The Bloodthirsty Battle For Tech Talent • Hacker News Board

Re: The Bloodthirsty Battle For Tech Talent

#41

Post by benjaminwootton » Tue, Apr 02, 2013, 11:21 PM UTC

zalew wrote: post #34

benjaminwootton wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think expecting $100k+, benefits, telecommuting etc necessarily indicates entitlement. Most people in finance, senior managers, doctors, lawyers, architects, management consultants etc wouldn't get out of bed for less than that, especially in a big city with high cost of living. I think its great that techies are starting to realise their value and grab a piece of that for themselves.

why are you comparing a qualified doctor or lawyer to a web dev who doesn't know anything about database design?

I would argue that it's possible for even an average web developer to create at least a comparable amount of economic value as the doctor or lawyer.

I don't know why our own community find this hard to accept?

We're a rare species who can create massive value for ourselves or our employers. We can build great products that many would pay for, or automate away whole departments of people with our code - not that I take any pleasure from the latter.

And yet we tacitly accept that there should be a whole class of people above us who have the right to earn more because they ground it out at school for a few years?

Re: The Bloodthirsty Battle For Tech Talent

#42

Post by lifeisstillgood » Tue, Apr 02, 2013, 11:22 PM UTC

dirkdk wrote: post #19

PeterisP wrote: post #14

Hire telecommuters outside of SF. For example, I personally could get a drastic increase in income by moving to USA/SF, but I won't consider physically moving since it would be a great disruption to my wife and babies and I can afford not to move, as developers are wanted everywhere (though not so piranha-style). And there are many more developers like me. Long-range telecommuting is an option, and it's easier to be…

Well yes, but for startups that doesn't work. Every day you need to look at the results of your product, talk with your team and adjust course. Having remote workers really kills your ability to do that.

Maybe, but not really. Two hours of google hangouts, screen -x, git and CI servers will do you for every conversation you can imagine apart from, let's grab a beer

Re: The Bloodthirsty Battle For Tech Talent

#43

Post by lifeisstillgood » Tue, Apr 02, 2013, 11:25 PM UTC

I'm finding my own meme here - CI is the key to enabling remote working and so enabling a company to truly select the best

With CI it's pretty easy to see what needs to be built and whether it works - every few minutes if needed.

You can see progress happen throughout a day.

No other metrics matter.

Re: The Bloodthirsty Battle For Tech Talent

#44

Post by JimboOmega » Tue, Apr 02, 2013, 11:25 PM UTC

PixelPusher wrote: post #28

ericb wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 100K+, benefits, telecommuting, So, a not particularly high salary considering cost of living and benefits too? Where would they get these crazy expectations? Oh right, the open market.

That's why i said it's a good thing. It bumps up the base developer salary and makes experienced developers even more valuable. At least those who are able to properly market themselves as such.

$100k+ for a senior developer is really not that much... but. The "properly market themselves" is a catch. I don't seem to be able to 'speak' west coast right, or something. Which is why I find this article about a relocating person interesting.

It's always been this way. When I got out of college, the division of the company I'd been interning with had an office in San Diego that was hiring for skills I had. I wanted to work there since my GF at the time was going to UCSD. Same industry, same company, same division of that company. Already vetted and approved by many months of interning. They wouldn't give me the time of day. Nor would any other companies I applied to out there.

The local (to me) office and several other companies in the area had no problem giving me offers, even though I was putting almost no effort into the local search (since, after all, I wanted to be in SD).

It's somewhat better now, when I'm trying to move to SF - I've gotten a few phone interviews, but nothing like the insanity the article is describing.

Edit: I forgot the original reason I wanted to reply: To mention that I personally have no interest in telecommunicating. I'm a social person, and to me, a lot of the appeal of working for a startup is to be working with peers that I can engage with every day. I don't want (to be) a voice on the phone during scrums that comes to the office once a year.

Re: The Bloodthirsty Battle For Tech Talent

#45

Post by lifeisstillgood » Tue, Apr 02, 2013, 11:29 PM UTC

cletus wrote: post #22

Honestly this is just a PR piece for DeveloperAuction. "How to win the bloodthirsty battle for tech talent"? Why come use our site of course! This strip from 1995 sums it up pretty well: http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1995-05-22/ I see a number of problems (on both sides): 1. There is no shortage of talent. There might well be a shortage of talent for the price you're willing to pay but that's hardly the same thing;…

I would like to think there is a talent shortage.

I pitch that we are in a similar position to Europe post Gutenberg - where they went from 2% literacy rates to 20% in a gut wrenching century. We are going to go from a lot less than 2% of people who are source code literate to that magic 20% in less - in short we are millions of talented people short.

In our generation, the observation talent shortage only occurs at certain ,price points is right - but when you want all companies to have the same code in their DNA as perhaps google or MS, we are so embarrassingly short of people it's a public policy issue not a Market lead one.

But I still laugh at the filbert cartoon - it's just I acknowledge that is true if your definition of talented developer is a software engineer who will write code primarily for a living and perform a sort of back office function. What about the CEO who codes? The deputy CFO?

Re: The Bloodthirsty Battle For Tech Talent

#46

Post by HaloZero » Tue, Apr 02, 2013, 11:38 PM UTC

JimboOmega wrote: post #13

andrewf wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're serious about moving it's not dishonest - people looking for candidates for a S.F. role want you to appear in their search results! Maybe mention your plans to move, and your willingness/ability to interview onsite or remotely via Skype, in your profile summary.

Well, is LinkedIn even the best way? I get a fair amount of (local, I live near DC) recruiter spam through it, but it's often nothing to do with rails, and it is mostly third party recruiters. I'm looking for a startup or small-company environment that actually uses rails. Big ERP jobs are easy to find, but the startup jobs are, despite the supposed feeding frenzy, a little bit more scarce on the ground. (Or else I'm…

You're more than welcome to apply to ApartmentList, I'm currently working there. We're a fairly small profitable company using Rails in San Francisco. You can shoot me an email at rohan@apartmentlist.com and we can talk there.

Re: The Bloodthirsty Battle For Tech Talent

#47

Post by benjaminwootton » Tue, Apr 02, 2013, 11:41 PM UTC

PixelPusher wrote: post #39

benjaminwootton wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Market value has nothing to do with having 'earned it' or the numbers of years that you have put in at school. It's a function of supply and demand and the value that the individual can create.

Well now you're arguing market value not entitlement, which I didn't say it was a bad thing. If you're a Rails dev, yeah you're valuable and you should be getting paid that much. However, you still have a lot to learn, and if you're asking for telecommuting and you don't even know what a thread is. That's entitlement, because you think that just because you know Rails, anyone will hire you and that you're 'good enoug…

I am arguing that people are not asking for these packages out of entitlement.

They are asking for them out of increased awareness of their market value.

In the end the market will sort this out, and some developers will inevitably be left disapointed.

However, I think it's quite reasonable that techies of all skill levels are pushing for and often achieving the salaries and working conditions that they want.

(I really don't see how asking for telecommuting is entitled by the way. I would love to do it for quality of life and productivity reasons, but that is completely divorced from how well I rate myself etc.)

Re: The Bloodthirsty Battle For Tech Talent

#48

Post by guylhem » Tue, Apr 02, 2013, 11:41 PM UTC

After reading that, I can only imagine what this demand curve means for the actually available talent one may buy.

You know the saying - "the market is so hot even chickens can fly"

If you have to hire, that'll be a very expansive chicken - or maybe even a lemon. That's the cost of doing business I guess.

Re: The Bloodthirsty Battle For Tech Talent

#49

Post by HunterV » Tue, Apr 02, 2013, 11:44 PM UTC

I've always wondered why companies aren't recruiting kids out of High School to learn Rails instead of attending college. Understandably there is immaturity to deal with and all that but it seems there is enough demand to overshadow that.

Re: The Bloodthirsty Battle For Tech Talent

#50

Post by cllns » Tue, Apr 02, 2013, 11:48 PM UTC

One agency’s pitch consisted entirely of this: “I saw that your [sic] looking for some work. I have a few posions [sic] in SF that might be a fit, let me know when you have some time to talk.” It provided no last name, phone number or company name.

The author should remember this is craigslist. This seems like run-of-the-mill spam (likely sent to EVERY new job posting)