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The Myth of the Science and Engineering Shortage

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Myth of the Science and Engineering Shortage

#51

Post by firstOrder »

dblacc wrote: post #19

I thought the whole shortage for demand argument was to do with the lack of talent that was being produced, rather than simply the number of people who had a bachelors degree.

I don't know how many jobs I've seen out there where they have an incredibly high bar to hire someone, and then it is 99% CRUD work.

Some of the AI jobs at Google, yes, they need good people. Amazon needs some good engineers at the top guiding the creation of EC2 architecture. But most jobs ask for a much higher caliber of people than they actually need.

Re: The Myth of the Science and Engineering Shortage

#52

Post by jordanb »

a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #18
Spooky23 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're in a hot market in a hot locale. You probably pay an arm and a leg for housing. I'm in a second tier city with more limited options. I know folks who successfully start CS grads in the $50-60k range, mostly from state schools. Someone with a good track record is anywhere from $80-105. Sounds awful, but a 2000 ft^2 house can be found around $200k in a nice area. McMansions are $400-500k. I ended up moving back…

At many levels the national discussions are distorted by failure to understand regional costs of living and taxes and the matter of finding acceptable schools. People talk about the 1% without realizing that two $150K incomes supporting a few kids are at best "comfortable" by the standards of our grandparents in markets like NYC and SF. My grandfathers with skilled tradesman wages were able to support stay at home wi…

I was reading a biography about a couple who built a boat in LA in the late 60s and set off on a tip around the world in 1969. It took them three years to build the boat and save up some money to fund their trip.

The husband was a carpenter and the wife was a bookkeeper.

They had a boat probably worth $10,000 in 1969 dollars and a further $5,000 in cash saved up. I looked that up in the inflation calculator and found out that $5,000 in 1969 dollars is about $30,000 today.

Can you imagine a carpenter and a bookkeeper building up assets of $90k dollars in LA today through a few years fastidiousness and hard work?

Re: The Myth of the Science and Engineering Shortage

#53

Post by swang »

jshen wrote: post #35
michaelochurch wrote: post #28

Well, there is a shortage of competent software engineers willing to sacrifice as much as corporate executives think they should, for what corporate executives think such people should be paid. In the same vein, there's a shortage of supermodels who want to fuck obese, unemployed men with halitosis and general poor hygiene.

I think you're wrong. I have the hardest time finding good engineers, we pay very well, we don't expect anyone to work crazy overtime, etc. Can we make this more concrete? What sacrifices do you think is being asked of competent developers? What pay do you think they are offered?

How quickly does your company reply back to good/bad resumes? As an engineer who was recently looking for a job, I found that companies just aren't very organized when it comes to looking for new hires.

Re: The Myth of the Science and Engineering Shortage

#54

Post by jshen »

firstOrder wrote: post #48
jshen wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You fail at reading comprehension.

Re: The Myth of the Science and Engineering Shortage

#55

Post by FLUX-YOU »

firstOrder wrote: post #48
jshen wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Could just be a run of bad luck or not enough advertising on their part. Supply can't meet demand if supply doesn't know demand exists.

Re: The Myth of the Science and Engineering Shortage

#56

Post by jshen »

swang wrote: post #53
jshen wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're wrong. I have the hardest time finding good engineers, we pay very well, we don't expect anyone to work crazy overtime, etc. Can we make this more concrete? What sacrifices do you think is being asked of competent developers? What pay do you think they are offered?

How quickly does your company reply back to good/bad resumes? As an engineer who was recently looking for a job, I found that companies just aren't very organized when it comes to looking for new hires.

great point, and we could do a lot better on this front. We do a lot of recruiting and typically find good people rather than waiting for them to apply to a posting. We're/I'm very active in the local dev community, meetups, conferences, etc.

Re: The Myth of the Science and Engineering Shortage

#57

Post by jshen »

mehrdada wrote: post #43
jshen wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

I think we pay very well because when we do find a good person, we offer them enough to get them unless there is some non monetary reason they went with another company. We do not have a problem with people turning down offers, we have a problem with finding enough good people.

Another interesting wrinkle to this is the fact that hiring someone at a high salary is a big gamble. How confident can you really be after interviewing someone?

Re: The Myth of the Science and Engineering Shortage

#58

Post by eranation »

There is no shortage of bad programmers, there are plenty of medium programmers, it's also not that hard to find decent programmers. It's harder to find good programmers, but much harder to find great ones. The thing is that a great programmer can do 5X more than a good programmer, that can do 2X more than a decent one, that can do 2X more than a medium one. It's not just the number of features they can write in a given time or the fact they have less bugs or test their code better, or simply can do things no one else can. It's not even their ability to design better. It's their ability to do all that and influence the others to follow. I think there is a shortage in that kind of developers, and there is no school that teaches these soft skills.

Re: The Myth of the Science and Engineering Shortage

#59

Post by DonGateley »

Time to demonstrate once and for all the fraud that the H1B visa has always been. All it does is push older engineers out of the field so they can be replaced very cheaply.

That needs to stop but having the best congress money can buy pretty much assures that it won't.

Re: The Myth of the Science and Engineering Shortage

#60

Post by mattm »

jshen wrote: post #35
michaelochurch wrote: post #28

Well, there is a shortage of competent software engineers willing to sacrifice as much as corporate executives think they should, for what corporate executives think such people should be paid. In the same vein, there's a shortage of supermodels who want to fuck obese, unemployed men with halitosis and general poor hygiene.

I think you're wrong. I have the hardest time finding good engineers, we pay very well, we don't expect anyone to work crazy overtime, etc. Can we make this more concrete? What sacrifices do you think is being asked of competent developers? What pay do you think they are offered?

Do you hire remotely? If so, feel free to get in touch.
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