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If there was really a shortage of engineers, then engineer salary would be very close to the value the engineer adds to the company, because the competition to

by learc83 10y ago

If there was really a shortage of engineers, then engineer salary would be very close to the value the engineer adds to the company, because the competition to hire would drive the price as high as it could possibly go. Salary is nowhere near close to the value an engineer adds to the company, so most likely there is no shortage. The shortage is a manufactured problem to justify an attempt to depress wages. >How do you justify that the location of birth should be the main determinant in whether an engineer earns $150k a year or $30k a year? If we take that to it's logical extreme. No one makes $150k a year. We allow an unlimited number of software engineers in until the average salary drops down to a level where it's not worth it to immigrate here. Maybe that's worth it to you, but if global income equality and globally open borders are your goal, argue for that. Stop with this false argument about an engineering shortage that doesn't exist.

aianus 10y ago
> Salary is nowhere near close to the value an engineer adds to the company, so most likely there is no shortage. I think it is more likely that the marginal value added by an engineer to a company is much less than you think it is. If Google currently earns an average of ~$2m per engineer that does not imply that they will earn an additional $2m upon hiring another engineer. In fact I'm confident they could fire at least 500 engineers tomorrow without negatively impacting their profit at all.
- eon1 10y ago
  ..because the engineers have created things that the company can continue to profit off. They're not factory workers, they don't need to be there on the day-to-day to add that value, so it's a little disingenuous to suggest the impact would be seen "tomorrow". Still not having those engineers 6, 12, 24 months down the line might not look so happy, though.
  - aianus 10y ago
    You wouldn't attribute much of the value created by a Boeing 747 to the mechanic the maintains it, so why would you do so with the mechanics that maintain the AdWords money machine built ten years ago?
    - eon1 10y ago
      I'm not really sure what to make of this analogy. Are you suggesting that the mechanic maintaining a 747 is on the same level as the design and fabrication team who built it?
      - aianus 10y ago
        The design and fabrication team who built AdWords years ago are rich. The engineers they're hiring today at 150-200k are akin to the mechanics hired to keep it running.
- learc83 10y ago
  >In fact I'm confident they could fire at least 500 engineers tomorrow without negatively impacting their profit at all That makes no sense. If they can lose a significant chunk of their engineering team "without negatively impacting their profit at all" then why did they hire them in the first place. If your assertion is true, they must have significantly overestimated their staffing needs. If they did, it's likely everyone did, so the engineering shortage crisis doesn't really exist after all.
  - aianus 10y ago
    That was the least important part of my comment. If you're arguing there's no shortage because wages are much lower than the marginal value of hiring an engineer, it's on you to come up with evidence supporting this supposed (much) higher marginal value. Everything I've seen points to a real shortage and desperation on the part of the employers: interns making six figures with free Manhattan penthouses, nonstop recruiter spam, 22-year-olds negotiating stock packages on their 8 fulltime offers before they finish school, fresh grads buying Teslas with signing bonuses before their first day of work, countless job listings that never ever go away, $10k+ referral bonuses, websites where employers apply to you...
    - learc83 10y ago
      > it's on you to come up with evidence supporting this supposed (much) higher marginal value. There's no more onus on me to prove a higher marginal value than there is on you to prove a lower one. You've attempted to shift the burden of proof by arbitrarily deciding that your assumption is the correct one. I will say that most of the people I've read trying to determine the marginal value of software engineers, think that it's a good deal higher than what you seem to think it is. When you consider that there are outliers who will make or save companies tens of millions and not very many who are going to have very large negative impacts, the average is going to trend pretty high. >Everything I've seen points to a real shortage and desperation on the part of the employers: interns making six figures with free Manhattan penthouses, nonstop recruiter spam, 22-year-olds negotiating stock packages on their 8 fulltime offers before they finish school, fresh grads buying Teslas with signing bonuses before their first day of work, countless job listings that never ever go away, $10k+ referral bonuses, websites where employers apply to you... None of that is at all even remotely normal. The vast majority of software engineers don't experience anything like that. None of the people you're talking about are close to average. Average programmers don't pass Google style interviews. I went to a fairly average state school, and I've done a lot of tutoring and interview prep. I'd be shocked if 1% of the students I graduated with could pass a Google interview. It's hardly shocking that the top 1% of engineers are making large salaries. Top law firms start associates out at $200k a year, do you think there's a shortage of lawyers? If there really was a shortage, Google and other companies would relax their interview processes, and invest more in training. If anything, the real problem is that everyone thinks they need to hire the top 1%, but they don't want to pay for it. $150k in silicon valley is equivalent to about $90k a year where I live, so I'm not interested in moving. If someone there offered me $300k, I'd go in a heartbeat.

by learc83 10y ago

aianus 10y ago

> Salary is nowhere near close to the value an engineer adds to the company, so most likely there is no shortage. I think it is more likely that the marginal value added by an engineer to a company is much less than you think it is. If Google currently earns an average of ~$2m per engineer that does not imply that they will earn an additional $2m upon hiring another engineer. In fact I'm confident they could fire at least 500 engineers tomorrow without negatively impacting their profit at all.

eon1 10y ago
..because the engineers have created things that the company can continue to profit off. They're not factory workers, they don't need to be there on the day-to-day to add that value, so it's a little disingenuous to suggest the impact would be seen "tomorrow". Still not having those engineers 6, 12, 24 months down the line might not look so happy, though.
- aianus 10y ago
  You wouldn't attribute much of the value created by a Boeing 747 to the mechanic the maintains it, so why would you do so with the mechanics that maintain the AdWords money machine built ten years ago?
  - eon1 10y ago
    I'm not really sure what to make of this analogy. Are you suggesting that the mechanic maintaining a 747 is on the same level as the design and fabrication team who built it?
    - aianus 10y ago
      The design and fabrication team who built AdWords years ago are rich. The engineers they're hiring today at 150-200k are akin to the mechanics hired to keep it running.
learc83 10y ago
>In fact I'm confident they could fire at least 500 engineers tomorrow without negatively impacting their profit at all That makes no sense. If they can lose a significant chunk of their engineering team "without negatively impacting their profit at all" then why did they hire them in the first place. If your assertion is true, they must have significantly overestimated their staffing needs. If they did, it's likely everyone did, so the engineering shortage crisis doesn't really exist after all.
- aianus 10y ago
  That was the least important part of my comment. If you're arguing there's no shortage because wages are much lower than the marginal value of hiring an engineer, it's on you to come up with evidence supporting this supposed (much) higher marginal value. Everything I've seen points to a real shortage and desperation on the part of the employers: interns making six figures with free Manhattan penthouses, nonstop recruiter spam, 22-year-olds negotiating stock packages on their 8 fulltime offers before they finish school, fresh grads buying Teslas with signing bonuses before their first day of work, countless job listings that never ever go away, $10k+ referral bonuses, websites where employers apply to you...
  - learc83 10y ago
    > it's on you to come up with evidence supporting this supposed (much) higher marginal value. There's no more onus on me to prove a higher marginal value than there is on you to prove a lower one. You've attempted to shift the burden of proof by arbitrarily deciding that your assumption is the correct one. I will say that most of the people I've read trying to determine the marginal value of software engineers, think that it's a good deal higher than what you seem to think it is. When you consider that there are outliers who will make or save companies tens of millions and not very many who are going to have very large negative impacts, the average is going to trend pretty high. >Everything I've seen points to a real shortage and desperation on the part of the employers: interns making six figures with free Manhattan penthouses, nonstop recruiter spam, 22-year-olds negotiating stock packages on their 8 fulltime offers before they finish school, fresh grads buying Teslas with signing bonuses before their first day of work, countless job listings that never ever go away, $10k+ referral bonuses, websites where employers apply to you... None of that is at all even remotely normal. The vast majority of software engineers don't experience anything like that. None of the people you're talking about are close to average. Average programmers don't pass Google style interviews. I went to a fairly average state school, and I've done a lot of tutoring and interview prep. I'd be shocked if 1% of the students I graduated with could pass a Google interview. It's hardly shocking that the top 1% of engineers are making large salaries. Top law firms start associates out at $200k a year, do you think there's a shortage of lawyers? If there really was a shortage, Google and other companies would relax their interview processes, and invest more in training. If anything, the real problem is that everyone thinks they need to hire the top 1%, but they don't want to pay for it. $150k in silicon valley is equivalent to about $90k a year where I live, so I'm not interested in moving. If someone there offered me $300k, I'd go in a heartbeat.