5 ms·

Sounds like they're simply expensive to hire, not necessarily hard to find.

by cynix 10y ago

sanswork 10y 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 10y 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 10y 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 10y 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 10y ago
        So I'm guessing you have found your attempts to hire senior devs in Australia to be easy?
        brokenmachine 10y 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 10y 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.
        hiram112 10y ago
        What you don't seem to understand is that the visa system destroys the whole concept of supply and demand. If your business can't hire workers, you will have to raise salaries. If you can't afford the higher salaries, you don't have a viable business (at least, without the use of wage arbitrage and indentured servants). The extra supply of labor will come into the market as soon as they're receiving signals that wages are rising, working conditions good, etc. Until then, it seems like a waste of time: why study really difficult software when you will be competing with folks willing to work much more cheaply. You might have to wait a bit for this pipeline to fix itself since you purposefully broke it this past decade by using visas to game the system.
- brokenmachine 10y 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 10y ago
    I've answered this elsewhere in these comments.

Sounds like they're simply expensive to hire, not necessarily hard to find.

by cynix 10y ago

Sounds like they're simply expensive to hire, not necessarily hard to find.

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 10y 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 10y 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 10y 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 10y ago
      So I'm guessing you have found your attempts to hire senior devs in Australia to be easy?
      - brokenmachine 10y 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 10y 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.
        hiram112 10y ago
        What you don't seem to understand is that the visa system destroys the whole concept of supply and demand. If your business can't hire workers, you will have to raise salaries. If you can't afford the higher salaries, you don't have a viable business (at least, without the use of wage arbitrage and indentured servants). The extra supply of labor will come into the market as soon as they're receiving signals that wages are rising, working conditions good, etc. Until then, it seems like a waste of time: why study really difficult software when you will be competing with folks willing to work much more cheaply. You might have to wait a bit for this pipeline to fix itself since you purposefully broke it this past decade by using visas to game the system.
brokenmachine 10y 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 10y ago
  I've answered this elsewhere in these comments.