4 ms·

> Lots of large companies are competing for talent, and if you can't pay bank salaries, you're going to have a hard time. Sounds like Economics 101. The curves

> Lots of large companies are competing for talent, and if you can't pay bank salaries, you're going to have a hard time. Sounds like Economics 101. The curves of supply and demand meet at some point. Some customers can't buy (enough of) the thing because the price at the intersection of the curves is too high for them. Yes, that's how free market works. There are things I can't buy, because they are too expensive for me. Or I could buy them, but I would have to sacrifice something else I need more. This is considered normal. When some company can't afford (people like) me, it's the same thing. They would like to have cheaper developers. Sure, who wouldn't? There are also things I would like to have cheaper. Same problem. Why am I not entitled to get things as cheaply as I want, but my potential employer would be? In my experience many companies prefer to whine about the shortage of talent, even if they could easily hire another person by increasing the offered salary by 50%. But they won't. Then they make millions of profit, which shows that the money was there, it was just their decision not to spend it on salaries. Okay, fair, it's their money, their decision. But if it's your decision, own it, don't pretend there wasn't an alternative. Make it known that you offer double of the market salary, and you will be surprised how many people are out there in the "empty market". At least I never heard about a company that offered lots of money and couldn't find a person for the job.

luckylion 6y ago
That's all well and good, but that's not the point I was trying to make. Companies aren't having a hard time finding talent because developers are so annoyed by coding interviews, they're having a hard time finding talent because they can't/don't want to pay high salaries. So developers go to work on finance and ad-tech, and not on normal, boring, only-making-three-times-the-national-average-salary stuff. And those companies then complain that they can't find developers. Because whether they have a coding challenge or not, they can't find developers because money.
- duutfhhh 6y ago
  And those small companies would be able to compensate the difference in pay with "partner" status, i.e. making an employee an unfireable stakeholder that can live off profits by the time he or she turns say 45, but owners of said small companies are too greedy for that. I'd argue that opportunistic at-employement with 500k/year at Big4 is worse than guaranteed 250k/year that nobody, not even the company's owners can take from you.
- geebee 6y ago
  I disagree with this, somewhat. Adam Smith, in Wealth of Nations, reminds us that there are a lot of factors that go into determining the desirability of a certain job, and that wages reflect this. The butcher earns more than the baker, Smith reasons, in part because most people would prefer the work of the baker. You have to pay someone enough more to convince them to be a butcher. There are a lot of jobs that pay less than software engineer, but would be more desirable provided the pay isn't too much less. For example, someone might prefer to be a dental hygienist, figuring that the work is flexible, steady, and there's less of a possibility of age discrimination later in life. This person would become a software engineer for twice the dental hygienist salary, but not for 10% more. In a free market society, it's not up to us to make that decision. If you want to get software engineers for in San Francisco for 10% more than a dental hygienist's salary, and you can't get any, that's the market's answer. Corporate capitalists have discovered that if you don't like the market's answer, have the government ask for you.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    > The butcher earns more than the baker, Smith reasons, in part because most people would prefer the work of the baker. You have to pay someone enough more to convince them to be a butcher. And the surveillance capitalism developer earns more than the entire village. Ergo the market commands us to all develop surveillance stuff so Saudi Arabia can spy on dissidents and then chop them up in their embassies. But again, that's not the point I was making, it's weird that multiple people understand my comments as "we should remove the free market". Me saying that it's the market that is making it hard for normal companies to find talent is only the background for what I'm actually trying to get across: It's not the coding challenge that is making it hard to find developers. A company that isn't in a hyper-profitable space like ad-tech or surveillance (watching employees during WFH is booming) or fintech (figuring out new ways to make people part with their money) won't be able to attract talent by removing a coding challenge. It's just not an important factor in the equation.
    - geebee 6y ago
      I will engage with your claim that coding tests aren't making it hard to find developers. I think it is a more important factor than you do. On a personal level, coding tests are a deterrent for me in applying for new jobs. I have my old copy of data structures and algorithms, and I've gone through "Cracking the Coding Interview." I actually enjoyed it at first. They're interesting and challenging problems. If there were an exam - maybe something similar to the actuarial calculus or probability exams - I'd probably be interested in studying hard for it and passing it. However, I'm no longer interested in re-loading this information into short term memory in order to take a whiteboard exam. This may be a facet of how my own brain works vs others. I just don't walk around prepared to figure out which elements of a set, when combined after permutation, are equal to an existing member of the set. Or how to find all square sub-matrices with a positive determinant in a larger matrix. I can do these things - I've enjoyed doing them - but for me, it takes a lot of training and prep to re-load it in a way that I'm ready for the 45 minute whiteboard exercise. If it were a proper, lasting exam, I'd be happy to do it, but it's just too random, uncertain, and capriciously scored for me to want to do it anymore. I will note that some people don't have thae same trouble I have with this, and - I really mean this - this may actually indicate that they are better candidates than I am. In short, I need to acknowledge that I may certainly not be the "talent" that anyone is missing out on. Money makes a difference too, but the reason I brought up Wealth of Nations is to draw your attention to the section "Of Wages and Profit in the different Employments of Labour and Stock" http://geolib.com/smith.adam/won1-10.html http://geolib.com/smith.adam/won1-10.html I would recommend the entire article, as Smith breaks down the various factors that can lead to higher or lower wages, but you don't really need to read the whole thing, here's smith's summary: "THE five following are the principal circumstances which, so far as I have been able to observe, make up for a small pecuniary gain in some employments, and counterbalance a great one in others: first, the agreeableness or disagreeableness of the employments themselves; secondly, the easiness and cheapness, or the difficulty and expense of learning them; thirdly, the constancy or inconstancy of employment in them; fourthly, the small or great trust which must be reposed in those who exercise them; and, fifthly, the probability or improbability of success in them." Within this matrix, software engineering does have a lot to recommend it. For example, Law requires a very expensive and lengthy graduate degree, whereas software engineering doesn't, even though most successful SE's generally do have some kind of undergraduate, and often graduate, degree in rigorous fields that require a lot more math than law. How people will respond to this (along with other aspects of these two fields) depends a lot on their own personal wiring as well. Within this matrix, yes, I do think that many people find in person, oral exams, at a whiteboard or at a computer under scrutiny and time pressure, on topics that they often don't know well in advance, evaluated by people whose credentials and skill they don't know in advance... yes, I think many people find that a deterrent, either for applying for new jobs, or entering the field in the first place. Many people consider these on-the-spot exams extremely stressful, especially when they are in person, at a whiteboard. And we go through days of it, and a new round of study, every time we apply for a jbo. Tech interview exams are not the only factor making it harder to attract candidates, but neither are any of the multiple factors identified and elaborated on by Smith. But I absolutely believe they are a factor.

luckylion 6y ago

That's all well and good, but that's not the point I was trying to make. Companies aren't having a hard time finding talent because developers are so annoyed by coding interviews, they're having a hard time finding talent because they can't/don't want to pay high salaries. So developers go to work on finance and ad-tech, and not on normal, boring, only-making-three-times-the-national-average-salary stuff. And those companies then complain that they can't find developers. Because whether they have a coding challenge or not, they can't find developers because money.

duutfhhh 6y ago
And those small companies would be able to compensate the difference in pay with "partner" status, i.e. making an employee an unfireable stakeholder that can live off profits by the time he or she turns say 45, but owners of said small companies are too greedy for that. I'd argue that opportunistic at-employement with 500k/year at Big4 is worse than guaranteed 250k/year that nobody, not even the company's owners can take from you.
geebee 6y ago
I disagree with this, somewhat. Adam Smith, in Wealth of Nations, reminds us that there are a lot of factors that go into determining the desirability of a certain job, and that wages reflect this. The butcher earns more than the baker, Smith reasons, in part because most people would prefer the work of the baker. You have to pay someone enough more to convince them to be a butcher. There are a lot of jobs that pay less than software engineer, but would be more desirable provided the pay isn't too much less. For example, someone might prefer to be a dental hygienist, figuring that the work is flexible, steady, and there's less of a possibility of age discrimination later in life. This person would become a software engineer for twice the dental hygienist salary, but not for 10% more. In a free market society, it's not up to us to make that decision. If you want to get software engineers for in San Francisco for 10% more than a dental hygienist's salary, and you can't get any, that's the market's answer. Corporate capitalists have discovered that if you don't like the market's answer, have the government ask for you.
- luckylion 6y ago
  > The butcher earns more than the baker, Smith reasons, in part because most people would prefer the work of the baker. You have to pay someone enough more to convince them to be a butcher. And the surveillance capitalism developer earns more than the entire village. Ergo the market commands us to all develop surveillance stuff so Saudi Arabia can spy on dissidents and then chop them up in their embassies. But again, that's not the point I was making, it's weird that multiple people understand my comments as "we should remove the free market". Me saying that it's the market that is making it hard for normal companies to find talent is only the background for what I'm actually trying to get across: It's not the coding challenge that is making it hard to find developers. A company that isn't in a hyper-profitable space like ad-tech or surveillance (watching employees during WFH is booming) or fintech (figuring out new ways to make people part with their money) won't be able to attract talent by removing a coding challenge. It's just not an important factor in the equation.
  - geebee 6y ago
    I will engage with your claim that coding tests aren't making it hard to find developers. I think it is a more important factor than you do. On a personal level, coding tests are a deterrent for me in applying for new jobs. I have my old copy of data structures and algorithms, and I've gone through "Cracking the Coding Interview." I actually enjoyed it at first. They're interesting and challenging problems. If there were an exam - maybe something similar to the actuarial calculus or probability exams - I'd probably be interested in studying hard for it and passing it. However, I'm no longer interested in re-loading this information into short term memory in order to take a whiteboard exam. This may be a facet of how my own brain works vs others. I just don't walk around prepared to figure out which elements of a set, when combined after permutation, are equal to an existing member of the set. Or how to find all square sub-matrices with a positive determinant in a larger matrix. I can do these things - I've enjoyed doing them - but for me, it takes a lot of training and prep to re-load it in a way that I'm ready for the 45 minute whiteboard exercise. If it were a proper, lasting exam, I'd be happy to do it, but it's just too random, uncertain, and capriciously scored for me to want to do it anymore. I will note that some people don't have thae same trouble I have with this, and - I really mean this - this may actually indicate that they are better candidates than I am. In short, I need to acknowledge that I may certainly not be the "talent" that anyone is missing out on. Money makes a difference too, but the reason I brought up Wealth of Nations is to draw your attention to the section "Of Wages and Profit in the different Employments of Labour and Stock" http://geolib.com/smith.adam/won1-10.html http://geolib.com/smith.adam/won1-10.html I would recommend the entire article, as Smith breaks down the various factors that can lead to higher or lower wages, but you don't really need to read the whole thing, here's smith's summary: "THE five following are the principal circumstances which, so far as I have been able to observe, make up for a small pecuniary gain in some employments, and counterbalance a great one in others: first, the agreeableness or disagreeableness of the employments themselves; secondly, the easiness and cheapness, or the difficulty and expense of learning them; thirdly, the constancy or inconstancy of employment in them; fourthly, the small or great trust which must be reposed in those who exercise them; and, fifthly, the probability or improbability of success in them." Within this matrix, software engineering does have a lot to recommend it. For example, Law requires a very expensive and lengthy graduate degree, whereas software engineering doesn't, even though most successful SE's generally do have some kind of undergraduate, and often graduate, degree in rigorous fields that require a lot more math than law. How people will respond to this (along with other aspects of these two fields) depends a lot on their own personal wiring as well. Within this matrix, yes, I do think that many people find in person, oral exams, at a whiteboard or at a computer under scrutiny and time pressure, on topics that they often don't know well in advance, evaluated by people whose credentials and skill they don't know in advance... yes, I think many people find that a deterrent, either for applying for new jobs, or entering the field in the first place. Many people consider these on-the-spot exams extremely stressful, especially when they are in person, at a whiteboard. And we go through days of it, and a new round of study, every time we apply for a jbo. Tech interview exams are not the only factor making it harder to attract candidates, but neither are any of the multiple factors identified and elaborated on by Smith. But I absolutely believe they are a factor.