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War for tech talent in NYC

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Re: War for tech talent in NYC

#21

Post by smokinn »

nir wrote: post #9
smokinn wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sort of. The problem with calling everything a bubble is the implication that bubbles inevitably pop. In our industry, good programmers tend to create a vastly disproportionate amount of value compared to what they're paid. It's easy to pay programmers hundreds of thousands of dollars because with programmers, a few thousands of dollars of computers and some electricity you can make millions. Maybe it's a bubble but…

Well, bubbles do pop. The market was hot 96-2000, then cold say 2001-2005, then got hot till the mortgage crisis, then cold until a few months ago etc. Great programmers can create a lot of value, in the right context . Boo.com ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boo.com ) might have had developers as bright as Amazon's, working just as hard - but in the end they created $0 value.

It's obviously not a given that you get programmers together and they create value. There's a lot more to a business than coding.

What I was arguing is not that bubbles don't pop but rather that you can't call everything a bubble because that implies that it's going to go down.

Maybe it's because I'm a programmer myself and therefore I'm too biased but I see very few jobs right now that are in such high demand and whose demand is only going to rise even more in the near term.

Basically I was saying it's not a bubble, it's a normal market correction. We had the dot-com bust that devalued programmers massively because of completely artificial conditions and this "white hot" we're currently in really should be the norm.

Re: War for tech talent in NYC

#22

Post by samratjp »

"Right now in New York City every technology company is hiring engineers, programmers, Java developers or PHP/Perl developers,” Carvajal said. “I haven’t seen it this hot since 1997..."

Ummm, did they get the quote from 1997 too? I find these stacks to be in the minority these days for a startup anyways. Or is this a NYC trend?

Re: War for tech talent in NYC

#23

Post by joe-mccann »

Austin, SF/SV and NYC are all in the same boat: Tech talent demand is unbelievably high. If you have a LinkedIn profile with reasonable skills (hell, put "HTML5" in your profile and watch what happens) you probably are already aware of this.

Re: War for tech talent in NYC

#24

Post by pavel_lishin »

samratjp wrote: post #22

"Right now in New York City every technology company is hiring engineers, programmers, Java developers or PHP/Perl developers,” Carvajal said. “I haven’t seen it this hot since 1997..." Ummm, did they get the quote from 1997 too? I find these stacks to be in the minority these days for a startup anyways. Or is this a NYC trend?

They might not be going to startups only. Does HotJobs cater to other tech companies, too?

I'm a PHP developer, and I don't think I'd consider my current NY employer (worked here for about a month now) a startup.

Re: War for tech talent in NYC

#25

Post by nir »

rwhitman wrote: post #16
nir wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://nextny.jobthread.com/ Also, if you attend meetups in your field (eg NY Python/PHP/Android/etc meetup) they often allocate a few minutes for job offers/seekers. The article's right, there's a strong demand now. Make sure to save some of your income once you get a job (NYC can easily eat up any wad of cash you'll throw at it ;) - the bubble will inevitably pop, make sure you can wait the next one comfortably.

Thanks for that! Yea the cash-eating qualities of NYC have kept me dealing with job hunt from the economic safety of my family home 3 hours away in PA. Not so easy to do under 2ft of snow ;) Definitely a little wary of super early startups if only for the inevitable bubble pop. Under-capitalized and in a competitive talent market is a surefire pathway to quick collapse when the investment starts to dry up...

Good thinking. Like anything in NYC, startups tend to get overhyped and there's a lot of dumb money from rich kids or people who had a good run at finance etc. I wouldn't work for below market wage in this kind of economy.

When the bubble pops, you can use your savings and take advantage of the lower costs (and the fact you might not have a job anyway..) to start your own thing.

(Edit: I guess the downmodding means I need to add some disclaimers here... There are also smart rich kids and ex-bankers. Sometimes working for under-market wage does make sense, eg. if you're trying to break in to a new field. Some things are not overhyped in NYC. Your dreams may vary from those of Globex Corporation, its subsidiaries and shareholders)

Re: War for tech talent in NYC

#26

Post by cletus »

goodgoblin wrote: post #17

I would love to know what the average startup is paying now in NYC v.s. what the average Wall Street Firm would pay for the same programmer.

That's really apples and oranges. In many ways, Wall St and startups don't want the same programmers, at least not as much.

Working on Wall Street--or most large companies for that matter--is largely transactional. You provide a service. You get paid for that service. You tend to get paid quite well to make up for the abuse you often end up taking. This is particularly true if you work in financial markets (as most Wall Street programmers do) where there are two kinds of people: traders and people who don't matter (being everyone else).

With a startup--particularly an early stage startup--you're taking a long term stake in the company, possibly a significant stake. If it's particularly early that stake but will largely be in lieu of a market wage (or any wage at all).

In my experience the profiles of the people in both categories (in an ideal sense from the company's point of view) don't quite match.

Re: War for tech talent in NYC

#27

Post by Tycho »

I have a pet theory about the apparent shortage of 'experienced engineers' in the midst of high unemployment.

Software development as we know is an inherently unstable activity - it's very hard to gauge how much a project will cost in time and money. Supposedly 50% of IT projects fail and 70% don't meet all their targets (or something catastrophic like that).

Well here's my theory. When you can't tell how much something will cost or even whether it's really possible, when there are no guarantees, the only thing that can comfort you is that your competition wont fair any better. To ensure this, you just need to employ the top programmers/architects. If you have people of the best calibre, you can rest easy, because if they can't deliver, nobody can.

Thus, companies looking to launch risky software ventures need what is by definition a scarce resource (the best developers). Unless the nature of software changes drastically, there will always be a shortage of the 'experienced engineers' necessary to placate the anxiety of this high risk business. Human expertise is finite, the capacity of software projects to fail is infinite.

(particularly if you're talking about launching web apps and new platforms and such... if you just need some simple engineering then not so much)

Re: War for tech talent in NYC

#28

Post by gaustin »

tocomment wrote: post #11

You'd think they'd want to hire someone in philli who's willing to work two days a week onsite and the rest from home but no. It's like I have the plague whenever I mention it.

I have a similar issue. My attempt at a solution is to build a portfolio so compelling that employers will hire me for (mostly) remote work without qualms. Hopefully the market for developers is still strong when my portfolio is strong.

Failing that, I guess I'll move back to civilization.

Re: War for tech talent in NYC

#29

Post by geebee »

samratjp wrote: post #22

"Right now in New York City every technology company is hiring engineers, programmers, Java developers or PHP/Perl developers,” Carvajal said. “I haven’t seen it this hot since 1997..." Ummm, did they get the quote from 1997 too? I find these stacks to be in the minority these days for a startup anyways. Or is this a NYC trend?

This quote struck me as a bit outdated as well. Not because it mentions Java and PHP, but because it seems to imply that those are the big two skill sets. The "what does your startup use?" polls that show up on HN every know and then suggest Python and Ruby are in heavy use (though PHP and Java do still get a decent showing)

Re: War for tech talent in NYC

#30

Post by rit »

samratjp wrote: post #22

"Right now in New York City every technology company is hiring engineers, programmers, Java developers or PHP/Perl developers,” Carvajal said. “I haven’t seen it this hot since 1997..." Ummm, did they get the quote from 1997 too? I find these stacks to be in the minority these days for a startup anyways. Or is this a NYC trend?

There is still a lot of PHP and Java in NY. I don't see as much Perl but there are still a few places that do a lot of hiring for Perl.

Scala seems to be the other growing area in NY right now---Foursquare obviously but a number of other companies like Obikosh (http://obikosh.com/job_pg.html) are pushing to grab Scala people.

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