6 ms·

It used to be better - I was looking for work in Spain just before the crisis. A senior dev could easily do 50K, banking positions were 70K and up. Nowadays ho

by gutnor 10y ago

It used to be better - I was looking for work in Spain just before the crisis. A senior dev could easily do 50K, banking positions were 70K and up. Nowadays however, you can't find anything over 35K that is related to development -and- in Spain ( i.e. not a position in Germany) Anyway - Spain does not have a problem of running out of worker, it has a problem of not paying those workers. I have been looking for years to go back to Spain but the job market is just completely unrealistic. I'm highly skeptical of the 200K figure in the article. Of course, job offers in Spain often do not specify the salary at all, but I have regularly seen director level position for about 70-90K.

gordaco 10y ago
Another spaniard here, and I can confirm that it absolutely is a problem of not wanting to pay appropriate wages. First, most software companies only offer crappy jobs that don't require specific skills. Most of the job postings are for standard developing positions in very common languages such as Java or Python. Considering how many people finish their degree or their FP (Formación Profesional, courses of about two years oriented towards the job market, and often including internships) each year, and how high the unemplyment rate is, I just don't believe that there aren't enough applicants. Second, a lot of the big companies are what we call cárnicas (roughly, "butcheries"), i.e. companies specialized in outsourcing that pay ridiculous wages (10K a year for an entry level, full-time position where you will get fired if you don't do three hours of overtime a day is not difficult to find). Most developers know better and stay away from these, but because of the unemployment rate, a lot of people end in these places. In other words, those hard-sought qualifications are more or less "will do a specialized job while getting peanuts in return". The article misleads by giving an example of a position with a 200k salary (which I'm also very skeptical of, like gutnor), and fails to mention that it's a very specific position and does not represent the whole set. The only way I could believe that there is an actual shortage of workers, and I still doubt that it's true, is if we took into account that many of the good developers fled to greener pastures a lot of time ago. EDIT: I should also mention that the problem is not that there isn't money and therefore the job market can only offer crappy jobs. On the contrary, most of the big enterprises and especially the cárnicas are very lucrative for their owners. The problem is that there is a very big barrier entry, because these companies strive on public contracts, and because of corruption, new and smaller companies can't stand a chance against the already existing ones.
- Qantourisc 10y ago
  What is wrong with Java/Python? I don't know about Java, but Python is certainly a nice language to write in in my opinion. (However don't expect raw performance from Python.)
  - chris11 10y ago
    I didn't read it as necessarily knocking those languages, but saying most programmers had experience in those languages. And most jobs did not ask for any unusual skills, so companies should be able to find decent local developers.
  - gordaco 10y ago
    It's not that they are bad languages, it's that they are the ones that everyone knows, so I don't believe that there are open positions on those languages that nobody wants, unless the money is obscenely low (which it often is).
    - toyg 10y ago
      > they are the ones that everyone knows, Man, how things change. I remember times when most developers would derisively laugh off Python's indentation. Back in 2006, Python jobs were so few and far between, you'd struggle to get paid to work with it. 10 years later, "everybody" works with it, so apparently you struggle to get paid a decent amount. Why can't I ever find a niche I like and paying well? :(
      - ionforce 10y ago
        Do you like functional programming? That's a sector that's poppin.
        rebeccaskinner 10y ago
        I've actually found it pretty hard to find regular work focused on doing FP. My last job was Erlang when I started, but pivoted to Go because of a lack of Erlang developers. My last two jobs before that were mixes of C and Haskell, but only because I was given the lattitude to select haskell. This time around when I was interviewing I was trying to find something that would let me focus on FP, but the best I could find were jobs that ostensibly wanted to hire Clojure and Scala devs, but really 90% of the job would be maintaining a bunch of legacy enterprise architecturey Java with just enough FP to try to attract people into the positions.
reitanqild 10y ago
For a while my former employer used a Spanish software consultancy for second level support on an open source solution; they were happy to work with us because we paid well [0] and didn't argue on every bill like their other (mostly south American I think) clients did. [0]: my boss told me literally to tell them: contract is fine, except for the hourly rate, I should tell them he would not accept to be associated with such a cheap rate so they would have to add 20% to their prices. I use this now that I hire through upwork as well. Espescially when you hire across the globe you get chances to build good relationships for peanuts compared to around here. (Oh, works with kids as well: you can buy many lifetime friends before they become teenagers.)
- triplesec 10y ago
  Are you seriously saying you are using child labour?
  - reitanqild 10y ago
    >> Oh, works with kids as well: you can buy many lifetime friends before they become teenagers.) > Are you seriously saying you are using child labour? No, I say I buy myself friends and happy consultants that come back. The link is when you are in an advantage position (parent with small children, western SW company that use remote consultants) it takes next to no effort to make a difference in someones life.
    - PhasmaFelis 10y ago
      > No, I say I buy myself friends Who are under 13? Was your "before they become teenagers" statement perhaps in error? I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt, and ethical concerns aside, I have trouble imagining even a brilliant 12-year-old producing code you'd want to use in a commercial product. (Speaking as someone who started coding at 7.) Perhaps you're mistaken about the meaning of "teenager"?
      - reitanqild 10y ago

by gutnor 10y ago

gordaco 10y ago

Another spaniard here, and I can confirm that it absolutely is a problem of not wanting to pay appropriate wages. First, most software companies only offer crappy jobs that don't require specific skills. Most of the job postings are for standard developing positions in very common languages such as Java or Python. Considering how many people finish their degree or their FP (Formación Profesional, courses of about two years oriented towards the job market, and often including internships) each year, and how high the unemplyment rate is, I just don't believe that there aren't enough applicants. Second, a lot of the big companies are what we call cárnicas (roughly, "butcheries"), i.e. companies specialized in outsourcing that pay ridiculous wages (10K a year for an entry level, full-time position where you will get fired if you don't do three hours of overtime a day is not difficult to find). Most developers know better and stay away from these, but because of the unemployment rate, a lot of people end in these places. In other words, those hard-sought qualifications are more or less "will do a specialized job while getting peanuts in return". The article misleads by giving an example of a position with a 200k salary (which I'm also very skeptical of, like gutnor), and fails to mention that it's a very specific position and does not represent the whole set. The only way I could believe that there is an actual shortage of workers, and I still doubt that it's true, is if we took into account that many of the good developers fled to greener pastures a lot of time ago. EDIT: I should also mention that the problem is not that there isn't money and therefore the job market can only offer crappy jobs. On the contrary, most of the big enterprises and especially the cárnicas are very lucrative for their owners. The problem is that there is a very big barrier entry, because these companies strive on public contracts, and because of corruption, new and smaller companies can't stand a chance against the already existing ones.

Qantourisc 10y ago
What is wrong with Java/Python? I don't know about Java, but Python is certainly a nice language to write in in my opinion. (However don't expect raw performance from Python.)
- chris11 10y ago
  I didn't read it as necessarily knocking those languages, but saying most programmers had experience in those languages. And most jobs did not ask for any unusual skills, so companies should be able to find decent local developers.
- gordaco 10y ago
  It's not that they are bad languages, it's that they are the ones that everyone knows, so I don't believe that there are open positions on those languages that nobody wants, unless the money is obscenely low (which it often is).
  - toyg 10y ago
    > they are the ones that everyone knows, Man, how things change. I remember times when most developers would derisively laugh off Python's indentation. Back in 2006, Python jobs were so few and far between, you'd struggle to get paid to work with it. 10 years later, "everybody" works with it, so apparently you struggle to get paid a decent amount. Why can't I ever find a niche I like and paying well? :(
    - ionforce 10y ago
      Do you like functional programming? That's a sector that's poppin.
      - rebeccaskinner 10y ago
        I've actually found it pretty hard to find regular work focused on doing FP. My last job was Erlang when I started, but pivoted to Go because of a lack of Erlang developers. My last two jobs before that were mixes of C and Haskell, but only because I was given the lattitude to select haskell. This time around when I was interviewing I was trying to find something that would let me focus on FP, but the best I could find were jobs that ostensibly wanted to hire Clojure and Scala devs, but really 90% of the job would be maintaining a bunch of legacy enterprise architecturey Java with just enough FP to try to attract people into the positions.

reitanqild 10y ago

For a while my former employer used a Spanish software consultancy for second level support on an open source solution; they were happy to work with us because we paid well [0] and didn't argue on every bill like their other (mostly south American I think) clients did. [0]: my boss told me literally to tell them: contract is fine, except for the hourly rate, I should tell them he would not accept to be associated with such a cheap rate so they would have to add 20% to their prices. I use this now that I hire through upwork as well. Espescially when you hire across the globe you get chances to build good relationships for peanuts compared to around here. (Oh, works with kids as well: you can buy many lifetime friends before they become teenagers.)

triplesec 10y ago
Are you seriously saying you are using child labour?
- reitanqild 10y ago
  >> Oh, works with kids as well: you can buy many lifetime friends before they become teenagers.) > Are you seriously saying you are using child labour? No, I say I buy myself friends and happy consultants that come back. The link is when you are in an advantage position (parent with small children, western SW company that use remote consultants) it takes next to no effort to make a difference in someones life.
  - PhasmaFelis 10y ago
    > No, I say I buy myself friends Who are under 13? Was your "before they become teenagers" statement perhaps in error? I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt, and ethical concerns aside, I have trouble imagining even a brilliant 12-year-old producing code you'd want to use in a commercial product. (Speaking as someone who started coding at 7.) Perhaps you're mistaken about the meaning of "teenager"?
    - reitanqild 10y ago