4 ms·

Recruiting is proving insanely difficult right now. We are based just outside of London and have been offering "local remote" (1 day in week office generally) f

Recruiting is proving insanely difficult right now. We are based just outside of London and have been offering "local remote" (1 day in week office generally) for about 4 years now. Candidates were always hard to attract (salary and office location) but offering remote work 4 days a week really helped. Now, that perk is now a norm so access to even remotely (no pun intended) skilled candidates is next to impossible.

solosoyokaze 6y ago
It shouldn’t be that hard. I’d drop the one day a week in office requirement and make sure you’re paying market rates (e.g. £100k+ for mid level devs). Lots of good people looking to go fully remote right now.
- ghaff 6y ago
  Possibly. Although the surveys I've seen show something like 75% of employees want to come into an office at least one day per week. Of course 25% is still a lot of people and opens up options considerably for someone that doesn't want to live near a city or at least near your city. Monthly team off-sites are also an issue if you don't mind paying for some travel/hotel.
  - m4tthumphrey 6y ago
    This is a definitely a polarising issue. Some devs prefer to come in to be social, some prefer the office environment and others prefer it at home for the flexibility or are just more productive at home (me included).
    - ghaff 6y ago
      I expect those who can will seek out workplaces that conform to their preferences. Those who want a bustling office won't have that if none of their teammates comes in on a regular basis. And someone who lives a 2 hour drive from the office, much less someone who wants to move out to the mountains, will deeply resent teammates who constantly bug them to come into the office more often.
- benhurmarcel 6y ago
  > (e.g. £100k+ for mid level devs) You wish. In London's fintech maybe.
  - solosoyokaze 6y ago
    I’m talking about global dev salaries. Those London based devs can now easily get SV remote jobs and the matching salaries. It’s not that SV salaries are unusually high, it’s that most places artificially depress dev salaries. I think we’ll see the elimination of layers of over paid management with all that money being captured by developers.
    - benhurmarcel 6y ago
      In my opinion the artificial bubble is more the SV-type salaries. Compare developers salaries with similarly educated/skilled engineers in other disciplines (mechanical, electrical, aerospace, civil…), you'll see that SV developers are the outlier. The reality is that on the global market you can get a good mid-level dev from a first-world country for half that price. And it's not artificial, it's just the market at play.
      - solosoyokaze 6y ago
        I think you're underestimating the amount of investment flowing in to tech companies right now. There's massive VC overhang with billions of dollars more to invest than there are opportunities. Devs are going to capture a lot of that money. It's the tech industry that's the future, the rest have just yet to catch up.
      - mlthoughts2018 6y ago
        You are wrong. The revenue impact of more manufacturing heavy and device heavy industries is lower for those engineers - that’s just how the overhead of other engineering and biotech companies work. Software is fundamentally different and the revenue impact can be multiples or even orders of magnitude higher, in really any industry or company type. Software engineers, even in Silicon valley, are underpaid relative to revenue or profit contributions. Paternalistic and entitled employers in other areas have milked the opportunity for rent seeking by suppressing wages due to disingenuous cost of living policies for a long time. Finally workers have options that let them say, “no, I just won’t take your poor pay job. I don’t care that you think someone in Kansas City or Wyoming should earn X% less for doing the exact same job, and I won’t accept that anti-worker paternalism. Improve your offer or get lost.”
- m4tthumphrey 6y ago
  £100k for web dev does not happen outside London in UK. Barely half that.
  - solosoyokaze 6y ago
    It's definitely the solution to the problem you're having: > Recruiting is proving insanely difficult right now. If you pay a competitive rate, people will work for you. You have to realize that now you're competing with 10X more remote first companies who will hire people who live locally to you.
- barrkel 6y ago
  Mid level devs are more like £70-80k. Although actual quality varies.

solosoyokaze 6y ago

It shouldn’t be that hard. I’d drop the one day a week in office requirement and make sure you’re paying market rates (e.g. £100k+ for mid level devs). Lots of good people looking to go fully remote right now.

ghaff 6y ago
Possibly. Although the surveys I've seen show something like 75% of employees want to come into an office at least one day per week. Of course 25% is still a lot of people and opens up options considerably for someone that doesn't want to live near a city or at least near your city. Monthly team off-sites are also an issue if you don't mind paying for some travel/hotel.
- m4tthumphrey 6y ago
  This is a definitely a polarising issue. Some devs prefer to come in to be social, some prefer the office environment and others prefer it at home for the flexibility or are just more productive at home (me included).
  - ghaff 6y ago
    I expect those who can will seek out workplaces that conform to their preferences. Those who want a bustling office won't have that if none of their teammates comes in on a regular basis. And someone who lives a 2 hour drive from the office, much less someone who wants to move out to the mountains, will deeply resent teammates who constantly bug them to come into the office more often.
benhurmarcel 6y ago
> (e.g. £100k+ for mid level devs) You wish. In London's fintech maybe.
- solosoyokaze 6y ago
  I’m talking about global dev salaries. Those London based devs can now easily get SV remote jobs and the matching salaries. It’s not that SV salaries are unusually high, it’s that most places artificially depress dev salaries. I think we’ll see the elimination of layers of over paid management with all that money being captured by developers.
  - benhurmarcel 6y ago
    In my opinion the artificial bubble is more the SV-type salaries. Compare developers salaries with similarly educated/skilled engineers in other disciplines (mechanical, electrical, aerospace, civil…), you'll see that SV developers are the outlier. The reality is that on the global market you can get a good mid-level dev from a first-world country for half that price. And it's not artificial, it's just the market at play.
    - solosoyokaze 6y ago
      I think you're underestimating the amount of investment flowing in to tech companies right now. There's massive VC overhang with billions of dollars more to invest than there are opportunities. Devs are going to capture a lot of that money. It's the tech industry that's the future, the rest have just yet to catch up.
    - mlthoughts2018 6y ago
      You are wrong. The revenue impact of more manufacturing heavy and device heavy industries is lower for those engineers - that’s just how the overhead of other engineering and biotech companies work. Software is fundamentally different and the revenue impact can be multiples or even orders of magnitude higher, in really any industry or company type. Software engineers, even in Silicon valley, are underpaid relative to revenue or profit contributions. Paternalistic and entitled employers in other areas have milked the opportunity for rent seeking by suppressing wages due to disingenuous cost of living policies for a long time. Finally workers have options that let them say, “no, I just won’t take your poor pay job. I don’t care that you think someone in Kansas City or Wyoming should earn X% less for doing the exact same job, and I won’t accept that anti-worker paternalism. Improve your offer or get lost.”
m4tthumphrey 6y ago
£100k for web dev does not happen outside London in UK. Barely half that.
- solosoyokaze 6y ago
  It's definitely the solution to the problem you're having: > Recruiting is proving insanely difficult right now. If you pay a competitive rate, people will work for you. You have to realize that now you're competing with 10X more remote first companies who will hire people who live locally to you.
barrkel 6y ago
Mid level devs are more like £70-80k. Although actual quality varies.