don't Agree That There Really Is a Tech Worker Shortage

#33

Post by option_greek »

Assuming there is no tech shortage and companies are indeed looking for cheaper labor, how do we explain these offers (It's placement season in India and its raining offers). These seem to be well above the average pay for software developers (considering they are under graduates fresh out of college). Of course all have to first participate in the H1B lottery for them to enter US.

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/education/story/job-offer-of-rs...

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-12-04/news...

http://www.hindustantimes.com/business-news/campus-calling-4...

Re: I Don't Agree That There Really Is a Tech Worker Shortage

#34

Post by minthd »

Htsthbjig wrote: post #25

"I know lots of engineers who are unable to find work." I don't. Probably your definition of "engineer" is different from mine. "Another problem is that us engineers are expected to have real-world, paid experience in whatever technology the hiring company uses" Generalization and obviously not true. I have a company, I don't care about paid experience, in fact we hired lots of people from open source projects, or di…

could you please expand a bit on considering books obsolete ?

Re: I Don't Agree That There Really Is a Tech Worker Shortage

#35

Post by justincormack »

ninjakeyboard wrote: post #28

There is no shortage of work. There is a drought of talented engineers though. Most of them are terrible.

You are just repeating this. How do you know there is actually a shortage, rather than a lack of a process for finding them? Or a lack of ways for them to find the good employers? A non functioning market is rather hard to distinguish from inability to find what you want.

Re: I Don't Agree That There Really Is a Tech Worker Shortage

#36

Post by zaqokm »

crdoconnor wrote: post #26
zaqokm wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not like employers are keen on training anywhere else in the US either. Although I do not live in the US, I gather that like many countries I have lived in is the view is that training is no longer such a large responsibility of the employer and is rather costly. However in my travels and work in Asia, there is a concept of bonding in many countries where an employee is offered a job and training and in return…

This doesn't sound like the Asia that I live in.

> This doesn't sound like the Asia that I live in.

Well I have seen it in ; Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia. (note: when I refer to Asia, it is the SEA section)

Re: I Don't Agree That There Really Is a Tech Worker Shortage

#37

Post by freshflowers »

MichaelCrawford wrote: post #8
skrebbel wrote: post #5

Job markets, even in tech, are quite tied to geography. From which area and perspective are you writing this? Knowing might help us discuss this subject better. I live in the Netherlands, where programmer salaries are way lower than in silicon valley, but I don't know of a single half-competent programmer without a job. All the hiring managers are complaining here just as you describe, but the net effect is that ever…

I live in Vancouver, Washington (the "Original Vancouver", not Vancouver, British Columbia), but am looking for work in Portland, Oregon. However I have also lived in Vancouver BC, Truro, Nova Scotia, St. John's, Newfoundland, Santa Cruz, California and Silicon Valley. The claim that there was a tech worker shortage started to appear during the dot-com boom, but never really went away, even when the economy contracte…

Seriously, you claim it only cost the company a book and a week to get you up to speed in a new languages, but you can't be arsed to make that small investment in yourself before applying for a new job?

That inertia and lack of motivation is the reason I wouldn't hire you. Because besides languages, your job as an engineer entails constantly learning and trying new things in order to find the best solution for any given challenge. I need to trust you, the engineer to do that, because that is your job. The actual coding is just the formal expression of that job.

If you don't do that by your own volition, I might as well give the work to a much cheaper coder in an off shore sweatshop.

Re: I Don't Agree That There Really Is a Tech Worker Shortage

#40

Post by netcan »

Shortage is a tricky political term. Reality doesn't work like that. X positions and Y candidates. It depends on the quality of candidates and salary. Better programmers, and companies can hire more. Higher salaries and more people will become programmers.

That said, 2 counter points.

First point is the speed the profession has been expanding. Programming is and has been (barring the dotcom bubble burst) an area of fast growing demand. In many tech fields that aren't so fast growing, "experienced" means 10+ years. There are more working professionals with over 20 years experience than those under 5. The distribution of experience levels you will find among mining engineers is the normal one, not the one you find among software engineers where 36 year olds with 15 years of experience are the grizzled vets. Technical jobs for people with under 2-3 experience is always tricky.

Google, Facebook, etc are new companies. They're full of software developers. 10-25 years ago they didn't exists and neither did those jobs. Its hard to believe that in this environment there wouldn't be a shortage.

Second point is that the problems you mention are a cost of doing business, part of reality. Whether the shortage could theoretically be solved by improved job-candidate matching is not really relevant unless it can be solved practically. Same for on-the-job training. A company that needs to hire really fast, is small, etc. can't train on the job very easily. On the job training is also less compatible with the shorter cycles in today's world. People average shorter stints at companies. The "shortage" makes job hopping more viable and beneficial. Startups have very short horizons for which they are trying to solve problems. Etc.

If you take some of the relatively established and unchanging professions like Law or medicine, they have a long and well established way of apprenticing young professionals. That gets built up over generations when things stay the same. In a fast paced world like software, it's not as easy.

Anyway my point is that saying there is not shortage because it could theoretically be relived by optimisations that there is very little way of doing... it's semantics.

Post reply on HN