4 ms·

Can you explain?

sanswork 9y ago
It's really hard to find intermediate to senior devs in Australia and has been for nearly a decade. It's even harder now with a few big companies like Atlassian grabbing them up enmasse whenever they become available.
- cynix 9y ago
  Sounds like they're simply expensive to hire, not necessarily hard to find.
  - sanswork 9y ago
    Say you need a senior developer and there are none on the market so you offer mine a 10% increase and free chocolate bars to come work for you. You now have a senior developer and I'm now in need of one but there are none of the market. When you suggest someone pay developers more to hire them away from the competition you aren't solving the problem you are just moving it to another company.
    - empressplay 9y ago
      Wages go up, people flood into the field -- I'm not sure what the problem is there? Don't we collectively want software development to become more financially attractive so that more students choose to study it?
      - sanswork 9y ago
        You seem to fail to understand the difference between a junior and an intermediate to senior dev and think they are interchangeable. A bunch of new people flooding into the field are zero use to companies that need higher level employees to grow. And will be zero use for a number of years. I get planning for the future is good but it doesn't solve the current problem at all.
        brokenmachine 9y ago
        The current problem is that companies are unwilling to pay what they need to to get what they want. I understand your point about there not being enough senior devs locally, but I'm still iffy about that being true. I would accept that argument if the wages had doubled in the past few years or so, but that hasn't happened. The companies aren't trying hard enough.
        sanswork 9y ago
        So I'm guessing you have found your attempts to hire senior devs in Australia to be easy?
        brokenmachine 9y ago
        I'm not a hirer but a lowly employee. See my recent edit. I keep an eye on the market and I haven't seen any crazy wage increases. I'm not against being convinced of the point but atm I'm just not convinced that there's no senior devs to find, at the right price. Also, how long have these visas been going on for? It's kind of a chicken-and-egg problem I guess. Because of the band-aid fix of the visas, the wages never go up and there's no extra incentive for people to become devs. edit: I can't reply any more, I guess because it's become too deep. You say I don't know the problem, but I am actually intermediate-level IT, and atm I have little incentive to move up because the wages are not commensurate with the extra responsibilities in my opinion. So I feel I do have some knowledge of the problem at least anecdotally, as I would personally be applying for those positions if I felt I would be fairly paid for the extra stress/time/responsibility.
        sanswork 9y ago
        I've explained elsewhere why raising wages doesn't solve the problem. You are convinced there is no problem when you admittedly have no experience with the issue. You're also expecting to see changes that wouldn't fix the problem because of your lack of experience with The problem.
    - brokenmachine 9y ago
      I thought the whole premise of capitalism is that jobs will be paid what they are worth according to supply and demand. If the wages go up because there is more demand (or it's a job that people are unwilling to do), you will be amazed how quickly more devs will appear. Putting the band aid of cheap workers from overseas will not fix the problem either.
      - sanswork 9y ago
        I've answered this elsewhere in these comments.
- technion 9y ago
  I've had quite a few friends pack up and move to the US, frustrated that it seemed to be the only option for growing their development work. I guess this all depends where your perspective sits.
  - sanswork 9y ago
    The two aren't mutually exclusive. A lot of the top talent will go to the states because there are more opportunities for them there further draining the pool in Australia. The companies that choose to remain in Australia then are handicapped by an inability to find good talent and either limit growth or move overseas. The later ones make the above developers choice even easier since there are now even more jobs over there.
    - technion 9y ago
      Very good point.
- pasquinelli 9y ago
  An inability to find intermediate and senior australian devs -- (but apparently not entry level) -- sounds like a failure of tech employers to grow talent. Shipping people in from overseas works around that problem, and so the problem goes unfixed. If the industry got that problem fixed, they could drive down labor costs for all intermediate and senior devs, not just foreign ones.
  - sanswork 9y ago
    >sounds like a failure of tech employers to grow talent I see this a lot but people making this argument never seem to consider the fact that demand can increase substantially in a field over a very small amount of time. You blame it on companies not training talent but haven't even considered that the numbers just aren't there. Again costs aren't an issue so driving down costs is at best a tertiary goal.
  - hackits 9y ago
    Btw I'm one of those intermediate and senior australian devs. Looking at changing jobs if you're interested.
- empressplay 9y ago
  Now it becomes the responsibility of the industry to encourage students to study computer science in uni...
  - sanswork 9y ago
    And those students might be helpful for these roles in a decade. So do you expect these companies to survive just cooling their heels until then?
    - empressplay 9y ago
      That's a bit of a gotcha argument. Besides, it's my experience there are plenty of senior devs to go around.
      - sanswork 9y ago
        Your experience is apparently going to a meet up to help a friend find a job. I'm not sure your experience is reality.
    - hiram112 9y ago
      Too bad for these companies. They gamed with basic supply and demand. Lot of industries which don't abuse foreign labor as much have a steady pipeline of candidates because these grads saw your company - shitty wages, awful working conditions, no future - and bailed the fuck out and into a other career path. Now these companies, dependent on cheap visa labor, may have to pay back some of the fat cash they've gained by screwing their own nations' workforce for the last two decades.
      - sanswork 9y ago
        Tech doesn't need a steady pipeline there has been a huge increase in demand. Where after you looking with shitty wages and awful working conditions? And what other career paths do you think these people bailed out into that have better pay?
- weeksie 9y ago
  To be fair, anecdotally at least, a ton of seniors/intermediates just migrate elsewhere. The pay for dev work in the US is _WAY_ higher than in Oz, especially at that level. Though, I've been away for almost ten years so maybe that has changed.
catmanjan 9y ago
As sanswork said, easy to get new devs, but as soon as they've put in a few years it's very easy to go out on your own or go overseas.
- hiram112 9y ago
  So what? You'll have to compete? You've gotten so used to your cheap labor, indentured workforce,that you can't even contemplate employees participating in a free market?
  - sanswork 9y ago
    There are 10 people working that can do the job there industry needs 15. How do you get the extra 5 just by increasing salaries?
  - catmanjan 9y ago
    That's globalization I guess, an extreme example is: would you blame a nation in poverty struggling for existence in the modern world for not attracting good techos? As for contractors, all's fair in the free market except when contracting to government who are blind to /real/ value due to a range of bureaucratic reasons.

Can you explain?

It's really hard to find intermediate to senior devs in Australia and has been for nearly a decade. It's even harder now with a few big companies like Atlassian grabbing them up enmasse whenever they become available.

cynix 9y ago
Sounds like they're simply expensive to hire, not necessarily hard to find.
- sanswork 9y ago
  Say you need a senior developer and there are none on the market so you offer mine a 10% increase and free chocolate bars to come work for you. You now have a senior developer and I'm now in need of one but there are none of the market. When you suggest someone pay developers more to hire them away from the competition you aren't solving the problem you are just moving it to another company.
  - empressplay 9y ago
    Wages go up, people flood into the field -- I'm not sure what the problem is there? Don't we collectively want software development to become more financially attractive so that more students choose to study it?
    - sanswork 9y ago
      You seem to fail to understand the difference between a junior and an intermediate to senior dev and think they are interchangeable. A bunch of new people flooding into the field are zero use to companies that need higher level employees to grow. And will be zero use for a number of years. I get planning for the future is good but it doesn't solve the current problem at all.
      - brokenmachine 9y ago
        The current problem is that companies are unwilling to pay what they need to to get what they want. I understand your point about there not being enough senior devs locally, but I'm still iffy about that being true. I would accept that argument if the wages had doubled in the past few years or so, but that hasn't happened. The companies aren't trying hard enough.
        sanswork 9y ago
        So I'm guessing you have found your attempts to hire senior devs in Australia to be easy?
        brokenmachine 9y ago
        I'm not a hirer but a lowly employee. See my recent edit. I keep an eye on the market and I haven't seen any crazy wage increases. I'm not against being convinced of the point but atm I'm just not convinced that there's no senior devs to find, at the right price. Also, how long have these visas been going on for? It's kind of a chicken-and-egg problem I guess. Because of the band-aid fix of the visas, the wages never go up and there's no extra incentive for people to become devs. edit: I can't reply any more, I guess because it's become too deep. You say I don't know the problem, but I am actually intermediate-level IT, and atm I have little incentive to move up because the wages are not commensurate with the extra responsibilities in my opinion. So I feel I do have some knowledge of the problem at least anecdotally, as I would personally be applying for those positions if I felt I would be fairly paid for the extra stress/time/responsibility.
        sanswork 9y ago
        I've explained elsewhere why raising wages doesn't solve the problem. You are convinced there is no problem when you admittedly have no experience with the issue. You're also expecting to see changes that wouldn't fix the problem because of your lack of experience with The problem.
  - brokenmachine 9y ago
    I thought the whole premise of capitalism is that jobs will be paid what they are worth according to supply and demand. If the wages go up because there is more demand (or it's a job that people are unwilling to do), you will be amazed how quickly more devs will appear. Putting the band aid of cheap workers from overseas will not fix the problem either.
    - sanswork 9y ago
      I've answered this elsewhere in these comments.
technion 9y ago
I've had quite a few friends pack up and move to the US, frustrated that it seemed to be the only option for growing their development work. I guess this all depends where your perspective sits.
- sanswork 9y ago
  The two aren't mutually exclusive. A lot of the top talent will go to the states because there are more opportunities for them there further draining the pool in Australia. The companies that choose to remain in Australia then are handicapped by an inability to find good talent and either limit growth or move overseas. The later ones make the above developers choice even easier since there are now even more jobs over there.
  - technion 9y ago
    Very good point.
pasquinelli 9y ago
An inability to find intermediate and senior australian devs -- (but apparently not entry level) -- sounds like a failure of tech employers to grow talent. Shipping people in from overseas works around that problem, and so the problem goes unfixed. If the industry got that problem fixed, they could drive down labor costs for all intermediate and senior devs, not just foreign ones.
- sanswork 9y ago
  >sounds like a failure of tech employers to grow talent I see this a lot but people making this argument never seem to consider the fact that demand can increase substantially in a field over a very small amount of time. You blame it on companies not training talent but haven't even considered that the numbers just aren't there. Again costs aren't an issue so driving down costs is at best a tertiary goal.
- hackits 9y ago
  Btw I'm one of those intermediate and senior australian devs. Looking at changing jobs if you're interested.
empressplay 9y ago
Now it becomes the responsibility of the industry to encourage students to study computer science in uni...
- sanswork 9y ago
  And those students might be helpful for these roles in a decade. So do you expect these companies to survive just cooling their heels until then?
  - empressplay 9y ago
    That's a bit of a gotcha argument. Besides, it's my experience there are plenty of senior devs to go around.
    - sanswork 9y ago
      Your experience is apparently going to a meet up to help a friend find a job. I'm not sure your experience is reality.
  - hiram112 9y ago
    Too bad for these companies. They gamed with basic supply and demand. Lot of industries which don't abuse foreign labor as much have a steady pipeline of candidates because these grads saw your company - shitty wages, awful working conditions, no future - and bailed the fuck out and into a other career path. Now these companies, dependent on cheap visa labor, may have to pay back some of the fat cash they've gained by screwing their own nations' workforce for the last two decades.
    - sanswork 9y ago
      Tech doesn't need a steady pipeline there has been a huge increase in demand. Where after you looking with shitty wages and awful working conditions? And what other career paths do you think these people bailed out into that have better pay?
weeksie 9y ago
To be fair, anecdotally at least, a ton of seniors/intermediates just migrate elsewhere. The pay for dev work in the US is _WAY_ higher than in Oz, especially at that level. Though, I've been away for almost ten years so maybe that has changed.

catmanjan 9y ago

As sanswork said, easy to get new devs, but as soon as they've put in a few years it's very easy to go out on your own or go overseas.

hiram112 9y ago
So what? You'll have to compete? You've gotten so used to your cheap labor, indentured workforce,that you can't even contemplate employees participating in a free market?
- sanswork 9y ago
  There are 10 people working that can do the job there industry needs 15. How do you get the extra 5 just by increasing salaries?
- catmanjan 9y ago
  That's globalization I guess, an extreme example is: would you blame a nation in poverty struggling for existence in the modern world for not attracting good techos? As for contractors, all's fair in the free market except when contracting to government who are blind to /real/ value due to a range of bureaucratic reasons.