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Tech industry's persistent claim of worker shortage may be phony

latimes.com

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Re: Tech industry's persistent claim of worker shortage may be phony

#141

Post by throwaway342526 »

orthoganol wrote: post #121
j_baker wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but you know what? The cost of living has also skyrocketed dramatically in Silicon Valley. I mean, you make it sound like engineers here are on a gravy train where we spend 3 months learning a language and can suddenly move to San Francisco where we just let the money roll in. The truth is it costs a lot to live in the Bay Area these days, and that means that if companies want people to move here they need to p…

Certainly one of the more absurd comment I've read on HN. 3 month bootcamp attendees shouldn't make more than $75k. They are junior as hell, and add little if not negative value for a long stretch of time. Even $75k is a reflection of the crazy job market, not their actual value. Your COL & salary analysis for SF is incredibly off. Yeah you'll probably have to sacrifice the excesses of your upper middle class SF life…

$1600/mo can get you your own 2br in San Leandro in a safe (though not prestigious) neighborhood.

The commute on BART into SF is about 45 minutes.

Re: Tech industry's persistent claim of worker shortage may be phony

#142

Post by j_baker »

orthoganol wrote: post #121
j_baker wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but you know what? The cost of living has also skyrocketed dramatically in Silicon Valley. I mean, you make it sound like engineers here are on a gravy train where we spend 3 months learning a language and can suddenly move to San Francisco where we just let the money roll in. The truth is it costs a lot to live in the Bay Area these days, and that means that if companies want people to move here they need to p…

Certainly one of the more absurd comment I've read on HN. 3 month bootcamp attendees shouldn't make more than $75k. They are junior as hell, and add little if not negative value for a long stretch of time. Even $75k is a reflection of the crazy job market, not their actual value. Your COL & salary analysis for SF is incredibly off. Yeah you'll probably have to sacrifice the excesses of your upper middle class SF life…

So what you're saying is that it's "crappy programmer entitlement" to:

* Expect to earn the median income

* Expect to have a decent lifestyle.

* Expect to be able to have a family

Sounds like crappy employer entitlement to me.

Re: Tech industry's persistent claim of worker shortage may be phony

#143

Post by deciplex »

techscruggs wrote: post #29
crdoconnor wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The problem is there's a shortage in qualified candidates. The problem is that there's a shortage of companies willing to invest in training.

That's a rather entitled viewpoint.

Entitled to what? These firms seem to feel they are entitled to relaxed immigration policy as well, and that wages collusion should be BAU if they don't get their way - yet it's entitled to think that a company should train an employee to do the job they want them to do?

Keep in mind that we're not talking about teaching people computer science in the abstract, or turning non-technical people into engineers. People applying for programming jobs should be able to demonstrate some level of general competence of course. But if your HR department has a laundry list of keywords it is pattern-matching CVs against, with the result that many eminently-qualified candidates are dismissed without so much as a phone call or even a Codility screen or whatever, then you either need to take another look at in-house training or quit the constant bleating about a shallow talent pool.

Re: Tech industry's persistent claim of worker shortage may be phony

#145

Post by orthoganol »

j_baker wrote: post #142
orthoganol wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly one of the more absurd comment I've read on HN. 3 month bootcamp attendees shouldn't make more than $75k. They are junior as hell, and add little if not negative value for a long stretch of time. Even $75k is a reflection of the crazy job market, not their actual value. Your COL & salary analysis for SF is incredibly off. Yeah you'll probably have to sacrifice the excesses of your upper middle class SF life…

So what you're saying is that it's "crappy programmer entitlement" to: * Expect to earn the median income * Expect to have a decent lifestyle. * Expect to be able to have a family Sounds like crappy employer entitlement to me.

Well yeah... it's completely delusional to think a 3 month developer should earn the median income for programmers.

It's also unfair to your family to decide to support them as a completely inexperienced developer. Have some savings for a couple years until you can add value.

I don't know what Ivy League school you went to, but for relatively normal people an excellent lifestyle can be had on $75/k in SF. An upper middle class, eat out every night, Tahoe weekends lifestyle is not going to happen on $75/k in SF, especially if you want savings. But that's ridiculous to expect that a no-skill/ no-value newbie should get that. You still have to earn your salary.

Re: Tech industry's persistent claim of worker shortage may be phony

#146

Post by [deleted] »

enraged_camel wrote: post #139
gkoberger wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rent is so high because salaries are so high.

Um, no. It's very well-documented that the reason rent is high is because the locals are strongly resisting the development of new properties. The resulting supply shortage, combined with overwhelming demand, makes property prices skyrocket. Therefore, companies end up having to offer high salaries to compensate.

[deleted]

Re: Tech industry's persistent claim of worker shortage may be phony

#147

Post by T2_t2 »

ForHackernews wrote: post #30
ChuckMcM wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not exactly. The complaint was people who want big money and don't create a lot of value. The ones who want $130K and you ask them why page loading is so slow and they tell you its because the bubble sort they run on every update takes forever. They create negative value.

Then companies better start paying more. This is how supply and demand works. If $130k only gets you incompetents, then it's time to start offering $200k, or whatever the magic number is. Remember: Any time you hear an employer whining about "lack of qualified candidates" be sure to mentally append "...at the rate we want to pay."

And that's a big deal.

But if the cost of an employee is > their value, you get massive off-shoring. That's the danger, and as an Australian the opportunity, of Bay Area pricing being so crazy.

If the Bay Area wants to keep its advantage - in a world where Alibaba is the lead IPO of the last 5 years - it needs to remain competitive in all ways.

Rome wasn't built in a day, but it fell in one.

Re: Tech industry's persistent claim of worker shortage may be phony

#148

Post by kev009 »

cellis wrote: post #89
bradleyjg wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> The problem is there's a shortage in qualified candidates. ... I've been trying to hire, and my inbox is full of people who know half a language and want a starting salary of $130k. The money isn't the issue; I'd pay way more than that for someone good. But six figures is crazy high for the average developer in SF. >> How much more? $250,000? $500,000? $1,000,000? $3,000,000? Sure, it is plausible that if all the…

Exactly. You want to know of a true shortage of workers? 7 ft centers who are aggressive, not injury prone, and can hit a free throw. They're so rare that 17% of all 7footers in the US play in the NBA. It's why Deandre Jordan is making 100 million over the next 5? years. A shortage of programmers, ha! There is one kind of shortage though, and one that is adequately compensated; programmers willing to work at below av…

This so much.

Let's also consider that the middle management layer is earning 2x and upper management at least 3x a senior developer who's stuck somewhere in the 100k range. Trim the fat and you can have as many developers as you want.

Re: Tech industry's persistent claim of worker shortage may be phony

#149

Post by thaumasiotes »

morgante wrote: post #92
thaumasiotes wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hospitals do have to pay for medical school. If they didn't, nobody would go through it. Here's a cleaner example: suppose getting an M.D. required a filing fee of $800,000. You don't think that would show up in what hospitals paid doctors?

> The hospitals do have to pay for medical school. If they didn't, nobody would go through it. What? As far as I know, hospitals don't directly pay for medical school. Rather, the cost of medical school is reflected in doctor salaries. (Just as the cost of training is reflected in developer salaries.)

Compare what I said:

> You don't [think] that would show up in what hospitals paid doctors?

to your

> the cost of medical school is reflected in doctor salaries.

Yes, I accidentally left out the word "think". But we're saying exactly the same thing.

Re: Tech industry's persistent claim of worker shortage may be phony

#150

Post by IndianAstronaut »

_delirium wrote: post #44
SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #27

This is a difficult problem to discuss, in large part because not all developers are created equal. There is a reasonable supply of entry-level and low-skill developers. I refer to them as commodity developers: Developers who have a very basic skill set, who can do only a few specific things, none of them with extreme skill, but some of them reasonably competently. They typically do web front-end work, but sometimes…

This definitely gets at the problem, imo. There would be much less opposition to the H1B program if it were bringing in exclusively employees with, say, $150k+ compensation. It would be hard to argue those employees are undercutting salaries, except perhaps a few of the higher salaries. But there are a lot of $60k salaries on H1Bs, which seems a lot more suspicious. How scarce can a skill be if you're only paying $60…

Instead of handing out H1Bs randomly, why not only grant them on a pay based rank?
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