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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

#411

Post by benhurmarcel »

netheril96 wrote: post #291
ditonal wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's basically both. When I graduated with my CS degree, I was _thrilled_ to be offered 50k. Now new grads feel lowballed at 200k TC. So hard not to say that the market hasn't adjusted somewhat. At the same time, part of the reason companies even have to pay so much is because they've made interviewing so damn hard. I personally know many people at great companies like Google and Twitter who are _desperate_ to change…

> When I graduated with my CS degree, I was _thrilled_ to be offered 50k. Now new grads feel lowballed at 200k TC. It might have something to do with increasing property prices.

And property prices didn't increase for other professions?

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

#412

Post by barry-cotter »

throwaway210222 wrote: post #399
pmiller2 wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that relevant to anything?

Software engineers should not compare themselves to a basket that includes (presumably) labourers, tradesmen, etc. SEs are educated, highly-skilled individuals and should thus be compared to the VALUE the NYC society places on other highly skilled, in-demand individuals. Be assured that NYC lawyers, radiologists, and bankers don't compare their remuneration to an average that includes dustmen, baristas, and hot-dog s…

Software engineers did ten years ago. That you think the proper reference class for SEs is higher professionals, not the general population, or even engineers generally speaks volumes about how things have changed in the past decade or so. There are lots of actual engineers being outearned by boot camp grads with two years experience. That’s nuts, and it’s quite new.

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

#413

Post by masonic »

dasil003 wrote: post #110

Hard to take this seriously with all the straw men and broad generalizations. Reality check: there has never been a hotter seller's market for software engineering talent. The fact that you have not landed a job does not mean that supply is not short in general. Rather than blowing your stack at some recruiter who you heard on a podcast interview, you might want to reflect on yourself and how you might be coming off…

  read CtCI
CtCI?

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

#414

Post by namdnay »

bobthepanda wrote: post #404
namdnay wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don’t see what you went through as “paying your dues”. Would it be normal for a doctor to start their career as a vet, and work their way up to humans? Would it be normal for a car mechanic to be asked to start on lawnmowers and work up? Not really And being a junior programmer isn’t “having a big corner office” or “being at the top”. It’s literally the bottom of the software engineering ladder

The doctor analogy doesn't quite make sense, since doctors do have to complete residency.

that would be the equivalent of a developer internship i guess? they're still doing a doctor's job in residency, they're not wiping arses or manning the reception desk

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

#415

Post by namdnay »

nxpnsv wrote: post #359
namdnay wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s like saying that if you can’t pay Ronaldo’s salary you shouldn’t be running a football team

Am I not understanding what "market rate" means. I bought my care at market rate, it costed less than a lambo. But it also didn't cost $10.

"market rate" usually applies to a single good (or goods that are fungible between themselves). i think for your car or engineers we would say there are many different markets depending on skill level, location, nationality etc

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

#416

Post by benhurmarcel »

JAlexoid wrote: post #193
devin wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a feeling this will get me a downvote, but I grew up in a very blue collar town and the idea of paying one's dues is not crazy to me. I see a lot of people entering the tech market as if they don't have anything to prove, like their degree says it all. In any industry, you shovel some shit early on, IMO. I was a good programmer, but I got my start racking servers in a data center. I crawled under raised floor…

That's not paying your dues. Being a software engineer forced to work as a network technician (not even a network engineer) is akin to having the junior accountant just get everyone coffee. Maybe writing tests is paying your dues, because it often feels like a thankless job. Building UIs in a JS framework... Those could be "paying your dues", or more precise getting real world development experience. But there's a lo…

In mechanical engineering, it's considered good practice to make recently-hired engineers work as blue-collar operator in the shop for a while. When it's proposed it's even usually appreciated by the engineer as a rare opportunity to learn.

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

#417

Post by Redoubts »

chmod600 wrote: post #323
tshaddox wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, but I just don’t think it makes sense to say that companies who cannot afford to pay market rates for software engineers are experiencing a shortage of software engineers, unless there is something preventing market clearing.

Let's say you are a forward-thinking manager in a company making artisinal flowerpots. You know tech is the future and will set your company apart, and you want to build a top-tier team to take you there. You are willing to pay twice the compensation per engineer as google. Now a deluge of engineers show up for interviews. How do you tell which ones are top-tier and which ones are third-rate? Even tech companies stru…

Eh, I don’t like this theory because it’s hard to get real numbers until after the interview. The employer should know precisely what they’re buying at that point.

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

#418

Post by FpUser »

JAlexoid wrote: post #266
FpUser wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I develop business backend servers in C++, no problems there and no hardware / embedded is required. I also happen to be familiar with electronics and do develop firmware every once in a while but I mostly use plain C for that.

That sounds like you're trying to stab yourself in the face... The unfortunate bit is - there is a lot of people that are learning Python or TypeScript that can develop that business logic as fast as you at a fraction of the cost.

>"That sounds like you're trying to stab yourself in the face"

Sounds like you have no idea what are you talking about. It was exactly Python project I've recently completely rearchitected, rewrote and greatly improved. Client can't thank me enough as it performs hundreds of times better than the old one. And from what the client told it was developed in less time than the original Python version.

In general I use multiple languages including Python. I just do not see anything in Python that noticeably speeds up development of big and complex projects vs modern C++ ( or any other decent language for that matter ).

You just have to know what are you doing. Language is secon

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

#419

Post by username90 »

nradov wrote: post #233
pas wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are different markets. It's easy to hire full remote juniors on upwork for next to nothing. Hiring a senior staff superhero full-cyber stack-ninja who happily relocates to where you are... now that's not that easy. And thus on the low end you have a market glut and on the high end you have a shortage.

But that's still not a shortage. The government hasn't imposed a wage cap. Employers can just increase wages to the market rate.

Would the economy benefit from increasing the number of software engineers? In that case it is a shortage from the governments perspective and they should work to increase the supply either via immigration or by encouraging students to study those fields.

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

#420

Post by koonsolo »

This person needs to be placed at a position to hire developers.

Looking forward to reading the article they write afterwards, but I can tell you it won't look like this one ;).

I'm in a position to interview candidates. It is indeed very difficult to find quality developers, both junior and senior.

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