5 ms·

I was talking to my friend yesterday, she works for AT&T. She described being overworked, and, while she was paid well compared to other PMs, she considered the

I was talking to my friend yesterday, she works for AT&T. She described being overworked, and, while she was paid well compared to other PMs, she considered the idea of taking a pay cut in exchange for a better managed workload. The problem was that her reports were all leaving her project or leaving the company. The company was responding to the staffing difficulty with outsourcing, moving her entire project to Israel. Directors were squabbling over the most capable employees and twice she was approached about switching departments. She has a friend who nominally is an architect, but is instead doing the work of a frontline dev. He's about to jump. Recruiters have made the job market liquid enough that businesses can't meet their objectives with the coders they hired. In some sectors, coders right out of school can command six-figure salaries, and they're only going higher. In the larger job markets, firms are moving en-masse to consulting companies to meet business needs. The developers are following suit. 5 months ago, I worked at a marketing company as an in-house dev. I now work for a consulting company, my old company hired a consulting company to do my old job. I am somebody whose natural tendency is towards loyalty. I want to find a nice position at a nice company and just stay there for years. The current job market makes that impossible. The siren's song of getting a 30% pay bump every year, sometimes twice in the same year, is impossible to resist. Make no mistake about it, the US needs more developers. Immigration is an excellent solution to the problem. Protectionism is only going to make it worse. If businesses can't meet their objectives, then end result is going to be a recession. No one comes out better in one of those.

dominotw 10y ago
> Recruiters have made the job market liquid enough that businesses can't meet their objectives with the coders they hired. Curious what you mean by this?
- ta_donk_gt 10y ago
  It implies that it's too easy to get another job, and that we should do something to make it more difficult to leave a job, so that companies can focus on output rather than hiring.
  - vinceguidry 10y ago
    My proposed solution is allowing devs to immigrate; making the hiring market less liquid would be counter-productive.
dxxvi 10y ago
"She has a friend who nominally is an architect, but is instead doing the work of a frontline dev": if I had power, I'd let any architect who refuses to do the work of a frontline dev go in 1 sec. If you design some thing but don't build it, how can you be sure that your design is correct and good? And there are not enough new things for you to design all days/months/years.
- j_jochem 10y ago
  Architects plan buildings. I wouldn't hire one to work on my software systems.
  - vinceguidry 10y ago
    Architect is the title bestowed on a large outfit's best developers. They're supposed to spend their time working on high-level concerns, not implementing features or fixing bugs.
- vinceguidry 10y ago
  He doesn't refuse to do it. But he's not working on frontline stuff out of any noble desire to dogfood or whatever, he's doing it because they're short-staffed.
samfisher83 10y ago
It seems like all the high paying companies are going after the same set of developer. Those guys who have passed the all day whiteboard interview or work at google/facebook etc. If you you look at H1B data the salaries in markets other than NY, SF are not high.
- vinceguidry 10y ago
  The astronomically-high salary companies can still hire whoever they want. But programmer salaries in not-so-hot markets are still high, they're just not straight-out-of-college-six-figures high, they're high as in better than any other career field you can find jobs for in that area. No dev anymore says "I could be making more money as a bartender," that is, they wouldn't if they knew how hard to get those top-paying bartending gigs are to get. I live in Atlanta and I wouldn't dream of doing anything else right now.
  - samfisher83 10y ago
    According to glassdoor the average software engineer in Atlanta, GA makes 72,693. That isn't that great. Maye better than a bartender. There might be some bias in what you make make, but on average people aren't making that much.
    - vinceguidry 10y ago
      I don't know what world you live in but $72K is an excellent salary. People raise families on less.
vonmoltke 10y ago
I read sentiments like yours frequently. It does not match my experience. Many of the companies I have talked to have fairly large lists of requirements for positions and are serious about requiring them. They get really picky about specific languages, frameworks, and experiences. As I mentioned in another discussion here recently, there are tens of thousands of programming jobs controlled by companies who do not see a programmer shortage from their perspective. When discussions on hiring methods come up, multiple people inevitably chime in that the companies in question are dealing with situations where they have more qualified applicants than slots. That is in direct conflict with what you said above. I would love to be able to jump jobs for 30% pay raises. I can't. I started my career at $55,770. I'm up to $92,500 14 years later, which is only a 66% bump for my entire career. Even if we consider me underpaid for my area (Hi! I'm looking in Dallas!) I would likely only be looking at a 100% total career bump if I got that situation addressed. There are companies out there who refuse to give you more than X% above your current salary, regardless of how underpaid you are. It's funny that you should mention AT&T, what with them being headquartered here and all. I see them as one of the companies I was referring to in my second paragraph. I have personally applied to them for multiple positions and heard bupkis. It may well be that certain sectors in certain markets have these issues. I do not see it as widespread. What I do see as widespread are broken recruiting and sourcing practices, HR departments that work at cross purposes to the other departments they support, and a general desire to hit all the points on a wish list, no matter how long it takes.
- scient 10y ago
  Not to offend you or anything, but have you considered that the problem of your potential (better) employment is you. I see a lot of people claiming that the H1B program is bad and that there are tons of developers available in the US etc. But my experience is the polar opposite. And to make things clear - I am actually a H1B holder, working as a CTO for a US based company, been here for 3 years now. When looking for people for our engineering team, we get lots of resumes but very few actually promising ones. Out of the promising ones, almost none are actual people with tangible experience that could be hired as a senior person. If there is someone who could be senior, they ask for like 200k and up a year - and this is just to be a senior engineer, not even in a managerial position or anything (P.S and this is the NOVA area, not the bay area). So yeah, I would say good people are always in high demand, and the lack of good engineers right now is troubling. Then again most of the H1B visas get abused by companies who hire second rate talent from abroad so...
lgleason 10y ago
AT&T has a reputation of paying lower wages than other employers in Atlanta. So for them outsourcing is all about cheaper labor so that you have more money for those MBA's and directors.

dominotw 10y ago

> Recruiters have made the job market liquid enough that businesses can't meet their objectives with the coders they hired. Curious what you mean by this?

ta_donk_gt 10y ago
It implies that it's too easy to get another job, and that we should do something to make it more difficult to leave a job, so that companies can focus on output rather than hiring.
- vinceguidry 10y ago
  My proposed solution is allowing devs to immigrate; making the hiring market less liquid would be counter-productive.

dxxvi 10y ago

"She has a friend who nominally is an architect, but is instead doing the work of a frontline dev": if I had power, I'd let any architect who refuses to do the work of a frontline dev go in 1 sec. If you design some thing but don't build it, how can you be sure that your design is correct and good? And there are not enough new things for you to design all days/months/years.

j_jochem 10y ago
Architects plan buildings. I wouldn't hire one to work on my software systems.
- vinceguidry 10y ago
  Architect is the title bestowed on a large outfit's best developers. They're supposed to spend their time working on high-level concerns, not implementing features or fixing bugs.
vinceguidry 10y ago
He doesn't refuse to do it. But he's not working on frontline stuff out of any noble desire to dogfood or whatever, he's doing it because they're short-staffed.

samfisher83 10y ago

It seems like all the high paying companies are going after the same set of developer. Those guys who have passed the all day whiteboard interview or work at google/facebook etc. If you you look at H1B data the salaries in markets other than NY, SF are not high.

vinceguidry 10y ago
The astronomically-high salary companies can still hire whoever they want. But programmer salaries in not-so-hot markets are still high, they're just not straight-out-of-college-six-figures high, they're high as in better than any other career field you can find jobs for in that area. No dev anymore says "I could be making more money as a bartender," that is, they wouldn't if they knew how hard to get those top-paying bartending gigs are to get. I live in Atlanta and I wouldn't dream of doing anything else right now.
- samfisher83 10y ago
  According to glassdoor the average software engineer in Atlanta, GA makes 72,693. That isn't that great. Maye better than a bartender. There might be some bias in what you make make, but on average people aren't making that much.
  - vinceguidry 10y ago
    I don't know what world you live in but $72K is an excellent salary. People raise families on less.

vonmoltke 10y ago

I read sentiments like yours frequently. It does not match my experience. Many of the companies I have talked to have fairly large lists of requirements for positions and are serious about requiring them. They get really picky about specific languages, frameworks, and experiences. As I mentioned in another discussion here recently, there are tens of thousands of programming jobs controlled by companies who do not see a programmer shortage from their perspective. When discussions on hiring methods come up, multiple people inevitably chime in that the companies in question are dealing with situations where they have more qualified applicants than slots. That is in direct conflict with what you said above. I would love to be able to jump jobs for 30% pay raises. I can't. I started my career at $55,770. I'm up to $92,500 14 years later, which is only a 66% bump for my entire career. Even if we consider me underpaid for my area (Hi! I'm looking in Dallas!) I would likely only be looking at a 100% total career bump if I got that situation addressed. There are companies out there who refuse to give you more than X% above your current salary, regardless of how underpaid you are. It's funny that you should mention AT&T, what with them being headquartered here and all. I see them as one of the companies I was referring to in my second paragraph. I have personally applied to them for multiple positions and heard bupkis. It may well be that certain sectors in certain markets have these issues. I do not see it as widespread. What I do see as widespread are broken recruiting and sourcing practices, HR departments that work at cross purposes to the other departments they support, and a general desire to hit all the points on a wish list, no matter how long it takes.

scient 10y ago
Not to offend you or anything, but have you considered that the problem of your potential (better) employment is you. I see a lot of people claiming that the H1B program is bad and that there are tons of developers available in the US etc. But my experience is the polar opposite. And to make things clear - I am actually a H1B holder, working as a CTO for a US based company, been here for 3 years now. When looking for people for our engineering team, we get lots of resumes but very few actually promising ones. Out of the promising ones, almost none are actual people with tangible experience that could be hired as a senior person. If there is someone who could be senior, they ask for like 200k and up a year - and this is just to be a senior engineer, not even in a managerial position or anything (P.S and this is the NOVA area, not the bay area). So yeah, I would say good people are always in high demand, and the lack of good engineers right now is troubling. Then again most of the H1B visas get abused by companies who hire second rate talent from abroad so...

lgleason 10y ago

AT&T has a reputation of paying lower wages than other employers in Atlanta. So for them outsourcing is all about cheaper labor so that you have more money for those MBA's and directors.