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>There just isn't a supply of good developers for companies that aren't FAANGs or unicorns. ...at the salary you are offering. I see many people hiring adjust

>There just isn't a supply of good developers for companies that aren't FAANGs or unicorns. ...at the salary you are offering. I see many people hiring adjusting for cost of living but not adjusting for the place being less desirable to live. Also, given the reputation of FAANG and similar, working for them is viewed as something of a future investment. That is a benefit your company likely cannot offer. So even if everything else was on par with a FAANG in terms of pay, benefits, and working conditions, ideally you would have to pay a slight bit more to make up for the difference. Granted, the market is never that rationally acting in any individual case. Having seen numerous IT managers having trouble hiring, the most common shared issue is too little pay.

pault 7y ago
No, that's why I said "before anyone says we're not paying enough...". There are team members making $2xxK/year here, and we're not in a coastal city. The problem we have is that almost every person that comes in here bombs out in the first five minutes of the interview.
- winter_blue 7y ago
  Wow, $250k/year is quite high for Austin, Texas. It's shocking to realize that you can't find decent programmers even at that pay grade.
- sokoloff 7y ago
  If that's a competitive salary for your area (you would know better than me, but that range in the middle of the country certainly seems competitive), then have a look at your recruiting sourcing funnel. If you're only sourcing the same 75% of active job seekers who are bombing most of their other interviews [thus leaving them available to come in and bomb yours as well], start advertising your positions elsewhere or trying to recruit passive job seekers/encourage employees to scour their own networks. If you don't change something, you're likely going to keep getting more of the same.
  - pault 7y ago
    You're correct. The problem is that the positions we have open are for front end developers, and for a variety of reasons (mostly that the scale of complexity on the front end has increased so rapidly that the industry still has a lot of people in it that were writing mostly HTML and CSS a few years back) the supply of competent developers is far lower than the demand, and anyone worth their salt is already happily employed. Highly skilled front end developers can basically write their own check these days, and if you manage to find one in the brief amount of time they're in-between jobs it's pure luck.
    - ikiris 7y ago
      ... so you're not paying enough to entice them. Which is what was said three posts up.
      - pault 7y ago
        Thanks. Unfortunately we can't afford to pay front end developers $300k/year. And what we are paying is more than competitive. It's not an issue of pay, it's an issue of availability and not having the resources to stalk and poach developers from other companies. We also have a generous internal referral bonus, and various recruiters sourcing candidates. Is there something else I'm missing? Edit: I don't think you are understanding what I'm saying. We are offering higher than average pay for a job with average requirements, and we haven't been able to find average candidates. And I'm well aware of average, upper, and lower bounds to salaries here.
        sokoloff 7y ago
        If you have budget for two poor front end devs, IMO you’re way better off paying 1.5x and getting one good one, if comp is the sticking point for landing a good front-end dev. “We can’t afford that!” “But you can waste money on two crappy devs?!” (If you only have budget for one, the cash flow doesn’t work, of course.)
        OldHand2018 7y ago
- lovich 7y ago
  If you're paying $2xxK/year and allow remote just post your job link here. I, and all my social circles, are fairly successful devs in a coastal city and would jump on any offer that high as long as we didn't have to move to the midwest Edit: I mean this as in I know several people including myself who apply for 2xxk/year and remote. Post or dm me and I'll see what people I could send your way
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

pault 7y ago

No, that's why I said "before anyone says we're not paying enough...". There are team members making $2xxK/year here, and we're not in a coastal city. The problem we have is that almost every person that comes in here bombs out in the first five minutes of the interview.

winter_blue 7y ago
Wow, $250k/year is quite high for Austin, Texas. It's shocking to realize that you can't find decent programmers even at that pay grade.
sokoloff 7y ago
If that's a competitive salary for your area (you would know better than me, but that range in the middle of the country certainly seems competitive), then have a look at your recruiting sourcing funnel. If you're only sourcing the same 75% of active job seekers who are bombing most of their other interviews [thus leaving them available to come in and bomb yours as well], start advertising your positions elsewhere or trying to recruit passive job seekers/encourage employees to scour their own networks. If you don't change something, you're likely going to keep getting more of the same.
- pault 7y ago
  You're correct. The problem is that the positions we have open are for front end developers, and for a variety of reasons (mostly that the scale of complexity on the front end has increased so rapidly that the industry still has a lot of people in it that were writing mostly HTML and CSS a few years back) the supply of competent developers is far lower than the demand, and anyone worth their salt is already happily employed. Highly skilled front end developers can basically write their own check these days, and if you manage to find one in the brief amount of time they're in-between jobs it's pure luck.
  - ikiris 7y ago
    ... so you're not paying enough to entice them. Which is what was said three posts up.
    - pault 7y ago
      Thanks. Unfortunately we can't afford to pay front end developers $300k/year. And what we are paying is more than competitive. It's not an issue of pay, it's an issue of availability and not having the resources to stalk and poach developers from other companies. We also have a generous internal referral bonus, and various recruiters sourcing candidates. Is there something else I'm missing? Edit: I don't think you are understanding what I'm saying. We are offering higher than average pay for a job with average requirements, and we haven't been able to find average candidates. And I'm well aware of average, upper, and lower bounds to salaries here.
      - sokoloff 7y ago
        If you have budget for two poor front end devs, IMO you’re way better off paying 1.5x and getting one good one, if comp is the sticking point for landing a good front-end dev. “We can’t afford that!” “But you can waste money on two crappy devs?!” (If you only have budget for one, the cash flow doesn’t work, of course.)
      - OldHand2018 7y ago
lovich 7y ago
If you're paying $2xxK/year and allow remote just post your job link here. I, and all my social circles, are fairly successful devs in a coastal city and would jump on any offer that high as long as we didn't have to move to the midwest Edit: I mean this as in I know several people including myself who apply for 2xxk/year and remote. Post or dm me and I'll see what people I could send your way
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]