Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

polyfill.work

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 233 posts

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#221

Post by [deleted] »

imustbeevil wrote: post #187
time_to_smile wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> SV/US bubble It's not SV, it's the US. 200k is easily achievable for a senior engineer anywhere in the US with the rise in wfh. But what percent of software engineering jobs are in the US? It's not really a bubble if it's the majority of software positions. Reminds me of Dijkstra's "On the fact that the Atlantic Ocean has two sides" followed by Alan Kay's rebuttal "On the fact that most software is written on one s…

Median total compensation for a senior software engineer in the US is $138K on glassdoor, and I'd wager even that is a bit inflated. There is no reality where most engineers expect to be paid 200K+. I really don't understand technical people perpetuating this idea when you can find data pretty much anywhere that indicates otherwise. There is just no reason to inflate this number.

[deleted]

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#222

Post by noirbot »

endtime wrote: post #160
noirbot wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, you know, you don't cram for the interview and just do as well as you can and let them evaluate on that. If you give me a meaningless take-home assignment, I have to actually write working code for it that looks good. If there's a trivial problem in an in-person interview, I can often "blah blah blah" through the more rote parts unless they really ask for details. There's no wiggle room on a take-home. The code y…

> Or, you know, you don't cram for the interview and just do as well as you can and let them evaluate on that. Sure, depends how much you want the job and what your general approach is. If it's a competitive job then you want to optimize for the interviews. Last time I interviewed, the potential impact on my income and net worth over the next decade was significant, so I took it pretty seriously.

Oh sure, but then as the interviewer, your take-home is also likely to be gamed by someone cramming for that too. Motivated people can always do too much work for a project. Whether it's a live coding thing, a take home exam, or a whiteboard problem, none of them really give a solution where someone isn't going to spend 100 hours prepping.

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#223

Post by quickthrower2 »

gsibble wrote: post #24
Victerius wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

200k is not chump change for every other profession. Get off your high horse. You're not special because you know software.

I wrote banking software that took a company's valuation from $400 million to $6 billion when it went public. That's not a special ability?

The problem is everyone else who worked for the company could claim the same nexus to adding $5.6bn of value to the company.

Or were you the one that made all that money and the only one who could do it?

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#224

Post by lifeisstillgood »

rjh29 wrote: post #220
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So that's 160k pa total. I'm in London myself I would be surprised to see someone whose job is coding getting that. There may be crypto paying silly amounts or lucky start ups. Either that or I need to brush up my CV

I'm in London and I'm on 400k/year. See how easy it is to just lie on the internet? :P

I was not saying I was on 160k - i would be happy to announce that if true however :/)

200k USD -> 160K GBP is the point

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#225

Post by hardolaf »

nebula8804 wrote: post #99
hardolaf wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked for a defense contractor that had a truly unlimited vacation policy as long as you were getting your work done. We actually would get formally reprimanded and put on a PIP for not using enough vacation. All benefits started day 1 including 4 months new parental leave (fully paid; STD following birth did not count against the 4 months), unlimited vacation (no questions asked and auto-approved for the first 30…

I'm gonna need the name of this contractor. Hell i'd switch tech stacks for these kinds of benefits. Do they offer Remote? I make about 118k in NJ as an Angular+Python dev and what keeps me from leaving is the "unofficial" remote they offer me + the extremely relaxed working environment(no stress whatsoever). I'm not doing anything cutting edge but at my age (34 still living at home while saving money) I just don't f…

It was Harris Corporation but I heard the benefits got worse after the merger with L3.

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#226

Post by R0b0t1 »

happytoexplain wrote: post #16
R0b0t1 wrote: post #6

1) Because recruiters don't understand the subject material. 2) Because companies are hilariously risk adverse. I have over a decade experience in a consultancy environments (faster paced and more rigorous than a lot of other jobs, sorry not sorry). My work was independently driven and I provided input to the projects I was on at the highest levels. I've set IT and SWE policy for and introduced leading products at mo…

Maybe this is cynical, but in my experience, companies are hyper-averse to expenditure , not to risk . They will thoroughly (though often ineffectively) analyze developers intended for medium- or high-salary brackets, but they are happy to also pay a third of the price for barely questioned offshore developers who are indeed very risky to whatever product they will be touching.

Well. The expenditure is a form of risk. Having a lot of cash outflow is something they want to prevent. So yes and no I think.

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#227

Post by flashgordon »

voidfunc wrote: post #9

Number one reason: You're not offering me enough good reasons to leave my current job. I don't think HR and software recruiting has really caught up to the reality that many developers by their mid-30's are sitting on a million+ in assets and good ones can rake in 200K+ easy. Further we usually find equilibrium with our roles wherever we are even if we have gripes with how things are because most devs are pragmatic p…

Umm + 100 to this. It surprises me how much recruiters (from all size companies) want you to leave your current role for a role that is worse in pay or growth opportunities or wlb or perks (usually all of the above) for the chance to "make future impact". What does impact even mean and why I care about it if I am not making more money or learning more or being challenged or growing or leveled up? I gotta really learn how to be shameless from these recruiters!!!

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#228

Post by flashgordon »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #53
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> many developers by their mid-30's are sitting on a million+ in assets and good ones can rake in 200K+ easy. What !!! Edit: I did return to tone down my reaction but I would be interested in any (evidence based) research on the pay scales in and out of SV. I understand it is only the very top tech (FAANG) that pay so highly and mostly though share options. It's not like that in Europe I am afraid. But even so, if…

GP definitely lives in a SV/US bubble. Here in Europe I know devs in high CoL areas having less than a thousand Euros left at the end of the month. Having millions in assets is fantasy for us unless you won some crypto/stock gambles.

Can attest to sv here. "Senior" (ie 2-4 years of experience at fangs or similar sizes) can make TC of around 200-250 including liquid (and quarterly vesting public RSUs) and 10% bonus on a 150ish base.

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#229

Post by blibble »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #215
blibble wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

works for a company that pays its engineers reasonably well? $200k (TC) is not that high in London for an engineer with 10 years experience

So that's 160k pa total. I'm in London myself I would be surprised to see someone whose job is coding getting that. There may be crypto paying silly amounts or lucky start ups. Either that or I need to brush up my CV

all of this is pretty easily verified on somewhere like glassdoor

look for developers working at trading firms

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#230

Post by [deleted] »

bradlys wrote: post #194
imustbeevil wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Median total compensation for a senior software engineer in the US is $138K on glassdoor, and I'd wager even that is a bit inflated. There is no reality where most engineers expect to be paid 200K+. I really don't understand technical people perpetuating this idea when you can find data pretty much anywhere that indicates otherwise. There is just no reason to inflate this number.

Glassdoor notoriously undershoots and is off by quite a bit. I’d not use that as a resource at all.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN