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We Don't Have a Talent Shortage. We Have a Sucker Shortage

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Re: We Don't Have a Talent Shortage. We Have a Sucker Shortage

#501

Post by riazrizvi »

coffeemug wrote: post #447
rubicon33 wrote: post #208

I feel like a broken record, but I'm going to say it anyways. There is NOT a shortage of software developers. That myth was developed by big tech, and pushed all the way up the ladder, to the top of government. The goal? Reduce labor costs. Big tech has always been 1 step ahead of the employee, just like coal, and metal working was. They saw the huge need for developers and realized their costs would increase unless…

>There is NOT a shortage of software developers. What would have to be true for you to agree that there is a shortage of software developers? Big tech cos have total comp of ~$600k/engineer. Would you think there is a shortage if they had to pay $6m/engineer? $60m? How do you define "shortage"?

Those aren’t market wages. Those are compensation packages awarded to long tenured employees at cash cow companies as a form of golden handcuff to keep experts on specific in-house systems. They are paid out to keep employees from taking company secrets to competitors. They work because these compensation packages are so far off market that these employees would suffer a huge pay drop if they moved. So in no way do these rates reflect the market. However it is great food for this skill shortage narrative BS.

Re: We Don't Have a Talent Shortage. We Have a Sucker Shortage

#502

Post by swoongoonz »

rubicon33 wrote: post #306
_57jb wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are making the mistake that enterprises who employ thousands of developers are looking for quality over butts in seats.

Yup. And they're missing the point that this isn't 1985 anymore. A high school student with a week of JavaScript and HTML could write AirBnB. Or at least, JavaScript and similar languages make programming much, much easier (and hence the barrier to entry much easier). As coding difficulty drops, and supply increases, the net effect will be a much higher demand for jobs than supply. And that's exactly where big tech w…

These kids would be competing with incredibly prolific web developers who not only output an insane amount of code themselves but manage OSS at massive scales. One example is Jordan Harband, responsible for:

1. Enzyme, the current top used React testing library 2. NVM, kind of the only game in town for managing node versions 3. qs, a tool for converting search to json objects and back 4. tc39 proposals, the committee that determines new JS features

This is all in addition to his developer work at Airbnb. I would like to see a high schooler have that kind of maturity, drive, and focus.

Re: We Don't Have a Talent Shortage. We Have a Sucker Shortage

#503

Post by maehwasu »

ScottFree wrote: post #411
mooreds wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We switched from a random set of questions to a take home coding assignment (that we compensate for) and a discussion of said coding assignment. It's pretty clear what kind of work someone will do when you can look at work they've done.

What would you do if a candidate turned down your home coding assignment, but gave you one of the coding assignments he completed for a different job interview?

(I'm not OP) My concern would be that the candidate might have memorized the explanation for his code, and would be able to discuss it despite not having written it.

I agree with the DRY intuition though: making coders repeat code challenges/assignments is stupid. Some sort of verification or credentialing after completion of assignment, signed by a 3rd party, would be really cool.

Re: We Don't Have a Talent Shortage. We Have a Sucker Shortage

#504

Post by swoongoonz »

yzmtf2008 wrote: post #279
rubicon33 wrote: post #208

I feel like a broken record, but I'm going to say it anyways. There is NOT a shortage of software developers. That myth was developed by big tech, and pushed all the way up the ladder, to the top of government. The goal? Reduce labor costs. Big tech has always been 1 step ahead of the employee, just like coal, and metal working was. They saw the huge need for developers and realized their costs would increase unless…

You honestly sounds like a broken record, looking at the cynicism from your comment history. If someone coming from just trainings on "code.org" is threatening your job safety, or god forbid making you "blue collar" like "those people", perhaps you should rethink whether your skill sets are adequate. Stop blaming other people.

I don't think it's that cynical. It's a known fact that Google and Apple created an agreement not to poach each other's talent to keep salaries low.

Re: We Don't Have a Talent Shortage. We Have a Sucker Shortage

#505

Post by neffy »

daemontus wrote: post #413
bufferoverflow wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US salaries are on a whole new level when it comes to senior programmers. $200K+ base is normal, if you're good. $150/hr for consulting gigs is also normal if you're good. So your $5K after taxes wouldn't even register on my radar.

Don't forget it's 200k a year whereas the EU salary is 5k per month - still way below, but as op said: once you factor in the cost of living, it starts to make more sense :)

Not to mention we get free health care and decent holidays with that.

A 7 weeks holiday allowance has more than a monetary allowance.

Re: We Don't Have a Talent Shortage. We Have a Sucker Shortage

#506

Post by rabidrat »

nell wrote: post #494

Let's assume pay is the only parameter in a job offer. Also assume Big tech (FANG) set the ceiling for software engineer salary. These companies hire every engineer that meet their criteria. Most engineer given an offer from one of them would accept it since that is the highest possible offer they can get. If there is no talent shortage, these companies should have no open recs or fill them as soon as they're opened…

> Let's assume pay is the only parameter in a job offer.

It's not.

> These companies [FAANG] hire every engineer that meet their criteria.

They don't hire anywhere close to that. Their hiring practices are notoriously capricious.

> Most engineer given an offer from one of them would accept it since that is the highest possible offer they can get.

I had an offer like this and turned it down because they wouldn't let me work on my open source project.

> If there is no talent shortage, these companies should have no open recs or fill them as soon as they're opened because they are the best possible jobs for any engineer.

These companies have more money than they know what to do with, and more is coming in all the time. The more they hire, the more things they make, and the more they want to hire.

Re: We Don't Have a Talent Shortage. We Have a Sucker Shortage

#507

Post by tomrod »

solipsism wrote: post #462
tomrod wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HR is the cause of this issue, either the ossified silo, or the general company policy to HR, which results in too big of asks for too low of wage from folks that have to use that policy.

You can keep saying this but it's just not true. In the number of companies in which I've been involved, engineering managers are solely responsible for writing the reqs. HR is just an easy scapegoat. I'm sure that often HR is primarily responsible, but often HR just works with what they're given.

Tell me about the approval process, training, and underlying incentives the engineering managers have to go through to get their requisition approved and posted. A priori, I'm confident it is a bad HR process.

Re: We Don't Have a Talent Shortage. We Have a Sucker Shortage

#508

Post by pedrosorio »

b212 wrote: post #381
bufferoverflow wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US salaries are on a whole new level when it comes to senior programmers. $200K+ base is normal, if you're good. $150/hr for consulting gigs is also normal if you're good. So your $5K after taxes wouldn't even register on my radar.

This is relative. 5000€ is $5623. You can maintain a "normal" life standard around here for about $800 (renting a studio / two room flat in the city centre + all the expenses, no car but I never needed one - the subway takes me to the furthest parts of town in 25 minutes, walking to work is not unusual). So you're saving more or less 5000$ every month. How much do you have to earn in SV to rent a place for your own n…

> How much do you have to earn in SV to rent a place for your own next to your office and still save 5 grand a month? :)

If you want a nice 1BR apartment ($3000) + a very generous budget for monthly expenses ($3000), you need to earn $11000 after tax to save 5 grand a month - i.e $132k a year.

A total compensation of $200k as a single person gets you that much after tax: https://smartasset.com/taxes/california-tax-calculator#BKf2k...

Take a look at these sources to see what top companies are paying software engineers in SV (spoiler: it's more than 200k, and you can add ~60% of each dollar above that to your savings): https://www.levels.fyi/ https://www.paysa.com/salaries

Re: We Don't Have a Talent Shortage. We Have a Sucker Shortage

#509

Post by wolco »

antt wrote: post #379
wolco wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should you get a say in who works with you? As a team lead I'm trying to find the right balance. If we hire only people the current devs like we endup having too many similiar developers with the same mindset and shortcomings. Trying to have a more diverse, balanced team means you don't get a say.

I would like some evidence that balanced teams are good. Given that in higher dimensional finite spaces all the points are close to the edges of the space you would expect the most unbalanced teams to be the most successful ones because they can explore the parts of the solution space where you have the highest chance of finding a profitable solution. Unix was not build by well rounded people. Xanadu was.

The Unix team didn't interview each other the Xanadu team probably did.

Non-well rounded people would do less well if the decision was up to peers.

Re: We Don't Have a Talent Shortage. We Have a Sucker Shortage

#510

Post by krob »

Rule #1, know going in that they know what your salary requirement is. Ask them many times throughout the process, if they flinch at any point drop them. Then continue on with your interviews. If you're asked to go in for an interview more than a few times, it's a major red flag. There is zero reason for this. They can do background checks on you. They can ask for references to people you worked with etc. Don't be led on. At this point, you're time is worth more than theirs because this process drains you mentally & physically, and likely drains your vacation time / pay, so it's literally costing you $$$$ when you interview at new companies.
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