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I think I know why you can't hire engineers right now

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Re: I think I know why you can't hire engineers right now

#571

Post by notyourday »

hguant wrote: post #8

There comes a point where the money just isn't a motivating factor anymore, and companies are struggling to figure out how to work in that environment. This bit from the author hits the nail on the head: >Is an extra $10k per year worth learning a new org, a new skillset, a new set of expectations, a new set of coworkers, and a new boss? For many engineers, the answer is: “No.” Yes I could quit and get a ~20k raise b…

> "There comes a point where the money just isn't a motivating factor anymore, and companies are struggling to figure out how to work in that environment. This bit from the author hits the nail on the head: >Is an extra $10k per year worth learning a new org, a new skillset, a new set of expectations, a new set of coworkers, and a new boss?"

> For many engineers, the answer is: “No.”

> Yes I could quit and get a ~20k raise by shopping my resume around, but I don't need the money. I have enough for a down payment on a house, I meet my expenses for the month with 1/2 of one paycheck, I can buy a new car on a credit card if I wanted to.

This entire thread is mind-blowingly backwards though it totally explains why we the industry is in this position. It starts with people saying that "they don't need more money" because they can borrow or they can $20k more by shopping around their resume if they need to, followed by people waxing about how $50k-$80k is a decent salary, followed by people saying "no one gets paid $250k out of college"

It is very simple: $20k extra over a period of 52 weeks is extra $384 per week, which is less than extra $10 an hour.

Here's why you cannot hire engineers: you are not paying them enough money.

Engineer: $55k is good if i have

Someone who wants to hire him and has no toys: $80k

Engineer: I guess but only if I get to work only really cool projects

Someone who wants to hire him and has shitty projects: $100k

Engineer: And I want to have super smart people working with me

Someone who wants to hire him and does not have smart people as he wants to build a team around this kind of engineer: $150k

Engineer: Yeah, i guess it will work.

Someone who wants to hire him and does not want him to shop around: $170k

Engineer: hell yes! I'm going to unshitty these projects and make people around me smart!

Oh, you don't want to pay $170k/year for an engineer because you think those plebeians should be working for $55k? Well, that's your problem.

P.S. Can't hire at $170k/year? Offer $220/k.

P.P.S. $10k/year is not a raise.

Re: I think I know why you can't hire engineers right now

#572

Post by KronisLV »

pattusk wrote: post #40
hguant wrote: post #8

There comes a point where the money just isn't a motivating factor anymore, and companies are struggling to figure out how to work in that environment. This bit from the author hits the nail on the head: >Is an extra $10k per year worth learning a new org, a new skillset, a new set of expectations, a new set of coworkers, and a new boss? For many engineers, the answer is: “No.” Yes I could quit and get a ~20k raise b…

I do not disagree with your take, but I think you may only be speaking for a subset of engineers that are already fairly well compensated. The article likewise seems to discard the importance of money in favor of three other more immaterial factors, but I do not think this is representative of the situation of the global job market right now. I also think such a perspective can not fully explain the difficulties that…

> If you look outside of coastal cities, there are plenty of job offers for engineering jobs that pay less than 6 figures. Over in Europe and East Asia, $50 to $60k salaries are the norm. And people job hop frequently for a few extra $k because that corresponds to a significant increase in quality of life for them. The difference between a 2 br and 3 or 4 br apartment, between another kid or not, etc...

In my eyes, this is a good point.

Currently working in Latvia and getting a net salary of around 2k euros a month now - staying at the same company makes it increase by a few hundred euros per year. Actually provided more information in another comment of mine, compared some of the public sources for software dev salaries in the adjacent countries too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29595158

Also wrote about my savings and financial circumstances on my blog a while ago as well: https://blog.kronis.dev/articles/on-finances-and-savings

Thus, job hopping even for comparatively small increases is the smart thing to do, as well as looking for opportunities like side hustles and attempting to take advantage of a globalized economy that lends itself well to remote work (something that i'll inevitably need to explore once i'll have finished a pretty large enterprise migration and some pilot projects in my current place of work).

Now, my salary is still liveable and certainly better than those of who work for the local government, who receive about half of what i do (according to https://www-visasalgas-com.translate.goog/valsts-iestades?_x... which is a site that displays the published data per government org) and many other seemingly essential jobs (like teachers, medics, firemen, policemen all of which are comparatively underpaid). Even as a software dev, buying my own house anytime soon is unlikely, as is buying a new car, or many other luxuries that others take for granted.

In short: the original argument definitely holds true for those who are well compensated, but yours is also valid for those less so. Already, there is talk locally of not having enough engineers, especially in those aforementioned government jobs.

Re: I think I know why you can't hire engineers right now

#573

Post by throwaway1293 »

elihu wrote: post #559

I think there's something else that's necessary that doesn't align well with the things in the article, and which is currently lacking in my current work environment, but which is kind of hard to describe succinctly. Basically, my job requires using a lot of tools and technology and processes created by other people, but none of those tools are easy to use or well documented. In order to get stuff done you have to ha…

Note that I'm not saying we shouldn't do as best as we can with documentation, clean code, etc, BUT:

In the open source world, I've developed a large low quality codebase that is very complex from when I was less experienced. This project has gotten plenty of contributions over the years, some from less experienced and some from more experienced.

The experienced developers know how to get around the codebase, but the lesser experienced ones tend to complain about quality. I see this in the workplace as well.

I had this exact same issue when I was less experienced. New codebases was very difficult to understand, but now that I've been through a lot of them in various languages and quality, it's not as bad as it used to be.

I guess the argument here from the business point of view is that we write code for the less experienced? In a way this makes sense, but paradoxically some complex codebases that I thought was messy in the past have become more elegant today as I've gained more experience.

Re: I think I know why you can't hire engineers right now

#574

Post by aryehof »

Programmer shortage?

Actually, programmers are a dime a dozen these days (soon to be a penny a dozen), but companies (we’re hiring!) want only “special programmers”. They can’t actually describe what they want, other than for entry-level programmers, but they’ll remain ever hopeful someone special will turn up…

We’re hiring!

Re: I think I know why you can't hire engineers right now

#575

Post by aix1 »

svilen_dobrev wrote: post #509
fy20 wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Europe it seems to have changed too. Salaries are still of course low compared to the US, but it seems the salaries are stabilising across the continent. I've been speaking to recruiters recently and a lot more companies are open to fully remote, even across borders. 10 years ago if you wanted the best salary in Europe you would need to go live in London, now there are plenty of companies hiring remotely across Eu…

some rough numbers from last year... very senior tech role - fully remote : * London : >100k pounds = ~120k E * Berlin : >90k E * Sofia : >50k E but, when applying the taxes thereof: * London : >120k E - 45% taxes -> 66k E * Berlin : >90k E - 45% taxes -> 50k E * Sofia : >50k E - 10-15% taxes -> 45k E Which means.. it mostly depends where you (want to) live.. as differences in price/culture of life are much more than…

I haven't checked the other two numbers, but your UK tax calculation is off. A more accurate after-tax number (applying correct income tax bands and national insurance) is €80K.

Re: I think I know why you can't hire engineers right now

#576

Post by codethief »

elihu wrote: post #559

I think there's something else that's necessary that doesn't align well with the things in the article, and which is currently lacking in my current work environment, but which is kind of hard to describe succinctly. Basically, my job requires using a lot of tools and technology and processes created by other people, but none of those tools are easy to use or well documented. In order to get stuff done you have to ha…

I'm getting the same impression at my client and my client only employs ~150 devs, not a 100k.

All in all, this strongly reminds me of the "Collapse of Civilization" described by Jonathan Blow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSRHeXYDLko

Re: I think I know why you can't hire engineers right now

#577

Post by nefitty »

gyulai wrote: post #521

Companies nowadays seem to have a fixed expectation that if they're not rejecting 99 candidates for every candidate they hire, they are somehow not doing it right. Looking at it from the candidate's point of view: Being rejected is actually something that psychologically kind of sucks a lot. Even if at the level of higher cognition you are perfectly aware that it's just a numbers game, and that you shouldn't let reje…

This is very insightful. I've personally gotten better at handling rejections, but it's still very difficult. The amount of effort individuals are expected to invest in each prospective job is mind blowing.

On top of my resume, you want me to fill out multiple text boxes with information about why I want to work at Random No Name Company, what I expect from my time there, what my personal ethos is... Then you ask me for a cover letter?! This is literally to just initiate a lottery where it seems the odds of the next step happening are less than 1%.

It's more brutal than dating. I do not envy any single engineers who are juggling both games.

Re: I think I know why you can't hire engineers right now

#578

Post by slim109ya »

siva7 wrote: post #549
hguant wrote: post #8

There comes a point where the money just isn't a motivating factor anymore, and companies are struggling to figure out how to work in that environment. This bit from the author hits the nail on the head: >Is an extra $10k per year worth learning a new org, a new skillset, a new set of expectations, a new set of coworkers, and a new boss? For many engineers, the answer is: “No.” Yes I could quit and get a ~20k raise b…

This is classic HN bubble. I would estimate that most software engineers around the world never come into this luxury situation where you can say that money just isn't motivating you anymore when considering new job opportunities.

Exactly. And many of us have a hard time getting a single opportunity and feel lucky when we get a job.
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