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

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

#61

Post by dalke »

xixixao wrote: post #14
dalke wrote: post #2

If you do an HN search for "shortage" you'll see many links, to things like: http://math-blog.com/2014/03/10/stem-shortage-claims-and-fac... - which points out that it's not "difficult for employers and potential employees", giving an example of how Facebook decided to not employ the people who became the founders of WhatsApp, then paid $19 billion for their company a few years later. http://www.theatlantic.com/busin…

Very simple fix: instead of lottery, award the visas to the highest paid employees in each field. That salary cannot drop more than 10%. (I'd add, the employee can switch companies, instead of being tied to one, given they are again paid the same amount in salary). The "offending" companies are not the likes of Facebook or Google, or small start ups (other HN discussions mentioned the concrete companies that get the…

Such a lottery would give priority to areas of the country where the cost of living is highest. While I believe that the "apparent shortage" is artificial propaganda, and used as a strategy to keep wages low, if it does exist, what evidence is there that the shortage isn't most severe in Alabama, South Carolina, and New Mexico, which are some of the poorest states in the US?

If it were the case that those states were desperate for developers, then your lottery would make things more difficult.

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

#62

Post by pjmlp »

nmjohn wrote: post #58
pjmlp wrote: post #16

Fully agree. Recently discussing this issue among friends, not one of them could get hired for specific positions, even though they knew the required technologies. All got the same excuse, the said technologies were being used in side projects, not on their main job.

What companies are you applying to? I find what you are saying very hard to believe as my own experience has been the complete opposite. When I was interviewing I got asked about my side projects more than everything else combined.

Just standard European middle size corporations, take your pick.

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

#63

Post by zacoder »

libria wrote: post #55
zacoder wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I don't care about paid experience ... we hired lots of people from open source projects". "The better demonstration of grasping computing technology is actually having done something with a computer". So you do care about experience.

Put another way, he accepts a portfolio of projects (github, pro-bono work, etc.) that demonstrates skill/drive in lieu of previous employment.

Yeah, that's called experience.

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

#64

Post by zaqokm »

crdoconnor wrote: post #51
zaqokm wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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)

Yup, that's where I live. Maybe you could let my employer know that's what he's supposed to be like.

> Yup, that's where I live. Maybe you could let my employer know that's what he's supposed to be like.

Hey it's your employer so maybe you should speak to them. It is not an unusual practice.

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

#65

Post by eli_gottlieb »

lafar6502 wrote: post #52
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm afraid there's a shortage of good programmers, with proper education in computer science, understanding of how the OS and programs interact, knowing how to use at least one programming language proficiently, fluent in algorithms and data structures Well, I never geeked out about algorithms and data structures irrespective of application domain, but hey, what are you looking for?

Well, what did you geek about then? Programming is all about algorithms and data structures, irrespective of application domain.

>Well, what did you geek about then?

Parsers, grammars, computability and complexity, source-tree optimizations, intermediate representations, intuitionistic logic, type theory, PL design, microkernels, macrokernels, message-passing, locking and semaphores, scheduling algorithms, the x86 kernel-level instruction set, interactive theorem proving, functional programming, game-type vector graphics and raster graphics. Now working on gaining a better understanding of Bayesian statistics and probability theory, machine learning, probabilistic programming, computational cognitive science, and the foundations of logic.

You know: actual domains in which one can solve real problems, rather than the kind of "algorithms and data structures" that are used for quiz-interviews.

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

#66

Post by nmjohn »

zacoder wrote: post #63
libria wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Put another way, he accepts a portfolio of projects (github, pro-bono work, etc.) that demonstrates skill/drive in lieu of previous employment.

Yeah, that's called experience.

Right, but that is different than paid experience, which is what the OP was talking about.

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

#67

Post by userbinator »

ryaniscool wrote: post #10

Here is an alternate point of view. I recently went through the process of hiring a programmer. I probably interviewed 30 candidates. All of them had the required knowledge and experience listed on their CV's. Guess how many could write a simple program in the language of their choice? Exactly 3. Yes, there are many people with the right credentials. In my own personal experience, many of these people can't do the wo…

3 out of 30 is still a lot better than... 1 out of 200:

http://blog.codinghorror.com/why-cant-programmers-program/

Having heard of some rather... dubious grading practices in universities, I'm not surprised at all that a lot of people who claim to have the knowledge actually don't.

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

#68

Post by dalke »

smm2000 wrote: post #57
dalke wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll pick some at that nit. In the link, the author contrasts it to the quote from Zuckerberg: "Our policy is literally to hire as many talented engineers as we can find. The whole limit in the system is just that there aren’t enough people who are trained and have these skills today." The example is to point out how this quote is not true, as two such engineers were not hired by Facebook. You point out that it depen…

What's App founders were not looking for position as engineers - they were looking for position as senior managers. The fact that those two guys can write code is not that relevant. Jan managed 150 people at Yahoo - FB had in total that many engineers at the time.

I have searched, but found nothing which verifies your statement that they were looking for positions as senior managers. Or as software engineers, for that matter. Only that Koum was turned down by Facebook, and Acton by Twitter and Facebook.

For what it's worth, FB had 200 engineers at the time, says http://algeri-wong.com/yishan/engineering-management.html . According to the FB IPO prospectus, they had a 81% growth in 2010 and 57% growth 2011, in engineering headcount. That's about 600-800 engineers at IPO.

Isn't what you're suggesting still a subtle aspect of ageism? If the only positions are for low-level engineers, with little in the way of management advancement, then there's a preference for those with little experience or those with little desire to take on more management roles.

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

#69

Post by glesica »

dalke wrote: post #56
glesica wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A possible solution here is for countries to treat labor the way they have started to treat capital and goods and services. Start signing reciprocal free-labor agreements. If country Y is willing to allow anyone who can legally live and work in country X to legally live and work in country Y, then country X will do the same for people who can legally live and work in country Y. In my mind, if companies were serious a…

Such exists between many countries in the EU. It's not so simple though. Free movement of labor also requires a correspondence in the national health care and retirement programs, so for example totalization agreements to eliminate dual Social Security coverage. The US has such agreements with only a score or so countries (see http://www.ssa.gov/international/agreements_overview.html ). It gives an example of a 66% t…

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that it would be easy, just that it would be a much, much better solution to the problem (in part because it would address the general problem of labor shortages / surpluses instead of being specific to some industry or type of work).

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

#70

Post by nmjohn »

zacoder wrote: post #60
freshflowers wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 gi…

Every company has it's own "books" they want you to read. At Facebook you work on a social network, at Google on a search engine. If you apply to 10 jobs, you need to read 10 different books. "But you can't be arsed to make that small investment in yourself before applying for a new job?" Bills don't pay themselves. Why can't you, the employer, be arsed to make that small investment in your new employee? You're the o…

If you're needing to read 10 different books you are doing a very poor job of picking companies to apply to.

If you're a python developer, it wouldn't make sense for you to apply for a ruby job, a nodejs job, a C++ job, and a java job - thus requiring 4 books.

Instead, you should apply to 4 companies looking for python developers, then you need one book at most, unless you've already master the language in which case you don't need any books.

===

Coming from the companies perspective, if I have 10 applicants for a job, the first round of people to get cut will be those who don't have experience with our tech stack. If I have other applicants who already are familiar with it, it wouldn't make sense to hire someone who would need to learn a new language first.

> Why can't you, the employer, be arsed to make that small investment in your new employee?

If there is only one person applying for the job that would be the case. But that never happens. So it's your choice to have that opinion, but understand that not being familiar with the languages the company you are applying to uses will get you ranked last among all the applicants - the most qualified candidates will be interviewed first, and only if no one else panned out would it make sense to hire the candidate needing to learn a new programming language before they can actually start.

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