The Myth of America's Tech Talent Shortage • Hacker News Board

Re: The Myth of America's Tech Talent Shortage

#131

Post by tzs » Tue, Apr 30, 2013, 8:17 AM UTC

marshray wrote: post #66

kyllo wrote: post #42

This article makes a big mistake in conflating software development with STEM in general. It shows a stock photo of a guy looking through a microsope (btw why is he looking through the lens if the microscope is plugged into a monitor? Seems redundant...), when the focus of the article is Microsoft, Google, and Facebook wanting to raise the H1-B visa cap so they can bring in more cheap coders from India. Is there a sh…

> why is he looking through the lens if the microscope is plugged into a monitor? Must be one of those newfangled stereographic retina-resolution microscopes.

It appears to be a binocular microscope, but not a stereo microscope. A stereo microscope has two separate optical paths to the specimen, one for each eye.

A non-stereo binocular microscope has one optical path from the specimen to the eyepiece assembly, and then uses a prism to split that so that it can be sent two eyepieces. This increases comfort and reduces eyestrain compared to a single eyepiece microscope.

Re: The Myth of America's Tech Talent Shortage

#132

Post by VLM » Tue, Apr 30, 2013, 1:50 PM UTC

ef4 wrote: post #115

polymatter wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if my hypothetical children needed guidance, I'd probably advice on accounting. Huge industry that ain't going anywhere, lots of work at the low end, lots of pay at the high end, still applicable if you change job later, generally respected culturally.

I think it's likely that me or my programmer children are going to obsolete your accountant children long before they reach retirement age. Not entirely, of course. But enough that one software-equipped accountant will do the work of 100 of today's accountants, utterly destroying the bulk of the industry.

LOL all that happened in my grandpa and dads generation. My grandpa actually made the cut, although many of his coworkers didn't. Everyone who was doin it by hand got downsized a long time ago.

Now a days its all "strong AI" work, like how do I reconcile my GAAP training and accounting industry practice and that new federal tax code and the SEC report and this companies industry practices WRT how to account for (insert weirdness here) and/or my boss told me not to lie or break the law but to make the numbers "look" like such and such WRT a zillion more or less acceptable ways to record and report this situation ... When the lawyers, stock analysts/journalists, and politicians and political system are all replaced by strong AI, then accountants will be next to go. Could happen, maybe, but it'll be our grandkids problem at worst.

Also from what I've heard from coworkers they already spend most of their time doing what amounts to financial systems analysis to find the bugs in existing code... more code would just mean even more debugging time and more work, not less. Better code, not more, might help, but...

Re: The Myth of America's Tech Talent Shortage

#133

Post by gamechangr » Wed, May 01, 2013, 2:15 PM UTC

nthj wrote: post #107

dusklight wrote: post #97

Speaking as someone who has interviewed quite a lot of people, I would say we have an ample supply of kids who started programming in college and successfully graduated with a 4-year degree, or even a masters. But we have a huge shortage on people who can actually write code and be hireable.

Which totally makes sense, and I'm unsure why students don't think this one through. It's like saying, "I want to be a career musician", spending 4 years learning music theory, and then expecting a job playing the piano with an orchestra. If you want to make great music, you've gotta spend a lot of time playing the piano.

"I'm unsure why students don't think this one through".

MONEY. Financial aid is available for classes, but not for self learning. Classes take a large percentage of your (would be) self learning time.

Re: The Myth of America's Tech Talent Shortage

#134

Post by migrantgeek » Thu, May 02, 2013, 5:35 PM UTC

VLM wrote: post #83

migrantgeek wrote: post #29

I don't doubt that companies are trying to get a piece of legislation passed that allows them to pay employees less. Increasing margins, that's what companies do. I do take issue with the idea that the talent shortage is a myth. I work for a company willing to pay a six figure starting salary plus good benefits in what's supposed to be a recession and we cannot fill our headcount. My team has been looking to fill 2 h…

I took a look at some of your past posts WRT this job search. Are you looking for a developer who is smart and experienced and can intelligently talk while whiteboarding stuff? Solve problems, figure out solutions, self teach continuously and knows how to use google search with a proven successful track record? Or are you looking for a Redhat admin who uses mac minis and codes sysadmin stuff in python and uses puppet…

My hiatus from HN didn't last as long as I thought :)

I don't think there's any correlation between my past posts and the candidate search. The most important thing I'm looking for is that they think this stuff is cool and they are motivated. Most people can learn any role with a good attitude.

As an example, my background is Systems Administration though I learned Java within the past 2 years because I wanted to contribute to an internal Java project. I'm not the best dev on the team but I've made substantial contributions after picking up the language. I try to be flexible and always be learning.

I agree that HR and recruiters are awful and that it's mostly based on keywords. I remember having CentOS on a resume and they turned me down because I didn't have RedHat experience. Actually, one time they said my SCI clearance wasn't good because they needed SECRET clearly not understanding the clearance levels.

All I want is someone who loves tech and is willing to dig in. I don't care about programming languages, version control experience, distribution preference, etc. The specifics can all be learned on the job but you can't teach good attitude at least not after 18.

I don't believe money is the problem. I make more than 150 working from home here in Texas and since the positions could work from home too, they could live in any state they wish.