15 ms·

Companies worry more about access to software developers than capital

193 points by ScottWRobinson 8y ago

rightbyte 8y ago
Strange. "A majority of companies say lack of access to software developers is a bigger threat to success than lack of access to capital." Capital gives access to software developers but software developers don't necessarily give access to capital. Mr. Will Gaybrick doesn't seem to get his causality right. "Tech's ultimate success: Software developers are now more valuable to companies than money" That's just stupid. "2. Outsource. Fully embrace the cloud. Not just for storage and compute but for every business function that's not unique to your business" Custom tooling is one of the most valuable part of having in-house programmers. It's interesting to read the thoughts of these suits. It explains so much of my everyday troubles at work.
- aerotwelve 8y ago
  I agree, I thought the piece was very odd. "If you're considering buy vs. build, the answer is simple: buy." If you're not going to write or implement anything more advanced than "glue these two off-the-shelf systems we bought a year ago together", why are you so concerned about access to software developers?
  - jihoon796 8y ago
    There's a few reasons why: many businesses are in geographic locations where there's not as much software presence, they don't know how to hire correctly, and they don't want to swallow the bitter pill of "software developers cost significantly more than minimum-wage employees". I've worked with a company where developers were hired to "glue these two off-the-shelf systems we bought a year ago together", but the implementation was laughably poor. From talking to this specific company's executives, I found that they were confused as to why things were always behind or why they were running into so many bugs. They told me that they were having difficulty accessing software engineers and that there was a market shortage. What they didn't tell me was that their current "software developers" were ex-military operations folks with no actual dev experience, and that they posted on Indeed/LinkedIn but wanted local talent (in NC, not the Bay Area) and only offered $50k/yr salary with no real benefits. Wanting only local talent (instead of remote) already reduced their available developer pool by 99%, and the terrible salary put the nail in the coffin. But to company executives, all of this only proved that they lacked access to software developers.
    - village-idiot 8y ago
      Most of the time when business executives talk about “lack of available talent”, they usually mean “lack of talent at the price I’m willing to pay”. Everyone’s a free market enthusiast until the market says they have to pay more, it turns out.
      - kasey_junk 8y ago
        At current prices it’s entirely possible that some software businesses are not viable. Saying that out loud (or even admitting it to yourself) is not a great look. Further, the software industry is such that failures are more common to successes when it comes to software projects. I suspect if that ratio got better or predictability did, we’d see wages rise even more (at least for those predictably successful devs). As it stands you can throw all of the money at the software hiring problem and still be making a terrible gamble on whether you’ll get software out of it.
        village-idiot 8y ago
        The first point is possible, but given an era of super low taxes and massive stock buybacks, I doubt that many of these places can't afford developers, I bet they just would prefer to use that money elsewhere. I think your latter point is much closer to the mark.
      - Thrway0700 8y ago
        Funny thing is I am trying to get some people from market where they don't make a lot of money and trying to pay 1.5 to 2x what they can get. Still getting people to work is a hassle. I also have no need for ninja/rockstars. It might be that they have comfy jobs already and are afraid of change... Free market is not just about money it still is complicated mixture. So just calling executives greedy is not catch all truth. Maybe I should try to pay 3x more, but business is not there for 3x average salaries for that area.
        village-idiot 8y ago
- village-idiot 8y ago
  Developers are a limited resource, at least for short enough time scales, while capital isn’t. Especially with interest and taxes so low.
- espeed 8y ago
  Strange. The reason this article seems off is because it's trying to capitalize on an earlier article by Nick Bilton, but this attempt at adaptation is missing the essence and mangles the point. The idea this article is trying to convey is better presented here: We're F--ked: There is only One Antidote to Silicon Valley's Ills... Their Engineers https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/08/there-is-only-one-antidote-to-silicon-valleys-ills-their-engineers https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/08/there-is-only-one-an...
jihoon796 8y ago
If what the article says is true, it's great that executives are starting to understand the opportunity cost of technical debt. Too many companies see software development as a menial "cost center" while hypocritically relying on it on a fundamental level for operations. While I see where they're coming from - the ROI from software developers can be rather opaque for many industries - these companies are often hellbent on hiring as cheaply as possible (in-house junior developers with no experience) and cutting as many corners as they can get away with, all the while accruing massive amounts of technical debt.
- dunpeal 8y ago
  > If what the article says is true, it's great that executives are starting to understand the opportunity cost of technical debt. Nothing in the article implies tat "executives" (or anyone) has gained a better understanding of the cost of technical debt. This is the main paragraph talking about technical debt: > And yet, despite being many corporations' most precious resource, developer talents are all too often squandered. Collectively, companies today lose upward of $300 billion a year paying down "technical debt," as developers pour time into maintaining legacy systems or dealing with the ramifications of bad software. So the article author says that despite the skyrocketing value of developers, companies generally waste this scarce resource on technical debt and related mismanagement inefficiencies.
kaycebasques 8y ago
I saw this headline earlier. My immediate thought was that this doesn’t necessarily mean that companies understand the importance of developers. It’s just that developers are currently more scarce than capital. Which isn’t saying much, because companies have been able to get loans with low interest for many years now, thanks to our central banks.
village-idiot 8y ago
I mean, all those companies buying back stock could just re-issue it if they need more capital. Creating developers is a significantly slower process.
hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
If this is actually true, it is easily provable: if companies have more access to capital than developers, then they should pay more to hire better developers, and you should see developer salaries rise. If this does not happen, it just means they are bullshitting: they can't get developers at the current price they are willing to pay.
- baxtr 8y ago
  That’s what the good ones are doing. For the rest it should probably read like: ”Companies worry more about access to cheap software developers than cheap capital” (because it's already cheap right now)
- MichaelApproved 8y ago
  That's not necessarily how the reasoning has to work. It's possible companies have access to capital based on current profitability. If they raise employment costs, their profitability changes and their capital access can change as well. It sounds like capital markets are saying, we like this cost structure. Continue it and take more money. Companies are responding saying we can't scale because developers at current costs are rare. They will need to increase costs to hire more.
  - dunpeal 8y ago
    > It sounds like capital markets are saying, we like this cost structure. Continue it and take more money. The capital markets care about the bottom line, not about internal cost structure. So for example, a company with 100 devs and 1 CEO looks exactly the same to "capital markets" if the CEO makes $105m and each dev makes $100k, or if the CEO makes $5m and each dev makes $1.1m. There's quite a large room to change the current cost structure without eating into the margins. Beyond that, those margins at tech companies tend to be quite wide, giving even more room for flexibility.
    - sandworm101 8y ago
      True for the market, but markets dont actually give you the money. An investor (or rep) signs the check. When they show up they do indeed look at the structure and decide if they are happy or not with the pay structure.
sokoloff 8y ago
The world is awash in usable money. The world is not awash in usable software engineers.
Oras 8y ago
As some stated in comments, it depends on many factors but mainly some companies mainly startups with good funding starting offering higher than market rate salaries which attract talent not just for money but also for the opportunity to make an impact and definitely fewer legacy systems comparing to well-established companies.
- rco8786 8y ago
  That was an incredible run on sentence.
jt2190 8y ago
There was a discussion about the Stripe report itself a few days ago: https://stripe.com/reports/developer-coefficient-2018 https://stripe.com/reports/developer-coefficient-2018
- AdamM12 8y ago
  OP's post and this seem to be telling executives to avoid fixing technical debt. Am I the only one who's reading it that way? Having worked at a company that completely eschewed even fixing basic formatting of legacy code for ten+ years I've seen how this mindset can completely hinder the development process.
HillaryBriss 8y ago
> Unless you're Amazon or Microsoft, you shouldn't be deploying engineers to build data centers. i wonder if the author has heard of Google > Including software developers directly in strategic business decisions will ensure you have the right product road map, the right team and ultimately the right technology strategy for long-term success I would agree that including software developers is necessary -- but is it sufficient? The business and technology landscape are always changing in unpredictable ways. I question whether this can ensure "long-term success"
_m96l 8y ago
Curious how articles like these almost never give the most obvious advice to businesses, which is: pay developers more. Instead, this article for instance advises employers to "increase developer productivity" and "outsource": > If developers are your company's most constraining resource, the key question is how to increase their productivity. "Increasing productivity" typically puts pressure on developers. This is quite surprising: developers are seen as a scarce valuable resource, and in a free market that means they should be rewarded for their rare and hard-won skillset. Instead, the universal advice is to pressure them to be more productive, outsource them, etc.
- cortesoft 8y ago
  That would work for a single company, but not necessarily the market as a whole... paying developers more wont suddenly add a bunch of skilled developers into the market.
  - dunpeal 8y ago
    Won't it? There's a whole bunch of smart people right now who won't go into tech because they can make more elsewhere. Another example is senior engineers who retire because their investment portfolio is large enough, and they don't feel like working hard for another year just to make another $150k. If it was $400k, they might stay. These are the engineers who are the most scarce and at the greatest demand right now. Another example is turnover. Engineers currently have to job hop every couple of years to get a decent raise. That leads to more waste of engineer time and effort than any single management improvement that can possibly be implemented. These are just 3 examples off the top of my head. In every other field, it is obvious that more pay == more and better candidates. Yet somehow engineers are the single exception? Against any sensible market theory?
    - castlecrasher2 8y ago
      >There's a whole bunch of smart people right now who won't go into tech because they can make more elsewhere. Is this true? I've only ever heard the opposite.
closeparen 8y ago
Developers as a community are currently screaming about a number of things companies can do to steal us away, even for less money: - Go full remote - Locate offices in reasonable COL US markets (my company has overwhelmingly rejected this one and skipped from NY/SF/Seattle to the developing world). - Provide private offices, cubes, team rooms... any kind of workspace other than the in-vogue open floorplan barn. Companies are not in their wildest dreams going to touch any of those things with a 10-foot pole at scale. Do they not know? Do they think we're lying? Or would they just rather complain than actually solve the problem?
- castlecrasher2 8y ago
  If there weren't bodies to fill spaces left by us who want those things they'd change. Fact is there are still plenty of people who live near family in cities or have other reasons to stay that are barely within their cost of living/budget.
- dunpeal 8y ago
  > Do they not know? Do they think we're lying? Or would they just rather complain than actually solve the problem? Companies typically complain about "lack of talent" so the government will let them import more low-paid developers from abroad. There is ample proof that the tech industry fails to tap into many existing talent pools. For example, SV couldn't afford to be openly ageist if talent shortage was really its top concern. You are right that if companies were really so desperate for talent, you'd see a lot more willingness to compensate developers in various ways.
  - TomMckenny 8y ago
    And software isn't the first industry, this same process happened to biotech "successfully" driving down wages to an absurd degree. Much of agism is actuulay moeny related too. While allot comes from the belief that "young people are just smarter" (as opposed to whites or men as was the "common sense" in the past). Much of the discrimination is because it is assumed that after a few years, technologists actually know how much they're worth while the fresh college graduate etc is awestruck by a wage that is barely over bay-area poverty line: There's an assumption you can't get a bargain hiring the over 35 set.
pleasecalllater 8y ago
I'm afraid I don't agree. I'm more worrying about my job than the companies about anything. If lose it, I will spend months for finding a new one. I will send emails with no response. I will be offered to spend enormous time for multilevel recruitment process, just to be rejected at the end. I will spend hours making shitty take-home tasks, just to be rejected. Some companies even don't check them when I upload it on a server. I will be asked terribly complicated white-board questions about forgotten algorithms used in no place. All that just to be offered a job about coding ETLs or adding some Javascript to a website. All just to get a simple job. It doesn't look like companies are afraid. It rather looks like companies have endless stream of candidates and want to crawl them first, so they could not hire them later. My last job hunt: 55 resumes sent (I was a perfect fit for 15 positions, not 100% for the rest). 10 companies responded. 5 were interested only about the salary, 4 of them didn't respond, 1 responded with "you wanted too much, we are not negotiating salaries". 2 terribly complicated take-home things (one company didn't event check it before rejecting me). Just 1 job offer, I took it, as I didn't get any other option after 3 months of searching. It was 2 years ago. I'm looking for a job again... I've sent 20 resumes. Got no answer. All 55 companies were posting the same job ads for the next months. About 5 of them are doing all the time, and the web is full of opinions how great the companies are. So generally I feel like I'm rather useless than needed for the companies. Writing anonymously here is cool :)
- commandlinefan 8y ago
  Yeah, I keep reading about the software developer shortage “crisis”, but nothing about the real world seems to reflect it. There’s a shortage of the top 1% of software developers (“top” being defined by where you went to college and where else you’ve worked, not actual programming ability) - but that’s it.
  - homonculus1 8y ago
    I think I might just try to get into a different field. I'm a "recent" grad yet to get my foot in the door, and I'm pretty sure I'm capable of programming... just not of navigating the absurd requirements at every corner and apparent dearth of entry-level openings. Maybe I'm just underqualified and not that good at all, maybe I'm doing something wrong in my search or I need to move to the valley or something. But thus far all my applications have been a complete waste of time and it seems foolish to continue down this path.
exabrial 8y ago
One could establish development offices in places with low taxes compared to California, Seattle, or NYC, saving them significant amounts of $ to avoid salary bloat. Why no one is negotiating on the sorts of deals with city planners surprises me.
jorblumesea 8y ago
Companies that complain about lack of talent are generally the ones that refuse to pay competitive salaries. These are also the same ones that want the government to increase visa limitations and import cheaper engineers from overseas. If there was a true talent shortage you'd see increases in salaries and other methods of compensation.
- friedman23 8y ago
  To be fair, competitive salaries are almost absurdly high nowadays.
  - jorblumesea 8y ago
    Competitive salaries are just that, competitive. There's no concept of "too high" or "too low", just what the market accepts and will pay for. Companies love the free market when it benefits them and hate it when it benefits skilled workers.
    - friedman23 8y ago
      >There's no concept of "too high" or "too low" Did I say so? I'm not saying it's too high. I'm saying it's absurdly high. If I was saying it was too high I would be arguing that it should be lowered which I obviously would not want.
      - ncallaway 8y ago
        I think most people would interpret "too high" and "absurdly high" to mean reasonably close to the same thing. That's probably why you're getting downvotes.
        friedman23 8y ago
        I mean, I don't think my statement is in any way inaccurate. It's kind of absurd that you can get a job that pays $200k+ total compensation your first year out of college with only a bachelors degree. Some people within the field don't even believe it's possible.
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teddyh 8y ago
As is common, Joel said it all back in 2000: Whaddaya Mean, You Can't Find Programmers? https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/06/15/whaddaya-mean-you-cant-find-programmers/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/06/15/whaddaya-mean-you-... (Repost from five years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6454140#6455545 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6454140#6455545)
- stevenwoo 8y ago
  I went through a few interviews earlier this year and no one met the standards for environment Joel listed almost 20 years ago. Unless one works from home, that requirement listed is pretty much a lost cause AFAIK.
salawat 8y ago
Not surprising. Software developers are one of the ultimate forms of throughput multipliers. Get the pixies in the box dancing right, and BOOM! Personnel load decreased! In a world being driven toward hyperoptimization as fast as she'll go, your developer is your growth source. If only you could get them to do what you want... Which is why they like pulling developers from countries where the cultural norm is to shut up and do what you're told as I understand it. It's also part of the bias towards preferring younger devs. Younger devs tend to be more pliable and "flexible" and don't ask inconvenient questions in emails that can be subpoena'd later. Always ask questions. YOU have to be the conscience of the industry, if you don"t, no one else will. And even if they do have "another guy" lined up. Be vocal. Make sure your view can't be buried. If it smells, ASK and DIG. Someone very well may not be telling you something.
mlinksva 8y ago
Story is a writeup of https://stripe.com/reports/developer-coefficient-2018 https://stripe.com/reports/developer-coefficient-2018 discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17928067 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17928067 There's actually very little difference in the surveyed % saying https://stripe.com/files/reports/the-developer-coefficient.pdf#page=3 https://stripe.com/files/reports/the-developer-coefficient.p... access to talent (55%), software engineers (53%), and capital (52%). Note immigration requirements (47%) is lowest of the constraints on company growth asked about. I'd say the headline is questionable at best.
spenrose 8y ago
Developers and capital are partial substitutes for each other: https://twitter.com/indy_johar/status/662678550911303680 https://twitter.com/indy_johar/status/662678550911303680
torgian 8y ago
I currently make about 24k a year as a part time engineer (which should go up to around 40k if I go full time for this company). I stay because of other benefits (good health care in Japan, remote work with bimonthly meetings, and most importantly I am doing good work with data that helps people in some way). I honestly don’t think high pay is out there for what I want from a company. This one I work in checks all the boxes, for me. But if I pursue more money, I’d probably be stuck working in some crappy conpany where I’m a number.
- artsyxxx 8y ago
  You said it torgian; I'm looking for a company with Emotional Agility operating according to The Startup Way where people treat each other humanely and perks don't masquerade as strategy. I'd care to know more about your job in Japan if you would be willing to share
  - mooreds 8y ago
    We should chat. Or you should check out weworkremotely.com. These companies do exist.
- dunpeal 8y ago
  > But if I pursue more money, I’d probably be stuck working in some crappy conpany where I’m a number. Why the false dichotomy? You might be able to find an employer who will pay you better and satisfy you in other ways too. Stranger things have happened...
panic 8y ago
If the premise of this article is true, we're doing a terrible job organizing ourselves. Individual offices, remote work, ownership of things we make in our free time -- we could have all of this if we used our power effectively.
- cheez 8y ago
  Yes, software engineers are terrible negotiators.
  - dwd 8y ago
    Software engineers allowed themselves to be categorised as a cost centre rather than a revenue generating asset. Costs are to be minimised while those preceived as adding value like sales, marketing, c-level execs get paid accordingly. In industries that are unionised, collective action gives you the leverage and backup to say enough - but we don't even have an industry body that requires membership like the IEEE or AMA.
- KyeRussell 8y ago
  "No, I'm fine, we get $100 Target ping pong tables. I was taught that that's what cool kids want"
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fogetti 8y ago
As a software engineer with more than a decade of experience I have seen all kind of appalling "management" strategies in a variety of industries. And not so surprisingly the common denominator was that managers in every industry simply cultivate "speed over everything else" culture. Which directly translates into technical debt. I stopped counting how many "rockstar developers" I have seen rising in their shiny armors, outputting some crap extremely quickly just to see them sailing away with a friendly manager pat on their back, so that half year later a whole team would clean up the mess after them.
jondubois 8y ago
What usually happens though is that the wrong kind of developers get promoted. They get promoted based on their social skills and ability to sound smart instead of actual technical ability and actual intelligence.
expertentipp 8y ago
> Collectively, companies today lose upward of $300 billion a year paying down "technical debt," as developers pour time into maintaining legacy systems or dealing with the ramifications of bad software. As a person who had looked intensively for a job in Central Europe in the recent months I can confirm this. Plenty of awful software and stacks. Decade old monoliths in ASP .NET, Visual Basic, pyramidal monstrosities in JAVA, fucking COBOL transactional and registering systems. The only reason they „maintain” these projects is some legal obligation, once the obligation expires the project will be shut down and people will have to look for a job in the year 2020 having experience with Visual Basic. You will have „standups” with „American colleagues” at 7pm your time. It’s literally working on carcasses. Good portion of German and Swiss businesses pushing out their rotten carasses over here as well.

Strange. "A majority of companies say lack of access to software developers is a bigger threat to success than lack of access to capital." Capital gives access to software developers but software developers don't necessarily give access to capital. Mr. Will Gaybrick doesn't seem to get his causality right. "Tech's ultimate success: Software developers are now more valuable to companies than money" That's just stupid. "2. Outsource. Fully embrace the cloud. Not just for storage and compute but for every business function that's not unique to your business" Custom tooling is one of the most valuable part of having in-house programmers. It's interesting to read the thoughts of these suits. It explains so much of my everyday troubles at work.

aerotwelve 8y ago
I agree, I thought the piece was very odd. "If you're considering buy vs. build, the answer is simple: buy." If you're not going to write or implement anything more advanced than "glue these two off-the-shelf systems we bought a year ago together", why are you so concerned about access to software developers?
- jihoon796 8y ago
  There's a few reasons why: many businesses are in geographic locations where there's not as much software presence, they don't know how to hire correctly, and they don't want to swallow the bitter pill of "software developers cost significantly more than minimum-wage employees". I've worked with a company where developers were hired to "glue these two off-the-shelf systems we bought a year ago together", but the implementation was laughably poor. From talking to this specific company's executives, I found that they were confused as to why things were always behind or why they were running into so many bugs. They told me that they were having difficulty accessing software engineers and that there was a market shortage. What they didn't tell me was that their current "software developers" were ex-military operations folks with no actual dev experience, and that they posted on Indeed/LinkedIn but wanted local talent (in NC, not the Bay Area) and only offered $50k/yr salary with no real benefits. Wanting only local talent (instead of remote) already reduced their available developer pool by 99%, and the terrible salary put the nail in the coffin. But to company executives, all of this only proved that they lacked access to software developers.
  - village-idiot 8y ago
    Most of the time when business executives talk about “lack of available talent”, they usually mean “lack of talent at the price I’m willing to pay”. Everyone’s a free market enthusiast until the market says they have to pay more, it turns out.
    - kasey_junk 8y ago
      At current prices it’s entirely possible that some software businesses are not viable. Saying that out loud (or even admitting it to yourself) is not a great look. Further, the software industry is such that failures are more common to successes when it comes to software projects. I suspect if that ratio got better or predictability did, we’d see wages rise even more (at least for those predictably successful devs). As it stands you can throw all of the money at the software hiring problem and still be making a terrible gamble on whether you’ll get software out of it.
      - village-idiot 8y ago
        The first point is possible, but given an era of super low taxes and massive stock buybacks, I doubt that many of these places can't afford developers, I bet they just would prefer to use that money elsewhere. I think your latter point is much closer to the mark.
    - Thrway0700 8y ago
      Funny thing is I am trying to get some people from market where they don't make a lot of money and trying to pay 1.5 to 2x what they can get. Still getting people to work is a hassle. I also have no need for ninja/rockstars. It might be that they have comfy jobs already and are afraid of change... Free market is not just about money it still is complicated mixture. So just calling executives greedy is not catch all truth. Maybe I should try to pay 3x more, but business is not there for 3x average salaries for that area.
      - village-idiot 8y ago
village-idiot 8y ago
Developers are a limited resource, at least for short enough time scales, while capital isn’t. Especially with interest and taxes so low.
espeed 8y ago
Strange. The reason this article seems off is because it's trying to capitalize on an earlier article by Nick Bilton, but this attempt at adaptation is missing the essence and mangles the point. The idea this article is trying to convey is better presented here: We're F--ked: There is only One Antidote to Silicon Valley's Ills... Their Engineers https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/08/there-is-only-one-antidote-to-silicon-valleys-ills-their-engineers https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/08/there-is-only-one-an...

jihoon796 8y ago

If what the article says is true, it's great that executives are starting to understand the opportunity cost of technical debt. Too many companies see software development as a menial "cost center" while hypocritically relying on it on a fundamental level for operations. While I see where they're coming from - the ROI from software developers can be rather opaque for many industries - these companies are often hellbent on hiring as cheaply as possible (in-house junior developers with no experience) and cutting as many corners as they can get away with, all the while accruing massive amounts of technical debt.

dunpeal 8y ago
> If what the article says is true, it's great that executives are starting to understand the opportunity cost of technical debt. Nothing in the article implies tat "executives" (or anyone) has gained a better understanding of the cost of technical debt. This is the main paragraph talking about technical debt: > And yet, despite being many corporations' most precious resource, developer talents are all too often squandered. Collectively, companies today lose upward of $300 billion a year paying down "technical debt," as developers pour time into maintaining legacy systems or dealing with the ramifications of bad software. So the article author says that despite the skyrocketing value of developers, companies generally waste this scarce resource on technical debt and related mismanagement inefficiencies.

kaycebasques 8y ago

I saw this headline earlier. My immediate thought was that this doesn’t necessarily mean that companies understand the importance of developers. It’s just that developers are currently more scarce than capital. Which isn’t saying much, because companies have been able to get loans with low interest for many years now, thanks to our central banks.

village-idiot 8y ago

I mean, all those companies buying back stock could just re-issue it if they need more capital. Creating developers is a significantly slower process.

hn_throwaway_99 8y ago

If this is actually true, it is easily provable: if companies have more access to capital than developers, then they should pay more to hire better developers, and you should see developer salaries rise. If this does not happen, it just means they are bullshitting: they can't get developers at the current price they are willing to pay.

baxtr 8y ago
That’s what the good ones are doing. For the rest it should probably read like: ”Companies worry more about access to cheap software developers than cheap capital” (because it's already cheap right now)
MichaelApproved 8y ago
That's not necessarily how the reasoning has to work. It's possible companies have access to capital based on current profitability. If they raise employment costs, their profitability changes and their capital access can change as well. It sounds like capital markets are saying, we like this cost structure. Continue it and take more money. Companies are responding saying we can't scale because developers at current costs are rare. They will need to increase costs to hire more.
- dunpeal 8y ago
  > It sounds like capital markets are saying, we like this cost structure. Continue it and take more money. The capital markets care about the bottom line, not about internal cost structure. So for example, a company with 100 devs and 1 CEO looks exactly the same to "capital markets" if the CEO makes $105m and each dev makes $100k, or if the CEO makes $5m and each dev makes $1.1m. There's quite a large room to change the current cost structure without eating into the margins. Beyond that, those margins at tech companies tend to be quite wide, giving even more room for flexibility.
  - sandworm101 8y ago
    True for the market, but markets dont actually give you the money. An investor (or rep) signs the check. When they show up they do indeed look at the structure and decide if they are happy or not with the pay structure.

sokoloff 8y ago

The world is awash in usable money. The world is not awash in usable software engineers.

Oras 8y ago

As some stated in comments, it depends on many factors but mainly some companies mainly startups with good funding starting offering higher than market rate salaries which attract talent not just for money but also for the opportunity to make an impact and definitely fewer legacy systems comparing to well-established companies.

rco8786 8y ago
That was an incredible run on sentence.

jt2190 8y ago

There was a discussion about the Stripe report itself a few days ago: https://stripe.com/reports/developer-coefficient-2018 https://stripe.com/reports/developer-coefficient-2018

AdamM12 8y ago
OP's post and this seem to be telling executives to avoid fixing technical debt. Am I the only one who's reading it that way? Having worked at a company that completely eschewed even fixing basic formatting of legacy code for ten+ years I've seen how this mindset can completely hinder the development process.

HillaryBriss 8y ago

> Unless you're Amazon or Microsoft, you shouldn't be deploying engineers to build data centers. i wonder if the author has heard of Google > Including software developers directly in strategic business decisions will ensure you have the right product road map, the right team and ultimately the right technology strategy for long-term success I would agree that including software developers is necessary -- but is it sufficient? The business and technology landscape are always changing in unpredictable ways. I question whether this can ensure "long-term success"

_m96l 8y ago

Curious how articles like these almost never give the most obvious advice to businesses, which is: pay developers more. Instead, this article for instance advises employers to "increase developer productivity" and "outsource": > If developers are your company's most constraining resource, the key question is how to increase their productivity. "Increasing productivity" typically puts pressure on developers. This is quite surprising: developers are seen as a scarce valuable resource, and in a free market that means they should be rewarded for their rare and hard-won skillset. Instead, the universal advice is to pressure them to be more productive, outsource them, etc.

cortesoft 8y ago
That would work for a single company, but not necessarily the market as a whole... paying developers more wont suddenly add a bunch of skilled developers into the market.
- dunpeal 8y ago
  Won't it? There's a whole bunch of smart people right now who won't go into tech because they can make more elsewhere. Another example is senior engineers who retire because their investment portfolio is large enough, and they don't feel like working hard for another year just to make another $150k. If it was $400k, they might stay. These are the engineers who are the most scarce and at the greatest demand right now. Another example is turnover. Engineers currently have to job hop every couple of years to get a decent raise. That leads to more waste of engineer time and effort than any single management improvement that can possibly be implemented. These are just 3 examples off the top of my head. In every other field, it is obvious that more pay == more and better candidates. Yet somehow engineers are the single exception? Against any sensible market theory?
  - castlecrasher2 8y ago
    >There's a whole bunch of smart people right now who won't go into tech because they can make more elsewhere. Is this true? I've only ever heard the opposite.

closeparen 8y ago

Developers as a community are currently screaming about a number of things companies can do to steal us away, even for less money: - Go full remote - Locate offices in reasonable COL US markets (my company has overwhelmingly rejected this one and skipped from NY/SF/Seattle to the developing world). - Provide private offices, cubes, team rooms... any kind of workspace other than the in-vogue open floorplan barn. Companies are not in their wildest dreams going to touch any of those things with a 10-foot pole at scale. Do they not know? Do they think we're lying? Or would they just rather complain than actually solve the problem?

castlecrasher2 8y ago
If there weren't bodies to fill spaces left by us who want those things they'd change. Fact is there are still plenty of people who live near family in cities or have other reasons to stay that are barely within their cost of living/budget.
dunpeal 8y ago
> Do they not know? Do they think we're lying? Or would they just rather complain than actually solve the problem? Companies typically complain about "lack of talent" so the government will let them import more low-paid developers from abroad. There is ample proof that the tech industry fails to tap into many existing talent pools. For example, SV couldn't afford to be openly ageist if talent shortage was really its top concern. You are right that if companies were really so desperate for talent, you'd see a lot more willingness to compensate developers in various ways.
- TomMckenny 8y ago
  And software isn't the first industry, this same process happened to biotech "successfully" driving down wages to an absurd degree. Much of agism is actuulay moeny related too. While allot comes from the belief that "young people are just smarter" (as opposed to whites or men as was the "common sense" in the past). Much of the discrimination is because it is assumed that after a few years, technologists actually know how much they're worth while the fresh college graduate etc is awestruck by a wage that is barely over bay-area poverty line: There's an assumption you can't get a bargain hiring the over 35 set.

pleasecalllater 8y ago

I'm afraid I don't agree. I'm more worrying about my job than the companies about anything. If lose it, I will spend months for finding a new one. I will send emails with no response. I will be offered to spend enormous time for multilevel recruitment process, just to be rejected at the end. I will spend hours making shitty take-home tasks, just to be rejected. Some companies even don't check them when I upload it on a server. I will be asked terribly complicated white-board questions about forgotten algorithms used in no place. All that just to be offered a job about coding ETLs or adding some Javascript to a website. All just to get a simple job. It doesn't look like companies are afraid. It rather looks like companies have endless stream of candidates and want to crawl them first, so they could not hire them later. My last job hunt: 55 resumes sent (I was a perfect fit for 15 positions, not 100% for the rest). 10 companies responded. 5 were interested only about the salary, 4 of them didn't respond, 1 responded with "you wanted too much, we are not negotiating salaries". 2 terribly complicated take-home things (one company didn't event check it before rejecting me). Just 1 job offer, I took it, as I didn't get any other option after 3 months of searching. It was 2 years ago. I'm looking for a job again... I've sent 20 resumes. Got no answer. All 55 companies were posting the same job ads for the next months. About 5 of them are doing all the time, and the web is full of opinions how great the companies are. So generally I feel like I'm rather useless than needed for the companies. Writing anonymously here is cool :)

commandlinefan 8y ago
Yeah, I keep reading about the software developer shortage “crisis”, but nothing about the real world seems to reflect it. There’s a shortage of the top 1% of software developers (“top” being defined by where you went to college and where else you’ve worked, not actual programming ability) - but that’s it.
- homonculus1 8y ago
  I think I might just try to get into a different field. I'm a "recent" grad yet to get my foot in the door, and I'm pretty sure I'm capable of programming... just not of navigating the absurd requirements at every corner and apparent dearth of entry-level openings. Maybe I'm just underqualified and not that good at all, maybe I'm doing something wrong in my search or I need to move to the valley or something. But thus far all my applications have been a complete waste of time and it seems foolish to continue down this path.

exabrial 8y ago

One could establish development offices in places with low taxes compared to California, Seattle, or NYC, saving them significant amounts of $ to avoid salary bloat. Why no one is negotiating on the sorts of deals with city planners surprises me.

jorblumesea 8y ago

Companies that complain about lack of talent are generally the ones that refuse to pay competitive salaries. These are also the same ones that want the government to increase visa limitations and import cheaper engineers from overseas. If there was a true talent shortage you'd see increases in salaries and other methods of compensation.

friedman23 8y ago
To be fair, competitive salaries are almost absurdly high nowadays.
- jorblumesea 8y ago
  Competitive salaries are just that, competitive. There's no concept of "too high" or "too low", just what the market accepts and will pay for. Companies love the free market when it benefits them and hate it when it benefits skilled workers.
  - friedman23 8y ago
    >There's no concept of "too high" or "too low" Did I say so? I'm not saying it's too high. I'm saying it's absurdly high. If I was saying it was too high I would be arguing that it should be lowered which I obviously would not want.
    - ncallaway 8y ago
      I think most people would interpret "too high" and "absurdly high" to mean reasonably close to the same thing. That's probably why you're getting downvotes.
      - friedman23 8y ago
        I mean, I don't think my statement is in any way inaccurate. It's kind of absurd that you can get a job that pays $200k+ total compensation your first year out of college with only a bachelors degree. Some people within the field don't even believe it's possible.

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teddyh 8y ago

As is common, Joel said it all back in 2000: Whaddaya Mean, You Can't Find Programmers? https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/06/15/whaddaya-mean-you-cant-find-programmers/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/06/15/whaddaya-mean-you-... (Repost from five years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6454140#6455545 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6454140#6455545)

stevenwoo 8y ago
I went through a few interviews earlier this year and no one met the standards for environment Joel listed almost 20 years ago. Unless one works from home, that requirement listed is pretty much a lost cause AFAIK.

salawat 8y ago

Not surprising. Software developers are one of the ultimate forms of throughput multipliers. Get the pixies in the box dancing right, and BOOM! Personnel load decreased! In a world being driven toward hyperoptimization as fast as she'll go, your developer is your growth source. If only you could get them to do what you want... Which is why they like pulling developers from countries where the cultural norm is to shut up and do what you're told as I understand it. It's also part of the bias towards preferring younger devs. Younger devs tend to be more pliable and "flexible" and don't ask inconvenient questions in emails that can be subpoena'd later. Always ask questions. YOU have to be the conscience of the industry, if you don"t, no one else will. And even if they do have "another guy" lined up. Be vocal. Make sure your view can't be buried. If it smells, ASK and DIG. Someone very well may not be telling you something.

mlinksva 8y ago

Story is a writeup of https://stripe.com/reports/developer-coefficient-2018 https://stripe.com/reports/developer-coefficient-2018 discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17928067 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17928067 There's actually very little difference in the surveyed % saying https://stripe.com/files/reports/the-developer-coefficient.pdf#page=3 https://stripe.com/files/reports/the-developer-coefficient.p... access to talent (55%), software engineers (53%), and capital (52%). Note immigration requirements (47%) is lowest of the constraints on company growth asked about. I'd say the headline is questionable at best.

spenrose 8y ago

Developers and capital are partial substitutes for each other: https://twitter.com/indy_johar/status/662678550911303680 https://twitter.com/indy_johar/status/662678550911303680

torgian 8y ago

I currently make about 24k a year as a part time engineer (which should go up to around 40k if I go full time for this company). I stay because of other benefits (good health care in Japan, remote work with bimonthly meetings, and most importantly I am doing good work with data that helps people in some way). I honestly don’t think high pay is out there for what I want from a company. This one I work in checks all the boxes, for me. But if I pursue more money, I’d probably be stuck working in some crappy conpany where I’m a number.

artsyxxx 8y ago
You said it torgian; I'm looking for a company with Emotional Agility operating according to The Startup Way where people treat each other humanely and perks don't masquerade as strategy. I'd care to know more about your job in Japan if you would be willing to share
- mooreds 8y ago
  We should chat. Or you should check out weworkremotely.com. These companies do exist.
dunpeal 8y ago
> But if I pursue more money, I’d probably be stuck working in some crappy conpany where I’m a number. Why the false dichotomy? You might be able to find an employer who will pay you better and satisfy you in other ways too. Stranger things have happened...

panic 8y ago

If the premise of this article is true, we're doing a terrible job organizing ourselves. Individual offices, remote work, ownership of things we make in our free time -- we could have all of this if we used our power effectively.

cheez 8y ago
Yes, software engineers are terrible negotiators.
- dwd 8y ago
  Software engineers allowed themselves to be categorised as a cost centre rather than a revenue generating asset. Costs are to be minimised while those preceived as adding value like sales, marketing, c-level execs get paid accordingly. In industries that are unionised, collective action gives you the leverage and backup to say enough - but we don't even have an industry body that requires membership like the IEEE or AMA.
KyeRussell 8y ago
"No, I'm fine, we get $100 Target ping pong tables. I was taught that that's what cool kids want"

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fogetti 8y ago

As a software engineer with more than a decade of experience I have seen all kind of appalling "management" strategies in a variety of industries. And not so surprisingly the common denominator was that managers in every industry simply cultivate "speed over everything else" culture. Which directly translates into technical debt. I stopped counting how many "rockstar developers" I have seen rising in their shiny armors, outputting some crap extremely quickly just to see them sailing away with a friendly manager pat on their back, so that half year later a whole team would clean up the mess after them.

jondubois 8y ago

What usually happens though is that the wrong kind of developers get promoted. They get promoted based on their social skills and ability to sound smart instead of actual technical ability and actual intelligence.

expertentipp 8y ago

> Collectively, companies today lose upward of $300 billion a year paying down "technical debt," as developers pour time into maintaining legacy systems or dealing with the ramifications of bad software. As a person who had looked intensively for a job in Central Europe in the recent months I can confirm this. Plenty of awful software and stacks. Decade old monoliths in ASP .NET, Visual Basic, pyramidal monstrosities in JAVA, fucking COBOL transactional and registering systems. The only reason they „maintain” these projects is some legal obligation, once the obligation expires the project will be shut down and people will have to look for a job in the year 2020 having experience with Visual Basic. You will have „standups” with „American colleagues” at 7pm your time. It’s literally working on carcasses. Good portion of German and Swiss businesses pushing out their rotten carasses over here as well.