8 ms·

Maybe there really isn't a shortage of tech talent, and that narrative has been pushed by companies in an effort to encourage more people to enter the industry

Maybe there really isn't a shortage of tech talent, and that narrative has been pushed by companies in an effort to encourage more people to enter the industry with the promise of easily finding jobs that pay well in order to increase the supply with younger, less expensive workers who are more easily exploited for long hours and poor conditions? It stands to reason that more senior devs would be the ones shafted by this scheme. Maybe I should get my tinfoil hat checked out, but every time I see a giant tech company with one of those "everyone can learn to code!" pushes, all I see are executives hoping to play the long game and reduce the cost of engineering talent.

jknoepfler 7y ago
If you don't have name recognition driving candidates through the door, it can be shockingly difficult to get competent candidates. I'm talking basic senior engineer level (can be trusted to set up a web service from scratch without supervision). Most of the candidates you see either can't pass fizz buzz (no joke), are very junior (have no practical experience building real services), have severe behavioral problems (need to be told exactly what to do, can't be trusted to own a service, etc.), or are washed up enterprise technicians who need someone to build all their scaffolding for them and can't solve simple problems if there isn't an IDE for it (.NET/etc. lifer). The "smart" version of those archetypes often do OK at places like amazon, which provides scaffolding and oversite, but they will absolutely gut a small startup dev team. (source: personal experience regretting startup hires who seemed "ok" when we were desperate, who subsequently left a trail of sadness and surprises in their wake through inattention, stupidity, and general failure to care) I think this is particularly difficult for companies with non-technical founders that might lack strong technical leadership out the gate.
- rednerrus 7y ago
  This really puts into words the problems I've seen working in startups.
mattmar96 7y ago
Tech talent shortage is real. We can't find anyone worth interviewing right now, as a 5 person startup. (And no, we aren't age discriminating)
- semiotagonal 7y ago
  If I were the sixth person at a five-person startup I'd be forever worried that I was just on the wrong side of the get-rich-if-it-succeeds line.
- adamnemecek 7y ago
  Pay more
- crazypyro 7y ago
  The theoretical solution would be to raise how much you are paying.
  - sethammons 7y ago
    You can switch "paying" with "given in total compensation." There are those who will take more vacation time in lieu of a higher salary, for example.
    - m0zg 7y ago
      This is an underappreciated point, and also why I started a solo consulting business instead of continuing the 9-5. As a consultant I can set my own hours. The past few weeks were leasurely 25-27 hours per week or so (I track the time, so I know), and I do get paid for every hour I work, including commute, time spent on slack, etc. In this industry there seems to be no place for someone experienced who thinks that working 50-60 hours a week is bullshit, and would like to work half that. That tells me there's no "talent" shortage, since the employers aren't flexible at all when it comes to working part time and receiving proportionally lower pay. The moment you ask to work less than 40 hours a week the employer immediately assumes that either there's something wrong with you or you're willing to work for peanuts.
zozbot234 7y ago
Please, let's not blame tech companies for that whole "learn to code" debacle. That was the work of clueless pundits (many of them from a non-STEM background themselves) who used that angle to dismiss the hardships now being faced by many blue-collar workers, chiefly in non-coastal states.
- jakebasile 7y ago
  I think that like most things, it's complicated. I think both the pundits/media and corporations (aside: the media is a bunch of giant corporations) can be behind this marketing push. Whether they knowingly worked together or it's simply a coincidence is another question although it's very likely to again be a bit of both.
rumanator 7y ago
> Maybe there really isn't a shortage of tech talent If that conspiracy theory had any bearing in reality then we wouldn't see a) tech workers receiving elite athlete-level salaries, or b) candidates with no formal education being paid handsomely to work in entry level/low complexity positions.
- codingslave 7y ago
  Google basically only needs a small team to design a completely new distributed system for some kind of database. Or only a team of ten for some autonomous driving algorithms, so their work is highly leveraged and is worth hiring the best in the world for. Enterprise coding is nowhere near as leverageable.
- astura 7y ago
  I don't receive anywhere near elite athlete level salary...
  - rumanator 7y ago
    The Major League Soccer minimum salary is currently set to 60k/year. The average software dev salary in the US is over 100k/year.
    - Mountain_Skies 7y ago
      Using the minimum MLS salary is incredibly disingenuous. If you want to be pedantic, might as well use the salary of the tennis instructor at the local YMCA. Athlete level salary in common usage in the US means professional athletes in one of the three major league sports. The average salary ranges from over $7 million in the NBA to $2.7 million in the NFL. That's what is being implied by athlete level salary and it simply isn't the case for most software developers.
    - jimbokun 7y ago
      "The Major League Soccer minimum salary..." "...elite athletes..." (any elite soccer player plays in Europe)
rosege 7y ago
It also makes it easier for them to go to government and say we need more visas to bring in workers because there aren't enough here.
ergothus 7y ago
> Maybe there really isn't a shortage of tech talent That depends on what level of experience you are looking at. In particular, based on my experiences, your premise is the reverse of what is happening: > to increase the supply with younger, less expensive workers who are more easily exploited for long hours and poor conditions In the U.S. this does not match what I see. Instead, there are a ton of positions for "senior" positions that are filtering on specific amounts of experiences in such a way that there just aren't enough people that match. Likewise, the field is VERY CROWDED with newer devs that lack experience - they fight over a relative handful of positions that have truly absurd entrance requirements. This also results in some layers - - The layer of places that abuse their newer developers and get away with it because that initial field is so crowded. This would seem to support your premise, except they aren't the ones pushing the "tech shortage" narrative - they are just profiting from it. Devs that can claw their way of out of this layer are well-positioned for "time", but likely lacking in the specific experiences and breadth that the other layers want. - The layer of "top" places that want devs with enough experience and mix of skills that they have a hard time hiring for them. These places pay top dollar and work on their reps to help attract talent - they also are trying to resolve their shortages by getting new grads as interns. This layer is the primary cause of the problems, as I'll note below. - The layer of "middle" places that are trying to use devs to help generate or streamline profits. They want people with enough experience and independence that they are drawing on the same pool as the "top" places. Because they have to compete with the marketing and budgets of the top places, they never have enough people, so they try to make up for it by getting more "senior" people, which only helps feed the scarcity for the "top" and the lack of jobs for the newer devs in the "lower" layers. What you end up with is a weird divide - the top jobs pay great, but demand you have things like a degree (it's rapidly becoming a requirement DESPITE so many successful pros that either don't have a degree or have an unrelated degree), that you solve increasingly complex algorithm problems despite that rarely being a demand of the job, and wanting a breadth of depth of experience that few jobs will prepare you for. They face a tech shortage and feed it. Meanwhile the lower jobs have lots of supply, so they can abuse their devs, but rarely provide the necessary qualifications for people to advance to the other tiers. And in the middle you have companies doubling down on their chase after the same smaller pool of devs that the top layer has rather than taking in from the huge supply of less experienced devs and growing their own talent. In the 3 companies I've worked for in the last 10 years (prior to that I had no input/visibility into hiring decisions), each one ramped up their entrance requirements to the point where I almost certainly wouldn't qualify despite being a successful and apparently valued employee at each of them. > executives hoping to play the long game This is contrary to my experiences with executives both personally and in most companies. Indeed, the "long game" seems to be invoked in words far more often than in actual consideration. YMMV.
4ntonius8lock 7y ago
Funny how the more capitalist outlets will classify workers as being in 'shortage', but commodities are never in shortage, they are in 'high demand' and there are 'price spikes while the market adjusts to new levels of supply and demand'. It's almost as if they are less about capitalism and more corporatism. The reality of most 'talent shortages', and this goes for people outside of tech, is the people with capital don't want to adjust their business model to deal with changing market conditions. Tech companies complain about 'talent shortages' in a time... when you could literally hire any programmer anywhere in the world to work remotely! It's insane. So it's obvious there isn't a shortage of talent, but a shortage of local talent. But why do they need local talent? It's like the US military complaining they can't get tech people. But if you work for them you can't smoke weed (even with a medical rec), you have to be in on time, wear a tie, punch in, sit in a horrible cubicle with horrible lighting and comply with a million bureaucratic minutia. So they don't get good candidates. Somehow the responsibility of of BOTH sides (labor and capital) to adapt to an ever changing environment seems lost on some people. They can see why one side should adapt, but not the other. The right sees that labor should adjust, and they are right, but likewise capital should also adjust when market forces push them, and not cry foul. I'll believe there are labor shortages when labor is paid the same percentage of GDP as it was in the 1960s, and when compensation packages include greater variety. After all, truly competitive markets will offer greatly different options. For labor, that could include working remotely, offering more days off, more vacation time, the CHOICE of private offices and/or open office, better indoor lighting, etc. Note: I'm a realistic capitalist who has actually read Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations.
- DrScump 7y ago
  you have to be in on time, wear a tie, punch in, sit in a horrible cubicle with horrible lighting I worked as a software engineer in defense (mumble) years ago, and even then nobody punched in and nobody (except management) wore a tie. We did have cubicles, though... which I prefer immensely to open desk plans. And I'd be happy to bring in my own adjustable-spectrum light if they haven't upgraded lighting in (mumble) years.
dominotw 7y ago
> "everyone can learn to code!" didn't twitter ban people for saying this at one point :D

jknoepfler 7y ago

If you don't have name recognition driving candidates through the door, it can be shockingly difficult to get competent candidates. I'm talking basic senior engineer level (can be trusted to set up a web service from scratch without supervision). Most of the candidates you see either can't pass fizz buzz (no joke), are very junior (have no practical experience building real services), have severe behavioral problems (need to be told exactly what to do, can't be trusted to own a service, etc.), or are washed up enterprise technicians who need someone to build all their scaffolding for them and can't solve simple problems if there isn't an IDE for it (.NET/etc. lifer). The "smart" version of those archetypes often do OK at places like amazon, which provides scaffolding and oversite, but they will absolutely gut a small startup dev team. (source: personal experience regretting startup hires who seemed "ok" when we were desperate, who subsequently left a trail of sadness and surprises in their wake through inattention, stupidity, and general failure to care) I think this is particularly difficult for companies with non-technical founders that might lack strong technical leadership out the gate.

rednerrus 7y ago
This really puts into words the problems I've seen working in startups.

mattmar96 7y ago

Tech talent shortage is real. We can't find anyone worth interviewing right now, as a 5 person startup. (And no, we aren't age discriminating)

semiotagonal 7y ago
If I were the sixth person at a five-person startup I'd be forever worried that I was just on the wrong side of the get-rich-if-it-succeeds line.
adamnemecek 7y ago
Pay more
crazypyro 7y ago
The theoretical solution would be to raise how much you are paying.
- sethammons 7y ago
  You can switch "paying" with "given in total compensation." There are those who will take more vacation time in lieu of a higher salary, for example.
  - m0zg 7y ago
    This is an underappreciated point, and also why I started a solo consulting business instead of continuing the 9-5. As a consultant I can set my own hours. The past few weeks were leasurely 25-27 hours per week or so (I track the time, so I know), and I do get paid for every hour I work, including commute, time spent on slack, etc. In this industry there seems to be no place for someone experienced who thinks that working 50-60 hours a week is bullshit, and would like to work half that. That tells me there's no "talent" shortage, since the employers aren't flexible at all when it comes to working part time and receiving proportionally lower pay. The moment you ask to work less than 40 hours a week the employer immediately assumes that either there's something wrong with you or you're willing to work for peanuts.

zozbot234 7y ago

Please, let's not blame tech companies for that whole "learn to code" debacle. That was the work of clueless pundits (many of them from a non-STEM background themselves) who used that angle to dismiss the hardships now being faced by many blue-collar workers, chiefly in non-coastal states.

jakebasile 7y ago
I think that like most things, it's complicated. I think both the pundits/media and corporations (aside: the media is a bunch of giant corporations) can be behind this marketing push. Whether they knowingly worked together or it's simply a coincidence is another question although it's very likely to again be a bit of both.

rumanator 7y ago

> Maybe there really isn't a shortage of tech talent If that conspiracy theory had any bearing in reality then we wouldn't see a) tech workers receiving elite athlete-level salaries, or b) candidates with no formal education being paid handsomely to work in entry level/low complexity positions.

codingslave 7y ago
Google basically only needs a small team to design a completely new distributed system for some kind of database. Or only a team of ten for some autonomous driving algorithms, so their work is highly leveraged and is worth hiring the best in the world for. Enterprise coding is nowhere near as leverageable.
astura 7y ago
I don't receive anywhere near elite athlete level salary...
- rumanator 7y ago
  The Major League Soccer minimum salary is currently set to 60k/year. The average software dev salary in the US is over 100k/year.
  - Mountain_Skies 7y ago
    Using the minimum MLS salary is incredibly disingenuous. If you want to be pedantic, might as well use the salary of the tennis instructor at the local YMCA. Athlete level salary in common usage in the US means professional athletes in one of the three major league sports. The average salary ranges from over $7 million in the NBA to $2.7 million in the NFL. That's what is being implied by athlete level salary and it simply isn't the case for most software developers.
  - jimbokun 7y ago
    "The Major League Soccer minimum salary..." "...elite athletes..." (any elite soccer player plays in Europe)

rosege 7y ago

It also makes it easier for them to go to government and say we need more visas to bring in workers because there aren't enough here.

ergothus 7y ago

> Maybe there really isn't a shortage of tech talent That depends on what level of experience you are looking at. In particular, based on my experiences, your premise is the reverse of what is happening: > to increase the supply with younger, less expensive workers who are more easily exploited for long hours and poor conditions In the U.S. this does not match what I see. Instead, there are a ton of positions for "senior" positions that are filtering on specific amounts of experiences in such a way that there just aren't enough people that match. Likewise, the field is VERY CROWDED with newer devs that lack experience - they fight over a relative handful of positions that have truly absurd entrance requirements. This also results in some layers - - The layer of places that abuse their newer developers and get away with it because that initial field is so crowded. This would seem to support your premise, except they aren't the ones pushing the "tech shortage" narrative - they are just profiting from it. Devs that can claw their way of out of this layer are well-positioned for "time", but likely lacking in the specific experiences and breadth that the other layers want. - The layer of "top" places that want devs with enough experience and mix of skills that they have a hard time hiring for them. These places pay top dollar and work on their reps to help attract talent - they also are trying to resolve their shortages by getting new grads as interns. This layer is the primary cause of the problems, as I'll note below. - The layer of "middle" places that are trying to use devs to help generate or streamline profits. They want people with enough experience and independence that they are drawing on the same pool as the "top" places. Because they have to compete with the marketing and budgets of the top places, they never have enough people, so they try to make up for it by getting more "senior" people, which only helps feed the scarcity for the "top" and the lack of jobs for the newer devs in the "lower" layers. What you end up with is a weird divide - the top jobs pay great, but demand you have things like a degree (it's rapidly becoming a requirement DESPITE so many successful pros that either don't have a degree or have an unrelated degree), that you solve increasingly complex algorithm problems despite that rarely being a demand of the job, and wanting a breadth of depth of experience that few jobs will prepare you for. They face a tech shortage and feed it. Meanwhile the lower jobs have lots of supply, so they can abuse their devs, but rarely provide the necessary qualifications for people to advance to the other tiers. And in the middle you have companies doubling down on their chase after the same smaller pool of devs that the top layer has rather than taking in from the huge supply of less experienced devs and growing their own talent. In the 3 companies I've worked for in the last 10 years (prior to that I had no input/visibility into hiring decisions), each one ramped up their entrance requirements to the point where I almost certainly wouldn't qualify despite being a successful and apparently valued employee at each of them. > executives hoping to play the long game This is contrary to my experiences with executives both personally and in most companies. Indeed, the "long game" seems to be invoked in words far more often than in actual consideration. YMMV.

4ntonius8lock 7y ago

Funny how the more capitalist outlets will classify workers as being in 'shortage', but commodities are never in shortage, they are in 'high demand' and there are 'price spikes while the market adjusts to new levels of supply and demand'. It's almost as if they are less about capitalism and more corporatism. The reality of most 'talent shortages', and this goes for people outside of tech, is the people with capital don't want to adjust their business model to deal with changing market conditions. Tech companies complain about 'talent shortages' in a time... when you could literally hire any programmer anywhere in the world to work remotely! It's insane. So it's obvious there isn't a shortage of talent, but a shortage of local talent. But why do they need local talent? It's like the US military complaining they can't get tech people. But if you work for them you can't smoke weed (even with a medical rec), you have to be in on time, wear a tie, punch in, sit in a horrible cubicle with horrible lighting and comply with a million bureaucratic minutia. So they don't get good candidates. Somehow the responsibility of of BOTH sides (labor and capital) to adapt to an ever changing environment seems lost on some people. They can see why one side should adapt, but not the other. The right sees that labor should adjust, and they are right, but likewise capital should also adjust when market forces push them, and not cry foul. I'll believe there are labor shortages when labor is paid the same percentage of GDP as it was in the 1960s, and when compensation packages include greater variety. After all, truly competitive markets will offer greatly different options. For labor, that could include working remotely, offering more days off, more vacation time, the CHOICE of private offices and/or open office, better indoor lighting, etc. Note: I'm a realistic capitalist who has actually read Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations.

DrScump 7y ago
you have to be in on time, wear a tie, punch in, sit in a horrible cubicle with horrible lighting I worked as a software engineer in defense (mumble) years ago, and even then nobody punched in and nobody (except management) wore a tie. We did have cubicles, though... which I prefer immensely to open desk plans. And I'd be happy to bring in my own adjustable-spectrum light if they haven't upgraded lighting in (mumble) years.

dominotw 7y ago

> "everyone can learn to code!" didn't twitter ban people for saying this at one point :D