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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

#421

Post by akg_67 »

tomp wrote: post #389
akg_67 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People undervalue other people’s skills and contributions and overvalue their own skills and contributions. I notice this more and more in hiring process. Teams expecting new member to perfect fit wrt hard skills over soft skills. Frankly, hard skills can be taught, soft skills can’t be taught and take long time to modify behavior.

As someone who studies math (one pf the hardest skills), no, sometimes skills just can’t be taught. Some people just don’t get it. Unfortunate, but that’s the way it is.

You can teach someone math who already graduated with basic science degree in much shorter time than it will take to teach a math whiz to consider opinions from someone else’s point of view.

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

#422

Post by ev1 »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #409
nxpnsv wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both of these statements are true. Neither of them is what I meant.

As a follow up to your edit: I think we agree on what market rate is, but what market rate actually is for tech is subject to a wide variety of answers. So that may be where the discrepancy comes from. that and the article in question giving questionable numbers like: >50-70k is a junior’s salary. Your people with 10 years of experience with C++ or whatever should be paid closer to 300k 50-70K out of school is normal…

Note that 70k for one person in SF is considered low income/needs assistance/basically not a living wage by hud.gov. The bare minimum is somewhere around 90k.

At about ~140k for one person, you will still have difficulty renting a single housing unit because you will not be able to meet % of income = rent calculations. I have experience with this (and unrelenting corporate managed rentals charging several hundred in nonrefundable application fees just to reject for low income at 6 digits..).

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

#423

Post by Crespyl »

KhoomeiK wrote: post #320
noodlenotes wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When developers change jobs after about 2 years at a company, what's the incentive for any individual company to take on the burden of training junior talent? By the time they've got the experience to contribute on their own, they're gone.

Totally agree and I thought about mentioning this in my comment. Yeah, part of the blame for this problem is on us as developers for creating a culture that encourages constant company hopping.

That culture goes both ways, and more on the companies in my opinion. Why would anyone stay more than a couple years when there's no path for advancement and raises don't remotely keep up with the market?

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

#424

Post by nxpnsv »

namdnay wrote: post #415
nxpnsv wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

True, although I assume that also applies to footballers...

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

#425

Post by username90 »

namdnay wrote: post #352
JAlexoid wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They definitely grilled me... It's just that they actually had humans talk to me and answer questions, not just throw a website with an automated judge and intentionally confusing problems. (My first language isn't English) Facebook was very robotic in their process, with a lot of demands for preparation. Google and Amazon aren't that far off.

> just throw a website with an automated judge and intentionally confusing problems Who did that??? Never heard of automated tests

I think Google and Facebook does that for some interns.

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

#426

Post by playing_colours »

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…

You can invite an experienced contractor that can help you with bootstrapping development: deciding on MVP tech stack, hiring, and making sure the new team can deliver proper work.

Sure, you need someone to refer a good contractor to you first, chicken-eggs problem.

I wonder if there are companies that can help with it as well - not shops that try to convince you to outsource the whole development to them.

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

#427

Post by playing_colours »

brundolf wrote: post #346
chmod600 wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Tangent: I've thought about this "bootstrapping dev hiring" problem before (you don't know which candidates are good because you don't have anyone technical to interview them) I wonder if there's a business opportunity for a firm of experienced devs who do nothing but interview devs for other companies

It can go beyond hiring developers - companies may need help with deciding on initial MVP, organising development process, and regularly checking for a while if things go well.

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

#428

Post by EE84M3i »

hnfong wrote: post #295
EE84M3i wrote: post #64

>A bad interview is when you ask them the definition of some specific thing in some specific framework like “Tell me what a closure in javascript is.” then treat them like they’re stupid if they don’t know. Is this a good example? Isn't "what is a closure?" more of a smell test "do you know the language" question? Maybe asking "oh you know python? Tell me how to implement and use a metaclass" without access to the do…

Damn. I've been coding in Python for 10+ years and never came across this "metaclass" thing. Starts wondering whether I'm rusty and un-hireable. Curious what it is, I read the first result on Google, which goes through an example that I don't understand the point fully, and it concludes with "metaclasses can easily veer into the realm of being a “solution in search of a problem.”" Oh well, good luck hiring python dev…

Yeah, I meant this as an example of a clearly absurd "off the top of your head" question, which I believe "what is a closure" is not.

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

#429

Post by tsukikage »

ramraj07 wrote: post #296
jmknoll wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somewhat relevantly, a closure isn't a "specific thing in a specific framework." Its a concept that exists in many languages, and has no real relation to frameworks. I would never treat someone like they're stupid in an interview, but being completely unfamiliar with common programming concepts and treating them as irrelevant or trivial things is definitely a red flag.

I know approximately what a closure is, and I am sure I have used such constructs instinctively in my work many times. I don't have a formal Cs education, but have never failed to not be able to finish my coding work because I didn't know stuff. Once a guy asked me to write out merge sort on a whiteboard and I couldn't. I didn't get the job. Surprisingly I'm doing just fine in my current position and am very producti…

> "I don't have a formal Cs education, but have never failed to not be able to finish my coding work because I didn't know stuff."

...that statement looks kinda sus. In a code review I'd maybe get you to simplify it or break it up to confirm the negatives end up meaning what you wanted them to mean.

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

#430

Post by wreath »

ergocoder wrote: post #318
sldksk wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>senior experienced engineers Companies use Leetcode because they don’t want to pay for experience.

Which is normal. Many companies pay for raw skills, ability to learn quickly, ability to hone their skills, attention to details. If you can ace leetcode, topcoder, codejam, and alike in a short period of time, you probably have a very high capability of learning.

There is a lot more to software engineering than solving algorithmic problems in a vacuum with little resemblance to real life engineering.
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