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I am sick and tired of hearing tech companies complain about developer shortages

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Re: I am sick and tired of hearing tech companies complain about developer shortages

#21

Post by Consultant32452 »

latch wrote: post #8

Things companies control: 1 - Pay 2 - Work life balance (incl. remote work) 3 - Strong peers 4 - Control in _how_ things are done for senior developers 5 - Efficiency I'm pretty sure that most companies are, at best, 1/5.

I feel like this is largely a myth propagated by business. If you feel powerless to control things like your pay or work life balance, then they control it by default. I found once I learned to set boundaries in my personal life that doing it at work was easy because I don’t have to care about an employer’s feelings and my income skyrocketed.

Re: I am sick and tired of hearing tech companies complain about developer shortages

#22

Post by monkeybutton »

KittenInABox wrote: post #10

""" You should not be testing people’s ability to recall some obscure definition in an interview. You should be testing people’s ability to tackle something they can’t recall off the top of their head. And, you should allow them every tool they have available. If they’re totally unfamiliar with the problem, and yet they make significant progress in just one hour that should be interpreted as a good sign this person w…

Just as a counter point, developers that have such a knowledge about algorithms and efficiency tend to be able to sort through different possibilities and branches investigation for new problems much quicker than a developer that has to look up everything on the way. Although that's something that can just come from experience too.

Re: I am sick and tired of hearing tech companies complain about developer shortages

#23

Post by MattGaiser »

> Furthermore, if you really want a C++ developer you can just expect a developer to learn C++ on the job if they have any adjacent experience with any other language.

Is this really accurate? C++ is a very different language than even Java, not to mention Python or JS. Languages have their own quirks and attributes that often matter at some point. Especially C++.

I am on a team where we are constantly building stuff with new technologies that nobody on the team has learned, so a certain extent I understand the sentiment, but we are under no impression that we are doing that good a job at it.

Re: I am sick and tired of hearing tech companies complain about developer shortages

#24

Post by ARandomerDude »

_2d30 wrote: post #14

I literally can’t relate to this on any level. I’m an HM at a company that pays on the order of a FANG and at best matches one of these credentialist barriers and yet we can’t come close to hiring targets on devs. I don’t get how people can see the plethora of individuals under 10yrs experience in SWE and other tech roles in SV/NYC/SEA with incomes of $250-600k/yr and think this happens without a “shortage” of talent…

I think the author is talking about pretty large, well-known companies (e.g., FAANG -- see his first point). Many people applying to these well-known companies are auto-filtered by resume software, which artificially decreases supply.

Small and mid-size companies have a different problem: people haven't heard of them and don't know to apply. My company is in this situation. We have a good culture, I think, and pay very well but people don't know about us or don't think of us as a "tech" company, even though we do quite a bit of innovative software development.

Re: I am sick and tired of hearing tech companies complain about developer shortages

#25

Post by threevox »

Tossrock wrote: post #20

> The general rudeness is ridiculous. I once had an interviewer ask me if I was a wizard with GO, C++, Rust, and C over the phone. Then when I said I had some experience with rust, he immediately cursed at me and hung up. > This experience is fairly common. Is it? I've done a fair bit of interviewing on both sides of the table, and can say with complete honesty I've never heard a curse said in anger in any of them. I…

My thoughts exactly. What the hell?

Re: I am sick and tired of hearing tech companies complain about developer shortages

#26

Post by ZephyrBlu »

Tech companies lowballing employees? That's news to me. On the whole the market seem very good for tech employees.

Also, what company is only paying 50-70k to Juniors but 300k to Seniors? It seems like most companies that pay well do it across the board, not just for Seniors.

Re: I am sick and tired of hearing tech companies complain about developer shortages

#27

Post by speeder »

_2d30 wrote: post #14

I literally can’t relate to this on any level. I’m an HM at a company that pays on the order of a FANG and at best matches one of these credentialist barriers and yet we can’t come close to hiring targets on devs. I don’t get how people can see the plethora of individuals under 10yrs experience in SWE and other tech roles in SV/NYC/SEA with incomes of $250-600k/yr and think this happens without a “shortage” of talent…

If you accept non-US people, tell me what company you work for so I can send my resume.

Because all the issues the guy pointed out I am on receiving end of them right now.

And although I've been in leadership roles before and started programming when I was 6 years old (my dad taught me), I started lately to see if sending my applications to junior developer roles will get me any replies (people don't even tell me they got my application, except the occasional robot).

Re: I am sick and tired of hearing tech companies complain about developer shortages

#28

Post by colordrops »

latch wrote: post #8

Things companies control: 1 - Pay 2 - Work life balance (incl. remote work) 3 - Strong peers 4 - Control in _how_ things are done for senior developers 5 - Efficiency I'm pretty sure that most companies are, at best, 1/5.

I moved from a 2/5 to a 4.5/5. Doesn't mean it was necessarily a satisfying move. There's 6 - great mission and product, which the first one had and the new job is weak in, but it factors for a lot more than the other 5 in attractiveness of the job, at least for me

Re: I am sick and tired of hearing tech companies complain about developer shortages

#29

Post by zug_zug »

_2d30 wrote: post #14

I literally can’t relate to this on any level. I’m an HM at a company that pays on the order of a FANG and at best matches one of these credentialist barriers and yet we can’t come close to hiring targets on devs. I don’t get how people can see the plethora of individuals under 10yrs experience in SWE and other tech roles in SV/NYC/SEA with incomes of $250-600k/yr and think this happens without a “shortage” of talent…

If your place pays FANG ish and allows full remote (as Facebook does) feel free to hit me up. Preparing final round at facebook but it's a crapshoot (philosophecles0@gmail.com)

Re: I am sick and tired of hearing tech companies complain about developer shortages

#30

Post by KittenInABox »

monkeybutton wrote: post #22
KittenInABox wrote: post #10

""" You should not be testing people’s ability to recall some obscure definition in an interview. You should be testing people’s ability to tackle something they can’t recall off the top of their head. And, you should allow them every tool they have available. If they’re totally unfamiliar with the problem, and yet they make significant progress in just one hour that should be interpreted as a good sign this person w…

Just as a counter point, developers that have such a knowledge about algorithms and efficiency tend to be able to sort through different possibilities and branches investigation for new problems much quicker than a developer that has to look up everything on the way. Although that's something that can just come from experience too.

I can't tell during my limited time in an interview if a developer has that knowledge because they crammed (and therefore will forget quickly on the job) or if they actually study and understand this stuff.

I can tell during my limited time in an interview if a developer is capable of making logical deductions and not flail when exposed to a problem they may not have seen before. And, better yet, if they do study algos for fun, this will become apparent!

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