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The national unemployment rate is over 9% while Silicon Valley is fighting tooth-and-claw to hire. What's wrong with this picture? Software engineering is tech

by seldo 16y ago

The national unemployment rate is over 9% while Silicon Valley is fighting tooth-and-claw to hire. What's wrong with this picture? Software engineering is technical, sure, but it's not that hard -- if some of the idiots I've worked with in the past could hold down jobs, then anyone can. Which dying industries should we be looking at to fill the gaps in the software industry?

jscore 16y ago
I have never met anyone who was not technical and then became a coder. In pre-2000 dot.com you could've gotten a job with a word 'Internet' on your resume, but nowadays you should at least know decent coding.
- Seth_Kriticos 16y ago
  Yup. There are people with the logical mindset and problem solving ability to just naturally pick up coding. But most are not, and that's just an ability that's very hard to develop in later phases of life. In most cases it develops during teen age. Guess the last few decades did not really encourage these kind of developments, which is why we are running short now. It's not easy to fix though.
  - kls 16y ago
    Guess the last few decades did not really encourage these kind of developments, which is why we are running short now. It's not easy to fix though It was the .com bust along with a few other things. The market was so over-saturated with hacks in for a quick buck that when it popped it took a while to shake out who was who. This ran a lot of good developers out of the market never to return. The outsourcing craze right afterward did nothing to help the situation and just reinforced that the remaining few jobs where going to be further and further constrained. Which is what happened for a while. The schools and their CS programs pretty much became ghost town overnight. I know, I had went back to finish my degree after 10 years in the industry around that time. I remember what was a full class became me an 2 other guys. I remember saying to one of them. Times are going to get good again in about 5 years.
- iamelgringo 16y ago
  Mind you, I was programming Basic when I was 7, but I left it behind for years. I went back to school for software engineering when I was 33. I've been working as an ER/Critical Care nurse for 18 years. I'm currently bootstrapping a search engine for economic/financial news at http://Newsley.com http://Newsley.com. (alpha of search is here: http://newsley.com/search http://newsley.com/search )
  - benmccann 16y ago
    Your tagging is pretty cool. How'd you figure out for each tag whether it was a person, country, city, etc.? Did you just look them each up on Wikipedia? E.g. http://newsley.com/articles/eu-threatens-to-block-chinese-bids-for-public-contracts/24095 http://newsley.com/articles/eu-threatens-to-block-chinese-bi...
    - iamelgringo 16y ago
      It's a semantic web api from Reuters: http://www.opencalais.com/ http://www.opencalais.com/ Frankly, it's amazing. There's a sandbox where you can play with it here: http://viewer.opencalais.com/ http://viewer.opencalais.com/ Copy and past a couple paragraphs of text into the text box, and you can see some of what the api can do.
- GFischer 16y ago
  My googling skills are failing me, but there was an article that had some data on the number of people in the "hard" sciences moving into the "soft" sciences, and the number of people that went the other way. Not surprisingly, it was basically a one-way street. (It also reminds me of http://xkcd.com/435/ http://xkcd.com/435/ ) Addendum: For the difference between hard and soft science, see http://clustertwo.org/articles/Strong%20Inference%20%28Platt%29.pdf http://clustertwo.org/articles/Strong%20Inference%20%28Platt... - the hard sciences are the ones based on the "strong inference" defined there
LiveTheDream 16y ago
Really good software engineering is that hard. If you want to argue the point, compare mundane, "easy" software engineering with the average desk job that people can slide into without much training. Companies fight tooth-and-claw to hire good engineers because they don't want the idiots you worked with in the past. A good developer is 10x more productive than an average one, and a bad developer can be a net negative.
tomjen3 16y ago
It properly takes 3 years of work before you can program well enough to be hired - looking at the calendar, it still hasn't been 3 years since the economy tanked. Adding time for people to realize that there is actual jobs, coupled with the "we only hire the best" and not that many people become software engineers.
vorg 16y ago
To become a successful software engineer you need ratlike cunning, a plausible manner, and a little logical ability.
kls 16y ago
Software engineering is technical, sure, but it's not that hard It actually is, have you ever notices the absolute void of developers over the age of 40? People yell age discrimination but it is not true, it is the constant churn in ones life. From constantly reeducating yourself to stay relevant to the next emergency that requires 16 hrs 7 days a week for 2 months. It requires a passion for technology just to fulfill the reeducation requirement not to mention the hours. It burns developers out. The worst part is those on the outside don't get it, they think we pay them all this money and they still whine complain and won't take our jobs. So we have a profession with a high reeducation to relevance cycle and extreme requirements of time. Those two alone knock out a good deal of the population from even entering the profession. Then you have to deal with the burn out once you are in the grinder which always take a few of the good ones every year. So if you couple the education needs, burnout and with the fact that it is really hard to be a good developer you find that even the good one are out of the industry by 40. Usually through earning enough money to "drop out" start a worm farm in Texas. Or they hitched their star to the right wagon and have become very successful. I know because I have seen it, as a 36 year old who has suffered two burnouts, I have seen every one of my contemporaries fall. I remain because I set my terms, I made a agreement to myself that I would get out of the corporate grind and work for myself. I found a niche that was under-served (web accessibility, HCI for JS based web apps). So in a sense I am off the market, I don't think that I would go back to a corp gig for anything below 2x what the market is paying. But lets not fool ourselves as a freelancer, I am still for hire it just allows me to set some terms on how and when I work. It seems for me at least that this was enough to stave off a third bout of burn out. Being able to work from home and set my own hours has done a lot for my ability to refresh, recharge and reeducate.
- Retric 16y ago
  The real issues is the total number of Software dev's has increased dramatically over time so if you look for someone with 25 years of experience you need to realize 25 years ago the industry was smaller. Also while there are plenty of older developers the good ones are expensive because they know they are really worth every penny. PS: It's a true eye opener to see someone making 500$ an hour working a 40 hour week and know they could raise their rates and keep their job and they also get more done than the average small team.
matwood 16y ago
Software engineering is technical, sure, but it's not that hard It's easy for you or I or most anyone on HN to say that, but my experience proves that it's not true in the general population.

by seldo 16y ago

jscore 16y ago

I have never met anyone who was not technical and then became a coder. In pre-2000 dot.com you could've gotten a job with a word 'Internet' on your resume, but nowadays you should at least know decent coding.

Seth_Kriticos 16y ago
Yup. There are people with the logical mindset and problem solving ability to just naturally pick up coding. But most are not, and that's just an ability that's very hard to develop in later phases of life. In most cases it develops during teen age. Guess the last few decades did not really encourage these kind of developments, which is why we are running short now. It's not easy to fix though.
- kls 16y ago
  Guess the last few decades did not really encourage these kind of developments, which is why we are running short now. It's not easy to fix though It was the .com bust along with a few other things. The market was so over-saturated with hacks in for a quick buck that when it popped it took a while to shake out who was who. This ran a lot of good developers out of the market never to return. The outsourcing craze right afterward did nothing to help the situation and just reinforced that the remaining few jobs where going to be further and further constrained. Which is what happened for a while. The schools and their CS programs pretty much became ghost town overnight. I know, I had went back to finish my degree after 10 years in the industry around that time. I remember what was a full class became me an 2 other guys. I remember saying to one of them. Times are going to get good again in about 5 years.
iamelgringo 16y ago
Mind you, I was programming Basic when I was 7, but I left it behind for years. I went back to school for software engineering when I was 33. I've been working as an ER/Critical Care nurse for 18 years. I'm currently bootstrapping a search engine for economic/financial news at http://Newsley.com http://Newsley.com. (alpha of search is here: http://newsley.com/search http://newsley.com/search )
- benmccann 16y ago
  Your tagging is pretty cool. How'd you figure out for each tag whether it was a person, country, city, etc.? Did you just look them each up on Wikipedia? E.g. http://newsley.com/articles/eu-threatens-to-block-chinese-bids-for-public-contracts/24095 http://newsley.com/articles/eu-threatens-to-block-chinese-bi...
  - iamelgringo 16y ago
    It's a semantic web api from Reuters: http://www.opencalais.com/ http://www.opencalais.com/ Frankly, it's amazing. There's a sandbox where you can play with it here: http://viewer.opencalais.com/ http://viewer.opencalais.com/ Copy and past a couple paragraphs of text into the text box, and you can see some of what the api can do.
GFischer 16y ago
My googling skills are failing me, but there was an article that had some data on the number of people in the "hard" sciences moving into the "soft" sciences, and the number of people that went the other way. Not surprisingly, it was basically a one-way street. (It also reminds me of http://xkcd.com/435/ http://xkcd.com/435/ ) Addendum: For the difference between hard and soft science, see http://clustertwo.org/articles/Strong%20Inference%20%28Platt%29.pdf http://clustertwo.org/articles/Strong%20Inference%20%28Platt... - the hard sciences are the ones based on the "strong inference" defined there

LiveTheDream 16y ago

Really good software engineering is that hard. If you want to argue the point, compare mundane, "easy" software engineering with the average desk job that people can slide into without much training. Companies fight tooth-and-claw to hire good engineers because they don't want the idiots you worked with in the past. A good developer is 10x more productive than an average one, and a bad developer can be a net negative.

tomjen3 16y ago

It properly takes 3 years of work before you can program well enough to be hired - looking at the calendar, it still hasn't been 3 years since the economy tanked. Adding time for people to realize that there is actual jobs, coupled with the "we only hire the best" and not that many people become software engineers.

vorg 16y ago

To become a successful software engineer you need ratlike cunning, a plausible manner, and a little logical ability.

kls 16y ago

Software engineering is technical, sure, but it's not that hard It actually is, have you ever notices the absolute void of developers over the age of 40? People yell age discrimination but it is not true, it is the constant churn in ones life. From constantly reeducating yourself to stay relevant to the next emergency that requires 16 hrs 7 days a week for 2 months. It requires a passion for technology just to fulfill the reeducation requirement not to mention the hours. It burns developers out. The worst part is those on the outside don't get it, they think we pay them all this money and they still whine complain and won't take our jobs. So we have a profession with a high reeducation to relevance cycle and extreme requirements of time. Those two alone knock out a good deal of the population from even entering the profession. Then you have to deal with the burn out once you are in the grinder which always take a few of the good ones every year. So if you couple the education needs, burnout and with the fact that it is really hard to be a good developer you find that even the good one are out of the industry by 40. Usually through earning enough money to "drop out" start a worm farm in Texas. Or they hitched their star to the right wagon and have become very successful. I know because I have seen it, as a 36 year old who has suffered two burnouts, I have seen every one of my contemporaries fall. I remain because I set my terms, I made a agreement to myself that I would get out of the corporate grind and work for myself. I found a niche that was under-served (web accessibility, HCI for JS based web apps). So in a sense I am off the market, I don't think that I would go back to a corp gig for anything below 2x what the market is paying. But lets not fool ourselves as a freelancer, I am still for hire it just allows me to set some terms on how and when I work. It seems for me at least that this was enough to stave off a third bout of burn out. Being able to work from home and set my own hours has done a lot for my ability to refresh, recharge and reeducate.

Retric 16y ago
The real issues is the total number of Software dev's has increased dramatically over time so if you look for someone with 25 years of experience you need to realize 25 years ago the industry was smaller. Also while there are plenty of older developers the good ones are expensive because they know they are really worth every penny. PS: It's a true eye opener to see someone making 500$ an hour working a 40 hour week and know they could raise their rates and keep their job and they also get more done than the average small team.

matwood 16y ago

Software engineering is technical, sure, but it's not that hard It's easy for you or I or most anyone on HN to say that, but my experience proves that it's not true in the general population.