The Myth of the Science and Engineering Shortage • Hacker News Board

Re: The Myth of the Science and Engineering Shortage

#41

Post by tsotha » Sun, Mar 23, 2014, 4:30 AM UTC

_Robbie wrote: post #20

I like this article, but it does not delve very deep into why the current perceived shortage exists. On the public policy side, there is probably a belief that more STEM professionals will increase the economic competitiveness of the nation, even if there is a surplus. From technology businesses' standpoint, it is in their interests to have a surplus of STEM graduates in order to maintain or reduce wages.

>On the public policy side, there is probably a belief that more STEM professionals will increase the economic competitiveness of the nation, even if there is a surplus.

Except that it doesn't work, and it should be obvious why. There's no reason to bust your ass in college to enter a field the government floods with foreigners. The more people the government imports the less attractive the field looks to domestic students choosing a major.

I can't complain about my treatment as an EE and later a software developer, but knowing what I know now I doubt I would go into anything technical if I were graduating from high school today.

Re: The Myth of the Science and Engineering Shortage

#42

Post by curun1r » Sun, Mar 23, 2014, 4:31 AM UTC

mehrdada wrote: post #9

I think it is important to avoid using the term STEM and specifically dissect it in the discussions about shortage. Computer Science is a very peculiar part of STEM and not all of the STEM fields face the same challenges. As Hadi Partovi of Code.org put out eloquently in his testimony before Congress[1], there is a difference between enrollments in Computer Science and STEM in general. For instance, in US high school…

It's also possible for there to be a shortage of qualified workers and a surplus of qualified workers...this is a point that people often miss.

Qualified US workers have this annoying tendency to be unwilling to uproot their life and move to where the jobs are. Foreign workers coming from other countries don't have this issue...they're moving anyways, so they move where the jobs are. And hi-tech jobs cluster in certain areas, usually around one or more universities to supply talent. So you end up with areas that have lots of jobs and not enough qualified applicants and areas with qualified applicants and no jobs.

That's what makes this issue so obnoxious...both sides are right. And that makes it difficult to find a middle ground.

Re: The Myth of the Science and Engineering Shortage

#43

Post by mehrdada » Sun, Mar 23, 2014, 4:37 AM UTC

jshen wrote: post #39

mehrdada wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we pay very well How do you know, objectively? Have you tried paying twice (or more) the current market rate, for instance, and binary search for a point where you have enough happy hires and failed? Perhaps the market rate is artificially lowered.

The problem isn't that good engineers turn done our offers, it's that very few good engineers come in the door. The ones that have were very happy with their offers. Edit: Didn't realize you weren't the person I originally replied to. Let's reverse your question. What is the objective basis for the claim that engineers are asked to sacrifice to much for too little pay?

> it's that very few good engineers come in the door

I have one possible answer for this issue: Well, no one in the Valley (to best of my knowledge) really advertises that they are going to pay a meaningful multiple of what's considered the market rate to potential employees. So from the potential employee side, it is reasonable to assume that they are going to get paid around the "market rate".

The Valley seems to be at a point where "starting/not starting a startup" is becoming an IQ test (compared to "market rate") financially if you think you are reasonably good at doing stuff, so it is natural that good engineers wouldn't go and apply for a job, because the expectation for compensation is unlikely to be satisfactory anyway (or at least that's what they believe and prevents them from trying).

>And you dodged my questions.

Oh, I am not the OP and I'm not pretending to have the answers. I was genuinely interested in knowing how you measured that you are paying very well, except for the fact that they were competitive with what's considered the "market rate" which is the questionable piece of data here.

Re: The Myth of the Science and Engineering Shortage

#44

Post by kenrikm » Sun, Mar 23, 2014, 4:37 AM UTC

ChristianMarks wrote: post #13

The Silicon Valley cartel conspirators helped to depress wages and increase unemployment. Universities have relied on cheap student and postdoc labor. Their game-theoretic strategy is cheap talking their serfs into the belief that they too may become masters. ADDENDUM: downvoters can take a warm piss on a power line.

ADDENDUM: made me laugh, gave an up vote for that.

Re: The Myth of the Science and Engineering Shortage

#45

Post by ranci » Sun, Mar 23, 2014, 4:40 AM UTC

aviraldg wrote: post #29

jkrems wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CEOs who think just throwing more developers at a problem will solve it are what natural selection is for.

More developers might not solve a problem faster, but they will drive down wages (even for skilled developers)

There is a lot of crying and worrying about wages on here right now. If you are from CS or SE, you don't have the right to cry about a saturated job market driving down your wages. They are plenty high. If you want people with real problems, look at the graphic design industry. $10/hr can get you your pick of the litter among several applicants who have over 20 years experience in one of the biggest cities in the United States. Then imagine what it must be like for recent college graduates in the field.

Re: The Myth of the Science and Engineering Shortage

#46

Post by firstOrder » Sun, Mar 23, 2014, 4:43 AM UTC

stale2001 wrote: post #4

What world is this article living in? I got a job making $100k as a software engineer, right out of college (top-tier I guess). And then I realized that I was worth more than that, and 8 months later I'm now switching over to a job making $150k in total compensation. And TBH, I was middle of the road compared to my classmates.

You said you went to a top-tier college. Most of them charge over $40k a year. So that $150k pays for less than your tuition costs. You are worth $150k a year (which means your boss is making $160k, $165k etc. off of you, they hire you to be profitable). So your four years of study were in a sense $600k down the drain in that.

So it will be at least five years before you start to break even. Minus the housing and living costs over that five years.

You spent over $150k and four years ($600k) worth of your time training for this job.

Also remember the market is hot. In 2000/2001 air went out of the bubble. Also in 2008/2009. Right now is the peak of a go-go time like 1998/1999 was. It is not the norm.

Re: The Myth of the Science and Engineering Shortage

#47

Post by ranci » Sun, Mar 23, 2014, 4:46 AM UTC

hmsimha wrote: post #6

stale2001 wrote: post #4

What world is this article living in? I got a job making $100k as a software engineer, right out of college (top-tier I guess). And then I realized that I was worth more than that, and 8 months later I'm now switching over to a job making $150k in total compensation. And TBH, I was middle of the road compared to my classmates.

Good for you. I graduated from a college that was not top tier over a year ago, as a below-average student, and have yet to find any kind of development work that pays as much as I made delivering pizza while working my way through college. Not everyone has the same experience as you. Furthermore, this article is talking about the entire STEM domain.

What major?

Re: The Myth of the Science and Engineering Shortage

#48

Post by firstOrder » Sun, Mar 23, 2014, 4:52 AM UTC

jshen wrote: post #39

mehrdada wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we pay very well How do you know, objectively? Have you tried paying twice (or more) the current market rate, for instance, and binary search for a point where you have enough happy hires and failed? Perhaps the market rate is artificially lowered.

The problem isn't that good engineers turn done our offers, it's that very few good engineers come in the door. The ones that have were very happy with their offers. Edit: Didn't realize you weren't the person I originally replied to. Let's reverse your question. What is the objective basis for the claim that engineers are asked to sacrifice to much for too little pay?

The objective basis that you are offering engineers too little pay is that they are not taking your offers. Unless you don't believe in one of the first things they teach in modern economics - that at a certain value (price), supply will always meet demand.

Re: The Myth of the Science and Engineering Shortage

#49

Post by dalke » Sun, Mar 23, 2014, 4:53 AM UTC

curun1r wrote: post #42

mehrdada wrote: post #9

I think it is important to avoid using the term STEM and specifically dissect it in the discussions about shortage. Computer Science is a very peculiar part of STEM and not all of the STEM fields face the same challenges. As Hadi Partovi of Code.org put out eloquently in his testimony before Congress[1], there is a difference between enrollments in Computer Science and STEM in general. For instance, in US high school…

It's also possible for there to be a shortage of qualified workers and a surplus of qualified workers...this is a point that people often miss. Qualified US workers have this annoying tendency to be unwilling to uproot their life and move to where the jobs are. Foreign workers coming from other countries don't have this issue...they're moving anyways, so they move where the jobs are. And hi-tech jobs cluster in certa…

How did you get from "It's also possible" to "both sides are right"?

Is there actually a shortage of mobile qualified workers in the US? If so, what is your evidence?

Re: The Myth of the Science and Engineering Shortage

#50

Post by mjn » Sun, Mar 23, 2014, 5:00 AM UTC

mehrdada wrote: post #9

I think it is important to avoid using the term STEM and specifically dissect it in the discussions about shortage. Computer Science is a very peculiar part of STEM and not all of the STEM fields face the same challenges. As Hadi Partovi of Code.org put out eloquently in his testimony before Congress[1], there is a difference between enrollments in Computer Science and STEM in general. For instance, in US high school…

I think it is important to avoid using the term STEM and specifically dissect it in the discussions about shortage. Computer Science is a very peculiar part of STEM and not all of the STEM fields face the same challenges.

I think there's a bit of a rhetorical issue with this, though. The dominant narrative is that we have too many people doing soft, fuzzy, weird, useless liberal-arts degrees. Studying things like literature, history, philosophy, political science. What we need is more people doing hard, rigorous, mathematical, technical STEM degrees. Studying things like physics, biology, mathematics, computer science, chemistry.

If you admit that there is no shortage of mathematicians, though, you undermine the whole strategy of "we need more STEM, less liberal arts", because mathematicians are the rhetorical core of STEM: rigorous, technical, mathematical, non-fuzzy. If it turns out mathematicians are about as useful as historians (useful in principle, not directly in a major applied shortage), the whole narrative fails.

To a certain extent I think the whole STEM construction is based fundamentally on trying to hand-wave across this gap: math and physics are prestigious and perceived as hard/rigorous, while computer programming is in demand. The union (not intersection) of these two fields is STEM, which perceives itself as rigorous + hard + in-demand.