One word: training
Tech industry's persistent claim of worker shortage may be phony
161–170 of 200 posts
Re: Tech industry's persistent claim of worker shortage may be phony
#162From the frequent articles I see on HN and the subsequent reactions, would it be fair to say that this is the situation?
There is no shortage of programmers. However, there is a shortage of programmers (of X skill level) willing to work at the salary that a company desires. And that is where outsourcing and H1B comes in. Having a larger pool of candidates (at X skill level) will force the local candidate pool to lower their asking salary. In turn, this will allow companies to keep salaries deflated and profits up.
Re: Tech industry's persistent claim of worker shortage may be phony
#163So, I can't speak specifically to Qualcomm's case, however there's a weird paradox in Silicon Valley. There's both an excess of jobs and excess of employees. This is probably true in every industry (every Starbucks is hiring, yet everyone complains how hard it is to find a job), but it's especially true in tech. The problem is there's a shortage in qualified candidates. Salaries have gotten so high that even the most…
I'm about to start looking for work on tomorrow's whoishiring threads -- either freelance or full time, we'll see -- and I've been programming for about 30 years and, honestly, I'm not expecting to get a lot of offers event at around the $75k range. Maybe any at all.
If nothing else it'll be interesting to get a glimpse of the prospective employee side of this puzzle.
Re: Tech industry's persistent claim of worker shortage may be phony
#164So, I can't speak specifically to Qualcomm's case, however there's a weird paradox in Silicon Valley. There's both an excess of jobs and excess of employees. This is probably true in every industry (every Starbucks is hiring, yet everyone complains how hard it is to find a job), but it's especially true in tech. The problem is there's a shortage in qualified candidates. Salaries have gotten so high that even the most…
>> 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…
Spot on! We have tapped out the supply of developers who are willing to invest thousands of hours in self training just for the love of the craft.
Now businesses have to either pay for training (which can take years and is expensive) or pay enough to encourage people to get into complex software dev for the money.
If you go the second route the starting salary needs to be six figures and needs to go up to 500k+ just like for lawyers and doctors.
Re: Tech industry's persistent claim of worker shortage may be phony
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
You shouldn't go trying to be a PM, because you've got neither the experience nor the respect to get there. Sorry to be blunt, but this'll save some time. Instead, focus on being the best engineer you can be, on building and crafting software as well as you can. That will earn you the respect of the people whose respect is worth something, and will give you the insights needed for leading a team properly.
>You shouldn't go trying to be a PM, because you've got neither the experience nor the respect to get there. Sorry to be blunt, but this'll save some time. I get that, the only reason I have my sights set on it is that I'm already working as one for a company. :) I think that I'll best be able to leverage my experience and skills in some sort of technical product or program manager role, but I wanted to be sure I can…
> I'm already working as one for a company. :)
Wow THAT is a touche!
Re: Tech industry's persistent claim of worker shortage may be phony
#166Earlier 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…
The issue for the US is that they want to keep those good jobs here, and so they need to keep the good companies here. If the price is driven up -- and it is being driven up -- but you can get good devs in Estonia, India, the Philippines, Uzbekistan, etc, at a far more affordable price then: a) US companies will hire those remote workers, causing cash to flow out of the US b) companies will set up in those countries…
>US companies will hire those remote workers, causing cash to flow out of the US
Most US companies won't even hire remote workers here.
Re: Tech industry's persistent claim of worker shortage may be phony
#167There is power law distribution of programming skills as in every other field. I am a web developer, I have worked with both established companies and startups from every continent in the world. I was hired recently by a client from USA, whose previous programmer created mess of code base, they were about to go out of business, had they not hired me to fix that up. I was able to fix all critical issues within a week, and was able to start developing new features withing two weeks. Were they not hired me from outside of their geographic area, they would not have survived today.
So, what should you do to be able to hire good developers- 1. Broaden your horizons, don't limit yourself to a geographic area. World is not limited to Silicon Valley.
2. Be willing to hire remotely. I myself working remotely from start of my carrier, it is really exciting.
3. Give freedom to developers, let them think out of the box. 4. Before hiring developers full time, give them some real work(may be a small contract), this is better than asking them to solve puzzles :)
Feel free to ping me if you have any questions, sfix [at] outlook.com
Re: Tech industry's persistent claim of worker shortage may be phony
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
The issue for the US is that they want to keep those good jobs here, and so they need to keep the good companies here. If the price is driven up -- and it is being driven up -- but you can get good devs in Estonia, India, the Philippines, Uzbekistan, etc, at a far more affordable price then: a) US companies will hire those remote workers, causing cash to flow out of the US b) companies will set up in those countries…
>US companies will hire those remote workers, causing cash to flow out of the US Most US companies won't even hire remote workers here.
The question then is at what price point does that change?
Re: Tech industry's persistent claim of worker shortage may be phony
#169Not all tech companies are the same. Google needs engineers with skills that most tech workers don't have. You might have a CS degree from a great school and 15 years experience with J2EE, but you're not experienced with say... reactJS. If Google (or Facebook, or startup that just raised $25M) is looking to hire a team of reactJS devs, then they can very quickly exhaust the supply of locals who have used it. From Goo…
If you want the absolute best for the job, in a very specific skill-set that has only existed for two years, then you'd best be willing to pay considerably, or you're going to have to be willing to train people with the proper fundamental skills in that specific toolset. A lot of companies are unwilling to do either of those. Offering $110k for a ReactJS developer? Better be willing to hire someone with a good unders…
If you want the absolute best for the job you'd better be pretty awesome yourself or they likely won't work for you.
Re: Tech industry's persistent claim of worker shortage may be phony
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
Sorry, I thought you were implying that hospitals directly paid for medical school (ie. the way that some businesses will directly pay for an MBA).