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I appreciate the alternative perspective and productive-pessimism, but anecdotally in my immediate social circle of engineers, 5 have changed jobs - all for sub

I appreciate the alternative perspective and productive-pessimism, but anecdotally in my immediate social circle of engineers, 5 have changed jobs - all for substantial upgrades, and not 1 of them was for a job that required office presence or downgrade in quality of environment. The last year has been so strong for online tech that there is a heavy vacuum effect on the available talent. FAANG are struggling to fill demand in hiring and are offering increasingly high salaries. This cascades to other industries. Top engineering talent at logistics companies are leaving to go work for big tech, same with banks. Recruiters are charging 22-25% for placements, and having difficulties filling them. Not just tech, other industries as well. There was this initial moment of employment "musical chairs" when the pandemic set in and everybody who had a job was clinging to it, but we're now in a solid counter-reaction where even traditional industries are having their workforce disrupted by new opportunities. We're not even seeing the full brunt of it, with many industries running at reduced capacity (travel, hospitality, entertainment). Generally speaking, if people are leaving jobs for new ones (or none...) it's because they calculated that it was for the better, thus, I think people will generally be happier about their state of employment in 2022 as the article states. I'll add that many people working minimum wage jobs took this opportunity to become entrepreneurs which is a really healthy step up from that situation.

screye 5y ago
Agreed. My point was more about taking a break or negotiating better QOL. My anecdotal experience is similar to yours in terms of compensation. However, I haven't seen anyone be able to negotiate lower hours, more vacation or periodic employment that would allow them to pursue the 'RE' once they have reached the 'FI' of FIRE. Lifestyle creep only moves in one direction and is usually permanent.
- tgtweak 5y ago
  Yeah I will agree on this - higher pay higher stakes usually. I know a few that moved out of 996 companies and are much MUCH happier, and better compensated. One used the offer to solicit a counter-offer and extra vacation time at her current role so I guess it's not all terrible.
thatfrenchguy 5y ago
> FAANG are struggling to fill demand in hiring and are offering increasingly high salaries This has been the case, according to my colleagues who are older, since at least 2003 ;-)
- vmception 5y ago
  > Recruiters are charging 22-25% for placements, and having difficulties filling them. This has been the same as well, to my knowledge, since 2010
- rubicon33 5y ago
  And yet, they still persist on presenting leetcode riddles that have very little relevance to the job being interviewed for. If they were hurting that much for devs, you'd think they might lower the bar a little by not requiring a years study of leetcode.
  - kamarg 5y ago
    It's more expensive to make a bad hire than to not hire someone and move a bit slower.
    - skeeter2020 5y ago
      while this is true, maybe they should work on how they assess candidates instead of continually complaining about how there are none.
    - kkdaemas 5y ago
      So... they double-down on a poor proxy of effectiveness on the job?
    - lanstin 5y ago
      Leet code is neither sufficient or necessary to writing brilliant software. Your statement is true but Google, being mostly people cut from the same cloth, has group think about these issues. On the other hand, that monolithic culture is probably what has limited their success and kept them from being a more harmful monopoly.
reverse_list 5y ago
These comments about how the market is on fire for developers always make me sad. Not your fault, but outside the US (and maybe western/northern Europe) you get lowballed hard, even with years of experience. And the supposedly lower CoL doesn't make up for it, at all, not even remotely. I'm not even talking about getting crazy bay area compensations, I'm talking about hoping something better than a $25k-$45k range for experienced engineers.
- mandelbrotwurst 5y ago
  Out of curiosity, where are you located?
  - aurelianito 5y ago
    Not the original commenter, but this is the situation in Argentina. I would love to do a remote gig and get 100k a year. I am a programmer with over 20 years of experience and I can program professionally in over 10 different programming languages.
    - rubicon33 5y ago
      It is worth noting that software salaries are artificially inflated HEAVILY due to a general unwillingness or lack of interest in hiring overseas developers. The second this changes, the bottom drops out of software. I don't know if it will ever happen that big companies begin openly accepting overseas applicants but if/when it does, you can expect that it wont be for 100k. Suddenly when you consider the entire planet, there's no longer a shortage of developers, and the employer has all the power.
      - momirlan 5y ago
        Employers had 20+ years to switch to overseas workers. The percentage of jobs that went east has stabilized, and it's not going to change dramatically.
      - Volrath89 5y ago
jugg1es 5y ago
It's not not just FAANG having a hard time finding skilled engineers - everyone is having the same problem.
- draw_down 5y ago
  Right but they pay top of market. It says more about the market that Google can’t find people than some shitty company that doesn’t pay well.
asdff 5y ago
It depends on your field. I know people whose industries have been on a hiring freeze since last march, and have been applying for almost a year and a half now to the few openings that do appear during this span. Must be a nice time to be a software engineer, though.

screye 5y ago

Agreed. My point was more about taking a break or negotiating better QOL. My anecdotal experience is similar to yours in terms of compensation. However, I haven't seen anyone be able to negotiate lower hours, more vacation or periodic employment that would allow them to pursue the 'RE' once they have reached the 'FI' of FIRE. Lifestyle creep only moves in one direction and is usually permanent.

tgtweak 5y ago
Yeah I will agree on this - higher pay higher stakes usually. I know a few that moved out of 996 companies and are much MUCH happier, and better compensated. One used the offer to solicit a counter-offer and extra vacation time at her current role so I guess it's not all terrible.

thatfrenchguy 5y ago

> FAANG are struggling to fill demand in hiring and are offering increasingly high salaries This has been the case, according to my colleagues who are older, since at least 2003 ;-)

vmception 5y ago
> Recruiters are charging 22-25% for placements, and having difficulties filling them. This has been the same as well, to my knowledge, since 2010
rubicon33 5y ago
And yet, they still persist on presenting leetcode riddles that have very little relevance to the job being interviewed for. If they were hurting that much for devs, you'd think they might lower the bar a little by not requiring a years study of leetcode.
- kamarg 5y ago
  It's more expensive to make a bad hire than to not hire someone and move a bit slower.
  - skeeter2020 5y ago
    while this is true, maybe they should work on how they assess candidates instead of continually complaining about how there are none.
  - kkdaemas 5y ago
    So... they double-down on a poor proxy of effectiveness on the job?
  - lanstin 5y ago
    Leet code is neither sufficient or necessary to writing brilliant software. Your statement is true but Google, being mostly people cut from the same cloth, has group think about these issues. On the other hand, that monolithic culture is probably what has limited their success and kept them from being a more harmful monopoly.

reverse_list 5y ago

These comments about how the market is on fire for developers always make me sad. Not your fault, but outside the US (and maybe western/northern Europe) you get lowballed hard, even with years of experience. And the supposedly lower CoL doesn't make up for it, at all, not even remotely. I'm not even talking about getting crazy bay area compensations, I'm talking about hoping something better than a $25k-$45k range for experienced engineers.

mandelbrotwurst 5y ago
Out of curiosity, where are you located?
- aurelianito 5y ago
  Not the original commenter, but this is the situation in Argentina. I would love to do a remote gig and get 100k a year. I am a programmer with over 20 years of experience and I can program professionally in over 10 different programming languages.
  - rubicon33 5y ago
    It is worth noting that software salaries are artificially inflated HEAVILY due to a general unwillingness or lack of interest in hiring overseas developers. The second this changes, the bottom drops out of software. I don't know if it will ever happen that big companies begin openly accepting overseas applicants but if/when it does, you can expect that it wont be for 100k. Suddenly when you consider the entire planet, there's no longer a shortage of developers, and the employer has all the power.
    - momirlan 5y ago
      Employers had 20+ years to switch to overseas workers. The percentage of jobs that went east has stabilized, and it's not going to change dramatically.
    - Volrath89 5y ago

jugg1es 5y ago

It's not not just FAANG having a hard time finding skilled engineers - everyone is having the same problem.

draw_down 5y ago
Right but they pay top of market. It says more about the market that Google can’t find people than some shitty company that doesn’t pay well.

asdff 5y ago

It depends on your field. I know people whose industries have been on a hiring freeze since last march, and have been applying for almost a year and a half now to the few openings that do appear during this span. Must be a nice time to be a software engineer, though.