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On Immigration, Engineers Simply Don’t Trust VCs

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Re: On Immigration, Engineers Simply Don’t Trust VCs

#81

Post by morgante »

Animats wrote: post #41

There's a huge "purple squirrel" problem. Employers expect to be able to hire someone who knows Drupal, PHP, and Ubuntu. They don't want to retrain someone who knows Methode, Java, and Red Hat, even those do the same job. Few employers have the capability to train any more. Whenever you encounter an employer whining about this, ask them "How many people do you have in offsite training right now?" If the answer is zer…

I don't know how you can realistically expect startups to invest in employee training.

Re: On Immigration, Engineers Simply Don’t Trust VCs

#82

Post by codeonfire »

jacquesm wrote: post #23

This whole immigration thing sounds like an excellent opportunity for someone to put together a better way to work remotely. We're all supposed to be internet savvy, why can't we come up with something better than skype and github? Is something better even required? Why the emphasis on getting people into the country? We're selling virtual presence solutions to industry and telepresence to doctors and we're trying fo…

"Why the accent on physical presence?"

Big money over there will prevent big money in the US from hiring smart people over there because big money over there would rather sell those smart people (or their product) at a 400% markup. For example, this quote in an article about Google moving engineers out of Russia: "The changes in the political situation make it less viable, less feasible to maintain engineers here" http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/12/google-closes-e.... It's simply about money and has nothing to do about fulfilling immigrant's dreams or "being in the epicenter of tech" or any of that. Tech workers are money generators and people are simply trying to capture that money.

Re: On Immigration, Engineers Simply Don’t Trust VCs

#83

Post by unimportant »

sheetjs wrote: post #3
sosuke wrote: post #2

Just on the subject of programmer salaries, I was talking with someone who had much more experience in the computing industry than myself and he pointed out something I'd never known. He said that programmer salaries from pre-bubble days was six-figures, and that we're still in that range, and not higher is proof that salaries have been kept low. Six-figures today is not what six-figures was worth in 1998. Inflation…

> anyone who cries foul about a shortage of workers Those people generally use the phrase to mean "a shortage of workers willing to accept below-market wages and invest all of their time and energy in a company while bearing the downside risk of a entrepreneur but none of the upside."

I can't stress this enough.

In Germany all kinds of industries have been whining about shortages for ages, but in reality they're all looking for unicorns that work for peanuts in combination with an absolute unwillingness to train anyone (let someone else or big gov foot the bill, if that doesn't work cry for immigration reforms).

Re: On Immigration, Engineers Simply Don’t Trust VCs

#84

Post by morgante »

sosuke wrote: post #2

Just on the subject of programmer salaries, I was talking with someone who had much more experience in the computing industry than myself and he pointed out something I'd never known. He said that programmer salaries from pre-bubble days was six-figures, and that we're still in that range, and not higher is proof that salaries have been kept low. Six-figures today is not what six-figures was worth in 1998. Inflation…

In principle, I agree with most commentators on HN that if there were actually a shortage we'd expect to see salaries rising.

Yet, in practice, it does seem that there's simply an absolute shortage of experienced developers. I've been hiring developers at my job for most of the past year, yet we have never had an offer turned down. Rather, we see only a trickle of applicants, very few of whom are event remotely qualified. If we actually saw a great developer, I'm sure we could put together a fantastic compensation package (despite being an early-stage startup, we pay above market for NYC). Yet all we see are mediocre developers, and few of those. It's hard not to call this a labor shortage when my colleagues hiring for other positions (marketing, writing, etc.) see 100x the number of applicants with 1/10 as much outreach/advertising.

Given that it's impossible to produce more senior developers in a 1-2 year timeframe, what alternatives do people suggest to immigration?

Re: On Immigration, Engineers Simply Don’t Trust VCs

#85

Post by selmnoo »

morgante wrote: post #84
sosuke wrote: post #2

Just on the subject of programmer salaries, I was talking with someone who had much more experience in the computing industry than myself and he pointed out something I'd never known. He said that programmer salaries from pre-bubble days was six-figures, and that we're still in that range, and not higher is proof that salaries have been kept low. Six-figures today is not what six-figures was worth in 1998. Inflation…

In principle, I agree with most commentators on HN that if there were actually a shortage we'd expect to see salaries rising. Yet, in practice, it does seem that there's simply an absolute shortage of experienced developers. I've been hiring developers at my job for most of the past year, yet we have never had an offer turned down. Rather, we see only a trickle of applicants, very few of whom are event remotely quali…

> Given that it's impossible to produce more senior developers in a 1-2 year timeframe, what alternatives do people suggest to immigration?

Why do we operate under the assumption that these companies are entitled to as many unicorns as they want? Why shouldn't they just go out of business?

After the whole collusion ordeal when it became abundantly clear that on one side there are VCs, founders, and C-levels who work to suppress our wages -- and on the other side, us, I actually want to see them lose and get hurt after all the terrible things they did to us.

Re: On Immigration, Engineers Simply Don’t Trust VCs

#86

Post by Implicated »

morgante wrote: post #84
sosuke wrote: post #2

Just on the subject of programmer salaries, I was talking with someone who had much more experience in the computing industry than myself and he pointed out something I'd never known. He said that programmer salaries from pre-bubble days was six-figures, and that we're still in that range, and not higher is proof that salaries have been kept low. Six-figures today is not what six-figures was worth in 1998. Inflation…

In principle, I agree with most commentators on HN that if there were actually a shortage we'd expect to see salaries rising. Yet, in practice, it does seem that there's simply an absolute shortage of experienced developers. I've been hiring developers at my job for most of the past year, yet we have never had an offer turned down. Rather, we see only a trickle of applicants, very few of whom are event remotely quali…

"Given that it's impossible to produce more senior developers in a 1-2 year timeframe, what alternatives do people suggest to immigration?"

Don't limit yourself to local candidates. Especially somewhere like NYC.

You, likely, couldn't offer me enough money to move/live there...especially for an early stage startup.

Re: On Immigration, Engineers Simply Don’t Trust VCs

#87

Post by morgante »

selmnoo wrote: post #85
morgante wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In principle, I agree with most commentators on HN that if there were actually a shortage we'd expect to see salaries rising. Yet, in practice, it does seem that there's simply an absolute shortage of experienced developers. I've been hiring developers at my job for most of the past year, yet we have never had an offer turned down. Rather, we see only a trickle of applicants, very few of whom are event remotely quali…

> Given that it's impossible to produce more senior developers in a 1-2 year timeframe, what alternatives do people suggest to immigration? Why do we operate under the assumption that these companies are entitled to as many unicorns as they want? Why shouldn't they just go out of business? After the whole collusion ordeal when it became abundantly clear that on one side there are VCs, founders, and C-levels who work…

The world isn't nearly as binary as that.

I'm not a VC or founder. I'm a developer just like you, trying to deliver cool products—but doing so requires more developers.

If my company was trying to suppress wages, or refused to pay above market, then I'd agree with you that we have no right to ask for more talent. But we're perfectly willing to pay for talent—we just can't find any.

I wouldn't be surprised if the number of senior developers on the market was less than 10% of the number of open positions.

Re: On Immigration, Engineers Simply Don’t Trust VCs

#88

Post by morgante »

Implicated wrote: post #86
morgante wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In principle, I agree with most commentators on HN that if there were actually a shortage we'd expect to see salaries rising. Yet, in practice, it does seem that there's simply an absolute shortage of experienced developers. I've been hiring developers at my job for most of the past year, yet we have never had an offer turned down. Rather, we see only a trickle of applicants, very few of whom are event remotely quali…

"Given that it's impossible to produce more senior developers in a 1-2 year timeframe, what alternatives do people suggest to immigration?" Don't limit yourself to local candidates. Especially somewhere like NYC. You, likely, couldn't offer me enough money to move/live there...especially for an early stage startup.

> Don't limit yourself to local candidates. Especially somewhere like NYC.

For many roles we're very open to hiring remote developers. Even that is rather challenging. (Though for lead roles, we do ask that you be based in NYC because it involves a lot of brainstorming with writers/analysts.)

Re: On Immigration, Engineers Simply Don’t Trust VCs

#89

Post by unimportant »

A call for immigration reform is almost always an attempt to reduce wages and to avoid having to train people, instead of a real shortage.

The likely result of open borders would be something like London startup salaries, which are extremely low (measured by what the amount of money buys you in London) for people that aren't on the upper end of the skill range with years of experience.

Entry level salaries will barely get you by and you'll have to live in a shared apartment for 5 years or so until you can afford to rent a place on your own (if you're smart enough to up your skill-set in that time).

This is due to a small startup ecosystem and the ability for most Europeans to access the UK's job market.

Re: On Immigration, Engineers Simply Don’t Trust VCs

#90

Post by minthd »

zaroth wrote: post #57
jacquesm wrote: post #23

This whole immigration thing sounds like an excellent opportunity for someone to put together a better way to work remotely. We're all supposed to be internet savvy, why can't we come up with something better than skype and github? Is something better even required? Why the emphasis on getting people into the country? We're selling virtual presence solutions to industry and telepresence to doctors and we're trying fo…

Tele-presence has a long way to go, and the network infrastructure too, but it will obviously, eventually, get to the point where it's indistinguishable from being in the same room, minus the physical contact. But to your point, it's not even a given that would help much. Even with that, you still suffer mostly from time zones. You're just not going to collaborate the same ways with someone on the other side of the p…

The time zone issue can be solved easily.find a south american country that is immigration friendly and open an office their ,recruiting from all over the world.
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