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Wayfair is not and has never been your typical tech startup. The founders didn't even take VC or give out much equity until soon before their IPO. Given their c

by ghc 7y ago

Wayfair is not and has never been your typical tech startup. The founders didn't even take VC or give out much equity until soon before their IPO. Given their conservative behavior, I'm not surprised they looked at the diminishing returns of hiring more engineers to work on AR/VR/whatever flavor of the moment and decided to cut costs. Because at Wayfair, engineering is just another cost center. Having 350 more engineers on the market is only a good thing. Salaries in Boston have gotten to the point where an engineer with no experience just out of a middling CS education can demand $120-150k and often get it. Where does that leave most (non-startup) companies here? With inexperienced and understaffed teams.

dugmartin 7y ago
Or with very experienced teams that have families and don’t care to live the startup life like the team I work in at an educational research non-profit in the Boston area.
- ghc 7y ago
  It's non-startups that are having the hardest time finding talent thanks to tech giants (also not startups) getting into bidding wars over talent. Startups are in general fine -- they can sell the "upside" that more established companies can't. And non-profits might be fine too; I don't have much exposure there. But in my experience your average smallish public company has, over the past five years, seen a dramatic drop in level of experience and candidate quality at various IT positions that they haven't experienced in other kinds of engineering roles, despite continuously ratcheting up salaries to compete. Smells a lot like the job market in 2008, right before a lot of talented people wound up unemployed.
  - hellisothers 7y ago
    How is this like layoffs caused by the market crash caused by dodgy financial instruments?
    - ghc 7y ago
      In weakening financial markets (no matter the cause), companies often stop stockpiling talent and employees perceived as overpaid relative to their value (as valued by contribution to revenue) are often let go. There have been large layoffs in the past few weeks at LogMeIn, TripAdvisor and now Wayfair, but for now it's impossible to tell if it is a coincidence or a trend among Boston companies.
otras 7y ago
> Having 350 more engineers on the market is only a good thing. Salaries in Boston have gotten to the point where an engineer with no experience just out of a middling CS education can demand $120-150k and often get it. Where does that leave most (non-startup) companies here? With inexperienced and understaffed teams. Isn’t that implying that most non-startup companies just aren’t willing to pay market rate for the devs that they want?
- ghc 7y ago
  No it implies that rapidly hiring FAANG divisions are so desperate for talent they're willing to outbid anyone else. One could call that a market, but it's a market distorted by a few tech companies that are far wealthier than the rest.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    That's called a market. If you're not a wealthy employer, you lose.
  - unlinked_dll 7y ago
    Yes there's a labor shortage. No it's not just FAANG paying those rates. Startups are also paying on par or just slightly below those rates.
akhilcacharya 7y ago
> where an engineer with no experience just out of a middling CS education uh, what exactly is a "middling" CS education?
- rchaud 7y ago
  middling GPA, middling co-op/work experience, I imagine.
  - anyanswers 7y ago
    Doesn't that just mean "average"?

by ghc 7y ago

dugmartin 7y ago

Or with very experienced teams that have families and don’t care to live the startup life like the team I work in at an educational research non-profit in the Boston area.

ghc 7y ago
It's non-startups that are having the hardest time finding talent thanks to tech giants (also not startups) getting into bidding wars over talent. Startups are in general fine -- they can sell the "upside" that more established companies can't. And non-profits might be fine too; I don't have much exposure there. But in my experience your average smallish public company has, over the past five years, seen a dramatic drop in level of experience and candidate quality at various IT positions that they haven't experienced in other kinds of engineering roles, despite continuously ratcheting up salaries to compete. Smells a lot like the job market in 2008, right before a lot of talented people wound up unemployed.
- hellisothers 7y ago
  How is this like layoffs caused by the market crash caused by dodgy financial instruments?
  - ghc 7y ago
    In weakening financial markets (no matter the cause), companies often stop stockpiling talent and employees perceived as overpaid relative to their value (as valued by contribution to revenue) are often let go. There have been large layoffs in the past few weeks at LogMeIn, TripAdvisor and now Wayfair, but for now it's impossible to tell if it is a coincidence or a trend among Boston companies.

otras 7y ago

> Having 350 more engineers on the market is only a good thing. Salaries in Boston have gotten to the point where an engineer with no experience just out of a middling CS education can demand $120-150k and often get it. Where does that leave most (non-startup) companies here? With inexperienced and understaffed teams. Isn’t that implying that most non-startup companies just aren’t willing to pay market rate for the devs that they want?

ghc 7y ago
No it implies that rapidly hiring FAANG divisions are so desperate for talent they're willing to outbid anyone else. One could call that a market, but it's a market distorted by a few tech companies that are far wealthier than the rest.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  That's called a market. If you're not a wealthy employer, you lose.
- unlinked_dll 7y ago
  Yes there's a labor shortage. No it's not just FAANG paying those rates. Startups are also paying on par or just slightly below those rates.

akhilcacharya 7y ago

> where an engineer with no experience just out of a middling CS education uh, what exactly is a "middling" CS education?

rchaud 7y ago
middling GPA, middling co-op/work experience, I imagine.
- anyanswers 7y ago
  Doesn't that just mean "average"?