6 ms·

The supply of technical workers is artificially limited by Leetcode style interviews. There doesn't seem to be an actual supply side limitation, especially not

The supply of technical workers is artificially limited by Leetcode style interviews. There doesn't seem to be an actual supply side limitation, especially not at the entry level.

thwy12321 8y ago
This. If there was a real piece of missing demand these companies would change their interview process, but things are only moving in the opposite direction. The shortage is a myth to flood the software engineering job market with cheap workers. It needs to stop
protonfish 8y ago
That and a complete unwillingness to educate and mentor your workforce. I don't understand why the government should step in to help employers because they want training to be somebody else's problem.
- enraged_camel 8y ago
  Companies don't train their workforce because said workforce then leaves and joins another company, which then benefits from that training. ...that's how it was explained to me by an executive at my former job (a big part of the reason why it's my former job).
  - Apocryphon 8y ago
    California is an at-will state and all that, but surely executives and business consultants can structure some sort of incentive package to cause workers to stay for at least some minimum duration?
    - dorchadas 8y ago
      If a company was willing to train me and provide me decent salary and benefits, I'd totally stay. If there was room to move up in the company, and they kept offering good salary and benefits, I'd probably never seriously consider leaving unless I hated the job or just got an amazing offer (barring events like needing to take care of parents, etc, of course). I feel like a lot of people would prefer the stability, even, especially if the company is investing in them.
  - rhexs 8y ago
    The workforce leaves because the company doesn't raise the salary to account for new training. You can't have it both ways.
- turtlecloud 8y ago
  That by definition is called a “market force”. They should pay them more once trained.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
mohaine 8y ago
Maybe on the west coast but here in the Midwest we often have issues finding candidates that can write fizzbuz. We recently had a candidate who's main language was python but failed to even run his code on the command line. Saddly this isnt overly rare.
- 2_listerine_pls 8y ago
  Anyone with a CS degree can write a fizzbuz
  - QuercusMax 8y ago
    Wow, didn't realize this was a comedy site. Speaking from personal experience, the number of people with multiple years of experience and multiple degrees in CS (usually BS and MS) who can't pass FizzBuzz is really high.
    - jki275 8y ago
      That's amazing to me. Not arguing you're wrong, I'm not interviewing people, just amazes me that anyone with degrees in CS would not be able to solve such a basic problem.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - geebee 8y ago
        I don't understand this either. There is an interesting blog post that suggests maybe some programmers get tripped up because they want to find a more clever way to do it: http://www.gayle.com/blog/2016/1/fizzbuzz-youre-doing-something-wrong http://www.gayle.com/blog/2016/1/fizzbuzz-youre-doing-someth... It doesn't sound like this is the problem, though, in all the cases. It sounds like someone who majored in CS was unable to write this. Which seems inconceivable to me. And yeah, "inconceivable" is often based on wrong assumptions (it was the basis of one of the oft-repeated lines from cinema: you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means). But... is there a chance that maybe "CS" just means different things from different programs. I feel like it should be... well, impossible for someone who graduates from a proper CS program to fail to write fizz buzz. I know, I know, the "no true scotsman" is already getting typed into the response field. But here's the thing, I'm not defining a "proper" program as one that results in an ability to write fizz buzz. I'm defining it as a program that contains, at a minimum, basic algrothmns and data structures. Do people graduate with CS degrees without coding a linked list, binary tree, doing basic sorting, and set permutations? I'd say if you take that one required class, it should be more or less impossible to not write fizz buzz. I'd be interested in knowing what the "CS" curriculum was for people who can't write this.
nradov 8y ago
Decades ago tech companies like IBM would hire entry-level software developers with zero coding experience based on the results of aptitude tests. Then they put the new employees through internal boot camps. There's no reason a similar approach couldn't work today. Employers just generally got lazy about workforce development while the economy was slower and they had an unlimited supply of applicants.
- EmbarrassedFuel 8y ago
  In the uk I often see posts for graduate programmer positions with essentially this arrangement: words to the effect of “candidates need not have experience coding but should show a willingness to learn and deep interest in tech” etc.
- HillaryBriss 8y ago
  that's how I see it too. I feel like the whole question here is simply: how much commitment to the existing US labor pool should US laws/regulations require from US employers? Over the last decade, the answer has been "not much." But, now, because of political and economic realities, that answer might change.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- saalweachter 8y ago
  It's not just software engineers. This also happens with skilled labor, like machining. You used to be able to get hired and taught on the job, now the employers expect you to pay your own way through a technical school for several years before applying for a minimum-wage job. So you've got (a) lower wages (b) you need to pay to educate yourself (c) you need to pay to support yourself during those years of training and (d) you're guessing which job skills are going to be in demand after N years, so after spending the time training and taking on debt there might not even be a job waiting for you.
mo1ok 8y ago
Piggybacking off the fizzbuzz comment, but at my job we we don't ask hard whiteboard questions - just simple ones that prove people can code, and 75% of them can't do it. If you can't do fizzbuzz, you can't do this job. It's an effective filter.
- kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
  Had one guy who insisted on using C++ in favor of C for a problem despite being hinted to use the latter. He was a self proclaimed "expert". All was good until forgetting to use delete[] instead of delete.

The supply of technical workers is artificially limited by Leetcode style interviews. There doesn't seem to be an actual supply side limitation, especially not at the entry level.

thwy12321 8y ago

This. If there was a real piece of missing demand these companies would change their interview process, but things are only moving in the opposite direction. The shortage is a myth to flood the software engineering job market with cheap workers. It needs to stop

protonfish 8y ago

That and a complete unwillingness to educate and mentor your workforce. I don't understand why the government should step in to help employers because they want training to be somebody else's problem.

enraged_camel 8y ago
Companies don't train their workforce because said workforce then leaves and joins another company, which then benefits from that training. ...that's how it was explained to me by an executive at my former job (a big part of the reason why it's my former job).
- Apocryphon 8y ago
  California is an at-will state and all that, but surely executives and business consultants can structure some sort of incentive package to cause workers to stay for at least some minimum duration?
  - dorchadas 8y ago
    If a company was willing to train me and provide me decent salary and benefits, I'd totally stay. If there was room to move up in the company, and they kept offering good salary and benefits, I'd probably never seriously consider leaving unless I hated the job or just got an amazing offer (barring events like needing to take care of parents, etc, of course). I feel like a lot of people would prefer the stability, even, especially if the company is investing in them.
- rhexs 8y ago
  The workforce leaves because the company doesn't raise the salary to account for new training. You can't have it both ways.
turtlecloud 8y ago
That by definition is called a “market force”. They should pay them more once trained.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

mohaine 8y ago

Maybe on the west coast but here in the Midwest we often have issues finding candidates that can write fizzbuz. We recently had a candidate who's main language was python but failed to even run his code on the command line. Saddly this isnt overly rare.

2_listerine_pls 8y ago
Anyone with a CS degree can write a fizzbuz
- QuercusMax 8y ago
  Wow, didn't realize this was a comedy site. Speaking from personal experience, the number of people with multiple years of experience and multiple degrees in CS (usually BS and MS) who can't pass FizzBuzz is really high.
  - jki275 8y ago
    That's amazing to me. Not arguing you're wrong, I'm not interviewing people, just amazes me that anyone with degrees in CS would not be able to solve such a basic problem.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - geebee 8y ago
      I don't understand this either. There is an interesting blog post that suggests maybe some programmers get tripped up because they want to find a more clever way to do it: http://www.gayle.com/blog/2016/1/fizzbuzz-youre-doing-something-wrong http://www.gayle.com/blog/2016/1/fizzbuzz-youre-doing-someth... It doesn't sound like this is the problem, though, in all the cases. It sounds like someone who majored in CS was unable to write this. Which seems inconceivable to me. And yeah, "inconceivable" is often based on wrong assumptions (it was the basis of one of the oft-repeated lines from cinema: you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means). But... is there a chance that maybe "CS" just means different things from different programs. I feel like it should be... well, impossible for someone who graduates from a proper CS program to fail to write fizz buzz. I know, I know, the "no true scotsman" is already getting typed into the response field. But here's the thing, I'm not defining a "proper" program as one that results in an ability to write fizz buzz. I'm defining it as a program that contains, at a minimum, basic algrothmns and data structures. Do people graduate with CS degrees without coding a linked list, binary tree, doing basic sorting, and set permutations? I'd say if you take that one required class, it should be more or less impossible to not write fizz buzz. I'd be interested in knowing what the "CS" curriculum was for people who can't write this.

nradov 8y ago

Decades ago tech companies like IBM would hire entry-level software developers with zero coding experience based on the results of aptitude tests. Then they put the new employees through internal boot camps. There's no reason a similar approach couldn't work today. Employers just generally got lazy about workforce development while the economy was slower and they had an unlimited supply of applicants.

EmbarrassedFuel 8y ago
In the uk I often see posts for graduate programmer positions with essentially this arrangement: words to the effect of “candidates need not have experience coding but should show a willingness to learn and deep interest in tech” etc.
HillaryBriss 8y ago
that's how I see it too. I feel like the whole question here is simply: how much commitment to the existing US labor pool should US laws/regulations require from US employers? Over the last decade, the answer has been "not much." But, now, because of political and economic realities, that answer might change.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
saalweachter 8y ago
It's not just software engineers. This also happens with skilled labor, like machining. You used to be able to get hired and taught on the job, now the employers expect you to pay your own way through a technical school for several years before applying for a minimum-wage job. So you've got (a) lower wages (b) you need to pay to educate yourself (c) you need to pay to support yourself during those years of training and (d) you're guessing which job skills are going to be in demand after N years, so after spending the time training and taking on debt there might not even be a job waiting for you.

mo1ok 8y ago

Piggybacking off the fizzbuzz comment, but at my job we we don't ask hard whiteboard questions - just simple ones that prove people can code, and 75% of them can't do it. If you can't do fizzbuzz, you can't do this job. It's an effective filter.

kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
Had one guy who insisted on using C++ in favor of C for a problem despite being hinted to use the latter. He was a self proclaimed "expert". All was good until forgetting to use delete[] instead of delete.