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Job market is sort of similar to the real estate market. If you're shopping for a house (or looking for a job), it's pointless to look at the "market as a whole

by m0zg 8y ago

Job market is sort of similar to the real estate market. If you're shopping for a house (or looking for a job), it's pointless to look at the "market as a whole", because that's not the segment you're in: you're shopping for something narrow and specific. A much better statistic would be to break things down by specialization, seniority, and whether or not a person had a stint at FAANG (which, and this will be deliberately misinterpreted, is a proxy for not completely sucking as an engineer). It's plausible that things have stagnated or gone down in the lower-skill segments with over-saturated labor supply. But anecdotally, on the higher end and in the segment where the talent is relatively scarce, I've never seen it better than it is now.

ummonk 8y ago
Also should be noted that the runup in tech valuations has meant that engineers who joined a few years ago at a fang have seen their stock grants go up a lot in value. Now, to be able to hire experienced engineers from each other, companies have upped the size of their signing bonus and initial grants to match the run up in value of unvested stock.
Alex3917 8y ago
> Job market is sort of similar to the real estate market. It's even more straightforward than that; tech salaries, like real estate prices, are heavily influenced by interest rates.
matco11 8y ago
You can apply the same reasoning, perhaps in an even simpler way, to the “low unemployment” part of the statement. “unemployment” is a stat defined at general population level, reaching well beyond the engineering space. Low unemployment means it is probably harder to hire someone out there, but it does not contain any information about how is now harder/easier to hire engineers, let alone tech engineers.
- m0zg 8y ago
  Absolutely. Talking averages is pointless on most topics where stats are presented. I always want to see both the distributions conditioned on several important variables, as well as marginalized versions thereof for each variable, but such nuance is not commonly available in public discourse. And when it is, people are shocked that it contradicts the simplistic world view they've been sold earlier.

by m0zg 8y ago

ummonk 8y ago

Also should be noted that the runup in tech valuations has meant that engineers who joined a few years ago at a fang have seen their stock grants go up a lot in value. Now, to be able to hire experienced engineers from each other, companies have upped the size of their signing bonus and initial grants to match the run up in value of unvested stock.

Alex3917 8y ago

> Job market is sort of similar to the real estate market. It's even more straightforward than that; tech salaries, like real estate prices, are heavily influenced by interest rates.

matco11 8y ago

You can apply the same reasoning, perhaps in an even simpler way, to the “low unemployment” part of the statement. “unemployment” is a stat defined at general population level, reaching well beyond the engineering space. Low unemployment means it is probably harder to hire someone out there, but it does not contain any information about how is now harder/easier to hire engineers, let alone tech engineers.

m0zg 8y ago
Absolutely. Talking averages is pointless on most topics where stats are presented. I always want to see both the distributions conditioned on several important variables, as well as marginalized versions thereof for each variable, but such nuance is not commonly available in public discourse. And when it is, people are shocked that it contradicts the simplistic world view they've been sold earlier.