> As a tech lead / team lead over the last five years in a small East Coast market I've experienced real difficulty finding competent Software Engineers at any

> As a tech lead / team lead over the last five years in a small East Coast market I've experienced real difficulty finding competent Software Engineers at any level Amen. I've been in a few US markets (non CA/NY) over the past 20+ years. Finding a decent number of available/skilled software engineers is always a challenge. If they're skilled (beyond competent), they're employed or doing their own thing. I've recently taken a 6 month contract, and have been amazed at the quality of the team, but... they're really having trouble finding people - people that wouldn't be a net negative on the team (there's both cultural fit as well as skill fit). And yes, they're hiring junior folks from area bootcamps and training them up. Doing real training - reviews, handholding, explaining, testing - is a real investment, and takes a lot of time. This has been one of the few teams I've worked in where I've been pleasantly surprised at the level of quality of everyone in the company (10 in the group I'm in, around 65 in the company altogether I think). I'm watching how they interview/hire/expand, and... it's tough. They could easily bring on more people quickly who would be a net negative, and cause more problems (I've seen that many times - I was the net negative problem at least once!)