41–50 of 153 posts
"I know lots of engineers who are unable to find work." I don't. Probably your definition of "engineer" is different from mine. "Another problem is that us engineers are expected to have real-world, paid experience in whatever technology the hiring company uses" Generalization and obviously not true. I have a company, I don't care about paid experience, in fact we hired lots of people from open source projects, or di…
There is only a shortage of cheap / entry level tech workers. There are plenty of experienced and over-qualified tech workers, but most short-sighted employers don't value older employees.
Junior programmer (22): makes $80-100k, 120k in the Bay Area. Easily gets jobs.
Senior programmer (28): 5-10 times as valuable as the junior. Makes $120-140k,
possibly 150k. Serious stock options possible with the right company. Three-
month job searches.
Expert programmer (37): 3-5 times as valuable as the senior, so 15-50 times as
valuable as the junior. Makes $150-200k. Leaves the Bay Area/NYC because he can't
afford to raise kids there. Has a defined specialty. Job searches take 6-8 months
because he's overqualified for everything but high-level positions, and those in
his specialty number in the single-digits nationally.
Master programmer (45): TO;DH.
This industry pays well at the entry-level (if you went to a reputable college,
live in the right city, know where to look and how to play the game) but doesn't
have a clue when it comes to rewarding excellence. Getting better tends to
backfire when this industry (being run by dumbass MBA types) continues to
insist on structuring itself like a pyramid.
Here is an alternate point of view. I recently went through the process of hiring a programmer. I probably interviewed 30 candidates. All of them had the required knowledge and experience listed on their CV's. Guess how many could write a simple program in the language of their choice? Exactly 3. Yes, there are many people with the right credentials. In my own personal experience, many of these people can't do the wo…
Could you provide an example of your definition of a simple program and the resources they had to write it?
If you do an HN search for "shortage" you'll see many links, to things like: http://math-blog.com/2014/03/10/stem-shortage-claims-and-fac... - which points out that it's not "difficult for employers and potential employees", giving an example of how Facebook decided to not employ the people who became the founders of WhatsApp, then paid $19 billion for their company a few years later. http://www.theatlantic.com/busin…
H1Bs are used not only to pay lower wages, but to enable employers to treat their employees poorly without fear that they will leave. As a US Citizen, not only can I work for any US employer, I can reside here as well, even if I don't have a job. If I work for someone who treats me poorly, or who I regard as unethical, I will resign. One time I just walked right off the job - I left on a Friday, then never returned,…
In my mind, if companies were serious about this shortage (and not just trying to hire more people they can abuse as you described) they would be pushing for far more than a few more H1Bs. But we haven't really seen that, at least that I know of.
"I know lots of engineers who are unable to find work." I don't. Probably your definition of "engineer" is different from mine. "Another problem is that us engineers are expected to have real-world, paid experience in whatever technology the hiring company uses" Generalization and obviously not true. I have a company, I don't care about paid experience, in fact we hired lots of people from open source projects, or di…
"The better demonstration of grasping computing technology is actually having done something with a computer".
So you do care about experience.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not parent, but I've sat though way too many interviews where the candidate failed the "FizzBuzz" test, either through super convoluted code that barely works or with complete failure to produce the expected results. And that is while sitting at a desktop computer, full internet access and no one eyeing behind them.
So you are saying that many people failed to type "FizzBuzz code" in Google? I do not really buy that.
If the answer is more than 0, I feel you have gotten lucky in the candidates you interview or are far more selective on who you actually interview.
If the answer is 0, then you would be incredibly surprised. It isn't quite as simple as this dialog is making it sound, but essentially, yes, a not-insignificant number of candidates cannot solve problems with a fizzbuzz level of difficulty.
It is something that surprised the hell out of me as well. From what I have seen, there are many people with CS degrees who have written virtually no code outside of class and never have come up with an original program on their own. It is incredibly clear that programming is just not something they are passionate about.
Not all tech workers are equal. My company does not care what language you know, or technology you use- we want people who are smart, capable of working with any technology. And we want the very best of those people, without lowering the quality bar for the sake of having people in seats. We will let people go while we also are hiring for open positions on the same team if we realize the person isn't s good fit after…
They all look for the 3% rock-stars, reject the 97% and complain about tech worker shortage. What a silly 'strategy'!
I'm afraid there's a shortage of good programmers, with proper education in computer science, understanding of how the OS and programs interact, knowing how to use at least one programming language proficiently, fluent in algorithms and data structures - i mean people who know their tools and know what they're doing. Instead we've got lots of excited, half-educated but enthusiastic ctrl-c/ctrl-v specialists, doing wh…
Well, I never geeked out about algorithms and data structures irrespective of application domain, but hey, what are you looking for?
Assuming there is no tech shortage and companies are indeed looking for cheaper labor, how do we explain these offers (It's placement season in India and its raining offers). These seem to be well above the average pay for software developers (considering they are under graduates fresh out of college). Of course all have to first participate in the H1B lottery for them to enter US. http://indiatoday.intoday.in/educat…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I live in Vancouver, Washington (the "Original Vancouver", not Vancouver, British Columbia), but am looking for work in Portland, Oregon. However I have also lived in Vancouver BC, Truro, Nova Scotia, St. John's, Newfoundland, Santa Cruz, California and Silicon Valley. The claim that there was a tech worker shortage started to appear during the dot-com boom, but never really went away, even when the economy contracte…
Seriously, you claim it only cost the company a book and a week to get you up to speed in a new languages, but you can't be arsed to make that small investment in yourself before applying for a new job? That inertia and lack of motivation is the reason I wouldn't hire you. Because besides languages, your job as an engineer entails constantly learning and trying new things in order to find the best solution for any gi…
Disagreed. Studying your way through a breadth-first search tree of available knowledge means you're trying to dip your toes into everything and your neck into nothing, probably just to impress prospective employers. Domain expertise requires focus, which requires going through some portions of the available-knowledge tree depth-first, or having sufficiently well-developed research abilities to select a goal node and search backwards to find the exact breadth and depth necessary to reach that node from your starting point.