10 ms·

Software Developer Shortage Is Coming

80 points by samspenc 5y ago

twiddling 5y ago
"Another way to attract and retain employees, and to support internal career advancement, is to engage employees in on-the-job education"
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  I don’t know why they suggest this before suggesting raising wages or improving conditions. Offer 50k more or a 4-day-week and you won’t have a shortage of anything.
  - twiddling 5y ago
    Actually providing a path for advancement is cited over compensation concerns in a lot of exit interviews I have seen
    - marktangotango 5y ago
      This will always be the case. The last thing the majority of companies want to do is provide a clear path to promotion and pay increases. Face it, the vast majority of non technical companies are all about cost cutting, doing more with less. Hence job hopping is how developers get promotions and raises.
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      I think a lot of those are code for compensation, though. It’s a lot more polite to say “I didn’t see a path to advance here” than it is to say “this other company was willing to pay me more” [or “I was tired of your particular flavor of bullshit”].
    - EvilEy3 5y ago
      Because advancement offers what? Right, bigger compensation.
      - xxpor 5y ago
        It's not just that though. It's also the oppertunity to work on more interesting things and less on day to day drudge work.
        ryandrake 5y ago
        Beyond a certain point, though, advancement can mean less and less interesting domain-specific work, and more things like managing people, strategic decision making, presenting to executives and business stakeholders, and yes politics. The only thing that is almost universally true about "advancement" is more compensation. So, if someone is complaining about advancement in their exit interview, it's very often code-word for compensation.
        jacobr1 5y ago
        I've also seen advancement as a cover for "unfair advancement of others." Which is sometimes the trigger for leaving: "why did they get the promotion when I have been-here-longer/work-harder/do-better-work?"
      - handrous 5y ago
        - Better comp (significantly better, not insulting 4% raises) - Better working conditions (possibly including more respect and higher social status) - Different work (sick of development, want to move into management or product or whatever) - Better prospects for future employment ("when I'm a middling-quality 45 year old developer I might not be able to find a job anymore... as a middling-quality 45-year-old manager, on the other hand, I'll do just fine) One or (probably) more of those are what people want when they talk about wanting advancement opportunities. The comp is pretty much always going to be one of the things they're focused on, as it's a big part of what distinguishes advancement from changing careers. The better pay and/or status is what makes it advancement.
    - chrisseaton 5y ago
      > path for advancement I'm pretty sure that's code for better compensation and better working conditions.
    - whimsicalism 5y ago
      Because discussing compensation is impolitic. "Path for advancement" is often code for under-compensation.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - throwawayboise 5y ago
    ACM is an academic organization. So education is going to be the answer they reach for. Software devs already make a lot more than most staff-level jobs. Why will another 50K shake out talent that is not already in the market? I think the more likely approach is that companies are going to be more open to remote contracting in places like Eastern Europe, South America, India, and Southeast Asia. There are a lot of examples of this not working so well in the past, but there were also a lot of examples of WFH not working so well, until there was no choice and companies figured out how to make it work.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - mmarq 5y ago
      > I think the more likely approach is that companies are going to be more open to remote contracting in places like Eastern Europe, South America, India, and Southeast Asia. There are a lot of examples of this not working so well in the past, but there were also a lot of examples of WFH not working so well, until there was no choice and companies figured out how to make it work. It’s very hard to hire and coordinate good developers abroad. We have some devs in India and Spain, but some directors spent weeks there talking to consultancies and ensuring they were hiring good candidates. They are cheaper local consultancies, but not much cheaper than local individual contractors. One who plans to hire randos in east Asia and pay them peanuts, should prepare for troubles. Good developers may be a bit cheaper in India than in the UK, but they don’t come for free and they require non-negligible coordination costs.
      - jacobr1 5y ago
        Yep, but there are price points where it starts being worth costs. If you want to hire a team of 10 engineers (mix of junior/mid/senior) at an average FTE cost of $150k and are struggling to do it in the US, and could probably make it happen at $200k - $250k, the looking at hiring 10 engineers in another country for $80-$120k and hiring another 3-4 local engineers/managers at $250k to manage the coordination inefficiencies still probably comes out ahead. You still need to hire (or get a vendor that hires) good developers or you'll be screwed though. I was burnt by some bad Indian outsourcing earlier in my career, but since then have worked with excellent firms from India, Ukraine and Columbia. But we paid top of market (for the foreign market) rates for that value.
- Oras 5y ago
  "establish a dual career path for managerial and technical staff, and invest in employee education and training." I have the impression that the article is assuming: 1. The work is already interesting for developers and they are learning and applying what they learn. 2. Developers are paid well. 3. There is a good culture.
- SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
  You can either give me more money, or make me more attractive to those who will pay me more, so I suppose either way works for me.
samspenc 5y ago
The actual title is "The 2021 Software Developer Shortage Is Coming", which is what I had initially submitted, but it looks like HN automatically trims off "The" and the current year?
- rolph 5y ago
  its very common to tag a year to the end as well, such as : Software Developer Shortage Is Coming[2021]
  - pandem 5y ago
    That's really only used for old articles to give context and is not considered to be part of the title.
    - rolph 5y ago
      its a tag for the date and its a way of keeping the date in the title
qeternity 5y ago
Has it not already been here for some time?
- commandlinefan 5y ago
  That was my first thought - isn't that why I get two or three recruiter offers a day on LinkedIn?
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    > isn't that why I get two or three recruiter offers a day on LinkedIn? Do people really get this? I get two or three a year. Here's something I tell people - I was hired a couple of years ago from a completely cold LinkedIn message. Nobody else was sending me them so it really caught my attention that someone would be so interested in what I was doing! Lots of people assume everyone's getting courted by recruiters - I think there's probably a very very long tail of decent people who aren't and are only simple a reach-out to away.
    - zoover2020 5y ago
      Yes. As an almost medior at FAANG I get 2-3 a day on average
      - chrisseaton 5y ago
        > medior Cool word.
    - futureproofd 5y ago
      Maybe your profile needs some updating. The market is HOT right now.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - tudelo 5y ago
tester756 5y ago
Nice, maybe it'll help me steal a job in a country with way better currency and salaries
- dragosmocrii 5y ago
  you live in Europe?
  - tester756 5y ago
    yup
  - odiroot 5y ago
    This hits close to home.
  - onion2k 5y ago
    I do, and I would also like a job working for a US company that pays better than the UK. Email address is in my profile.
- SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
  As a Canadian - I totally agree. One day I'll see 6 figures (and that's in our funny coloured money), but it's not this day.
warmcat 5y ago
How Can Companies Improve Their Retention and Hiring? Answer is simple, Pay the people appropriate salaries and remove micromanagers to improve conditions.
- crooked-v 5y ago
  Actual raises would help. In every software dev job I've had, every significant pay increase has come from either switching employers or threatening to switch employers.
  - 1000100_1000101 5y ago
    I think most HR departments are hoping people can't do math, and as such, raises should be expressed in after-inflation-and-taxation values. If we force credit-cards and car loans to use a standard annual easy to understand APR format, why not enforce simplicity on our incomes too. I think my last raise, after inflation and income tax changes were taken into account, ended up being something like a 0.1% increase. I'm happy I'm employed and all, but lets stop pretending I got a "raise".
    - milkytron 5y ago
      > I think my last raise, after inflation and income tax changes were taken into account, ended up being something like a 0.1% increase. My last raise was actually a decrease when compared with inflation. I took on the responsibilities of a dev that left and a lead that didn't lead. I asked for a raise and they gave me what they said, "Was the best we could do." I left and got a 40% raise somewhere else, and started a mass exodus once others knew how much I got offered. I'm pretty sure that company now outsources all development aside from a couple people who stayed to start their career. They were already beginning to outsource development jobs, and we could all see the glass ceiling that was installed on top of our heads, despite being told it didn't exist.
      - derekp7 5y ago
        I wonder if instead of asking for a higher raise, if there is better luck asking for a promotion. A promotion can typically be justified as getting an additional 10 - 15% bump in pay on top of the last merit increase, and can happen at any time of the year. Technically you are leaving one role and getting hired into a new one, but at the same company.
logical_person 5y ago
This article is absurd, the statistics are entirely around "computer and information science" degrees - note this is NOT comp. sci. What software developers do any of us know with that major, lol? As if the # of software engineers in the job market is tied to that major at all (or any specific major, really)...
- xxpor 5y ago
  what? i'd say ~90% of the people I know in software have CS degrees, and the balance have EE, CE, or no degree at all.
  - logical_person 5y ago
    CIS is not computer science.
    - gameswithgo 5y ago
      I understand that there are many people who want to insist that "computer science" is not programming, and that computer science degrees have nothing to do with programming. At the same time, many of us went to college and got degrees that our university called "computer science" and we learned how to develop software and became software developers. and people continue to do this.
      - mden 5y ago
        That's not relevant to the point they are making. CIS is a different major than CS.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - 5y ago
ranma4703 5y ago
Maybe companies will finally start hiring new developers, instead of starting each of their positions at 2+ years of experience?
- twwy_qqqq 5y ago
  I am an experienced developer. Worked in many companies, last term 4 years. Current back end Java and other skills. Looking for work for more than a year. Can't find a position - no good reasons when rejected after interviews. Becoming skeptical about actual developer shortage in Bay Area.
EvilEy3 5y ago
> Shortage of abused developers who work for peanuts* Fixed title a bit.
- rawtxapp 5y ago
  Yep, as evidenced by the fact that FAANG seems to have no issues finding new developers.
  - codegeek 5y ago
    FAANGs can afford to pay very high salaries. Good for the devs who can get those jobs. But there are quite many companies that cannot match FAANG level of pay but still pay well and have a good environment. Are you saying that unless a company can pay FAANG level, they should struggle to find devs ?
    - VRay 5y ago
      I'd happily hire a full time live-in butler for minimum wage plus room and board. Are you saying that unless I can pay the market rate, I should struggle to find a butler?
      - codegeek 5y ago
        "pay the market rate" Is FAANG salary really market rate ? That's the question.
        doytch 5y ago
        It's the market rate for a live-in butler. If you can't afford that, maybe just get the cleaning staff who comes in once a month and order pizza once a week.
    - rawtxapp 5y ago
      I'm not saying they should struggle, I'm saying they should re-adjust their expectations on how many/what level of engineers they can get. You can't get greatest level of engineering when those engineers have options that pay them 2-3x what these companies are offering.
mcharezinski 5y ago
It's an interesting topic. From my observation industry is divided. For well-paying companies there is an influx of candidates - these companies can be very picky and calibrate hiring process to get the best of the best. Whatever it means in FANG+ big tech context. On the other side, there are plenty of small, medium, mediocre, old-school places and these companies have to fight for talent if they don't pay a top dollar.
kingsuper20 5y ago
I think I've read that same article every year for 40 years. Gotta love it.
- gilbetron 5y ago
  This is actually more focused, specifically on the effect the pandemic has on how many new development-related graduates are coming into the market for the next several years.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
whimsicalism 5y ago
Whenever I read labor shortage, I just replace with wage shortage. Calling something a labor shortage is a political choice.
- anm89 5y ago
  This isn't really much of a revelation or hot take. That's literally what an economist means when they say there is a labor shortage. The graph for labor shows the intersection between the quantity supplied and the price it is supplied at. It would be meaningless to talk about one without the other.
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    No, shortage in this context is actually a colloquialism, it is not what an economist means when they refer to a shortage. In this case, business owners are using this as a short hand for "the market equilibrium price for this labor is too high!" The only people imposing price ceilings here are the managers themselves for their individual firm. My argument is that this is a bad colloquialism, and a political one.
    - anm89 5y ago
      > the market equilibrium PRICE for this labor is too high Are you saying that an economist wouldn't say we are in a labor shortage right now? Because that is dead wrong. So then an economist would say that we are in a labor shortage but what they mean is that not enough labor is being supplied at THE CURRENT PRICE? Right? As in that is what an economist means by a labor shortage. So I really don't get what you are saying.
      - whimsicalism 5y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortage Look at the difference between the "economic" and the "common" usage. Namely, > There are almost always willing buyers at a lower-than-market-clearing price; the narrower technical definition doesn't consider failure to serve this demand as a "shortage", even if it would be described that way in a social or political context (which the simple model of supply and demand does not attempt to encompass). If we've failed to reach equilibrium price for some reason or other, it is because of monopsony effects - namely firms failing to raise wages to equilibrium level. It is in this sense that I think flipping "labor shortage" to "wage shortage" is valuable.
alexashka 5y ago
I wish there was a shortage - it'd help shift the power dynamics from stupid people with money funding uber for cats, to people who have a modicum of sense.
tboyd47 5y ago
> Companies can get ahead of the shortfall with two strategic steps: establishing a dual career path that allows employees to grow, and investing in employee education and training. This advice is really tired and has worn thin over the years. The effects of the pandemic are not specific to the computer programming industry. Every industry in every area is experiencing a post-pandemic talent shortage, and the solution is going to be the same in every case: raise wages. Yes, it's really that simple. The last companies to realize this are going to be the last to solve their staffing problems. But the programming world will be hit with a one-two punch. Devs don't spend money on expensive training courses and certs to gain skills; we just get hired somewhere and then pester our co-workers. This is why junior dev jobs are always on site. No one wants to hire a junior developer remotely. When all the software companies went full remote, they just took a break from hiring juniors (!). Junior-level hires are charity, senior-level hires are desperation, and mid-level jobs drive the industry. In about 2 years, we'll be dealing not only with more demand for mid-level talent but less supply -- a lot less. Companies need to raise wages and get back to hiring juniors, pronto.
- golemotron 5y ago
  > Companies need to raise wages and get back to hiring juniors, pronto. It's time to hedge against inflation too.
  - tboyd47 5y ago
    Scary, but true. It's 100% inflation. I don't know what else to call it.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- forrestthewoods 5y ago
  > The effects of the pandemic are not specific to the computer programming industry. Every industry in every area is experiencing a post-pandemic talent shortage, and the solution is going to be the same in every case: raise wages. Companies can’t raise wages beyond what they have. Gamedevs will never be able to compete with FANG because most games devs lose money and FANG profits billions per quarter. Grocery stores can’t hire fast enough. They also earn less than $5000 annual profit per employee. So they can’t raise wages without also raising prices. Now you could say “then those places deserve to go out of business”. Maybe so! But that doesn’t mean a profitable business that can afford larger wages will magically rise from the ashes. The current jobs situation is really really weird imho. For both fancy white collar jobs and low wage jobs.
therealjumbo 5y ago
The timeless response: https://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-crisis-is-a-myth https://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-crisis-...
rangoon626 5y ago
Or we could try moving away from the full-time thing and run the field under a contract model instead of initiating an arms race? This crunch is entirely the fault of the c-suite.
fallingknife 5y ago
Yep it's another labor shortage. Guess we'll have to bring in foreign developers who we have more leverage over and pay much lower wages to. Sorry, but we have no other choice. (Pay no mind to the 10 million unemployed Americans) Sincerely, Management
- bialpio 5y ago
  That's just invisible hand of the market at work. Why should a company spend more than it has to? Isn't this what the oh-so-sacred capitalism is all about?
  - fallingknife 5y ago
    I pay taxes to the government supposedly so that it will act in my interest. I'd like it to do it's damn job for once.
    - bialpio 5y ago
      Except you are not the only one paying taxes (and lobbying) and now the government needs to come up with solutions that satisfy everyone, with the current approach seemingly being that regulation is a slippery slope to socialism and eating bark off of trees. In order for the government to limit outsourcing (which IMO would increasingly happen if you ban immigration), you'd have to impose limits on what private companies can do with their own assets - I don't think this'll fly.
      - fallingknife 5y ago
        Well a solution that satisfies everyone is impossible, but most people derive the vast majority of their income from labor, not capital assets, so policies that prevent expansion of the labor supply will benefit the vast majority of citizens.
- outside1234 5y ago
  Agreed, some large fraction of those 10M unemployed Americans should learn how to code at some level (could be a CNC machine, could be Excel, ..., could be Python) to get to employable.
jandrewrogers 5y ago
To put it a bit more precisely, there is neither a developer nor labor shortage. There is a skill shortage. Companies don't pay you for being a "developer" or "labor", they pay for specific skills and the ability to apply them effectively and competently. There is a persistent shortage of many skill domains in software. The barrier is that, in many cases, there are few paths to acquiring those skills aside from years of diligent self-study and experience, so it isn't simply a case of manufacturing them on demand. These are the highly paid jobs that are going unfilled even with stratospheric wages, and the demand in some of these skill areas is growing rapidly with no matching increase in supply. In some skill domains, the market clearing wage for an experienced developer is around $1M right now. I would think that should provide sufficient incentive if increased pay could solve the problem.
- flukus 5y ago
  > Companies don't pay you for being a "developer" or "labor", they pay for specific skills and the ability to apply them effectively and competently. Companies tend to be way too specific about the skills required and any learning curve is not permitted. I've used just about every desktop UI framework under the sun and a whole bunch of web ones, but companies that need react developers won't look at me for instance. There might be some highly specialized skills that can command a premium but those are mostly rare exceptions. Along with companies not training there's also been a shift away from specialized roles and requiring all devs be experts in every tech the company uses past, present and future. When they hire someone that knows x "just in case" they're shrinking the talent pool available.
  - bostik 5y ago
    > Companies tend to be way too specific about the skills required This is true at least for finance and (technical) hedge funds. Having observed from the sidelines over the last few years, a common pattern has emerged. Companies realise out that they have a skill or functionality gap (good), figure out what an ideal candidate would look like (fine), carve out a very specific pigeon hole in their organisation chart for that person (wait what), and then start hiring to fit that pigeon hole exactly. I guess that makes sense if you can afford to wait for and/or poach the ideal person. For mere mortals it feels absurd.
mbrodersen 5y ago
Easy solution: fire 50% of middle management and use the saved money to raise software developer salaries. Firing 50% of middle management alone will (for most companies) increase productivity. Especially if you fire the middle managers who are busy in meetings all the time (they are the incompetent ones).
- flavius29663 5y ago
  Not only you'll raise salaries and keep devs happier. You'll get more productivity, since those managers like to fill their calendar and yours with useless meetings.
sam_lowry_ 5y ago
Here is a totally different view from Europe. I have 20+ years of career in R&D, consulting, startups and multinationals, publications in 1-tier conferences, lots of Java/PHP, a bit of Cloud, Big Data and ML experience. I grew up to IT Director, downshifted to a SSE at a unicorn. I've been searching for a new job for over half a year in Europe. Mostly remote. I am willing to do legacy programming. My only requirement is to work on a product creating real value. But I always bump into artificial niches: GDPR/CCPA/KYC compliance, all sorts of crypto, yet another social network, data mining users, trading floor software... Exactly the sort of things I am tired of. There is no shortage of software developers, but a big shortage of decent work.

80 points by samspenc 5y ago

"Another way to attract and retain employees, and to support internal career advancement, is to engage employees in on-the-job education"

chrisseaton 5y ago
I don’t know why they suggest this before suggesting raising wages or improving conditions. Offer 50k more or a 4-day-week and you won’t have a shortage of anything.
- twiddling 5y ago
  Actually providing a path for advancement is cited over compensation concerns in a lot of exit interviews I have seen
  - marktangotango 5y ago
    This will always be the case. The last thing the majority of companies want to do is provide a clear path to promotion and pay increases. Face it, the vast majority of non technical companies are all about cost cutting, doing more with less. Hence job hopping is how developers get promotions and raises.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    I think a lot of those are code for compensation, though. It’s a lot more polite to say “I didn’t see a path to advance here” than it is to say “this other company was willing to pay me more” [or “I was tired of your particular flavor of bullshit”].
  - EvilEy3 5y ago
    Because advancement offers what? Right, bigger compensation.
    - xxpor 5y ago
      It's not just that though. It's also the oppertunity to work on more interesting things and less on day to day drudge work.
      - ryandrake 5y ago
        Beyond a certain point, though, advancement can mean less and less interesting domain-specific work, and more things like managing people, strategic decision making, presenting to executives and business stakeholders, and yes politics. The only thing that is almost universally true about "advancement" is more compensation. So, if someone is complaining about advancement in their exit interview, it's very often code-word for compensation.
        jacobr1 5y ago
        I've also seen advancement as a cover for "unfair advancement of others." Which is sometimes the trigger for leaving: "why did they get the promotion when I have been-here-longer/work-harder/do-better-work?"
    - handrous 5y ago
      - Better comp (significantly better, not insulting 4% raises) - Better working conditions (possibly including more respect and higher social status) - Different work (sick of development, want to move into management or product or whatever) - Better prospects for future employment ("when I'm a middling-quality 45 year old developer I might not be able to find a job anymore... as a middling-quality 45-year-old manager, on the other hand, I'll do just fine) One or (probably) more of those are what people want when they talk about wanting advancement opportunities. The comp is pretty much always going to be one of the things they're focused on, as it's a big part of what distinguishes advancement from changing careers. The better pay and/or status is what makes it advancement.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    > path for advancement I'm pretty sure that's code for better compensation and better working conditions.
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    Because discussing compensation is impolitic. "Path for advancement" is often code for under-compensation.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  ACM is an academic organization. So education is going to be the answer they reach for. Software devs already make a lot more than most staff-level jobs. Why will another 50K shake out talent that is not already in the market? I think the more likely approach is that companies are going to be more open to remote contracting in places like Eastern Europe, South America, India, and Southeast Asia. There are a lot of examples of this not working so well in the past, but there were also a lot of examples of WFH not working so well, until there was no choice and companies figured out how to make it work.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - mmarq 5y ago
    > I think the more likely approach is that companies are going to be more open to remote contracting in places like Eastern Europe, South America, India, and Southeast Asia. There are a lot of examples of this not working so well in the past, but there were also a lot of examples of WFH not working so well, until there was no choice and companies figured out how to make it work. It’s very hard to hire and coordinate good developers abroad. We have some devs in India and Spain, but some directors spent weeks there talking to consultancies and ensuring they were hiring good candidates. They are cheaper local consultancies, but not much cheaper than local individual contractors. One who plans to hire randos in east Asia and pay them peanuts, should prepare for troubles. Good developers may be a bit cheaper in India than in the UK, but they don’t come for free and they require non-negligible coordination costs.
    - jacobr1 5y ago
      Yep, but there are price points where it starts being worth costs. If you want to hire a team of 10 engineers (mix of junior/mid/senior) at an average FTE cost of $150k and are struggling to do it in the US, and could probably make it happen at $200k - $250k, the looking at hiring 10 engineers in another country for $80-$120k and hiring another 3-4 local engineers/managers at $250k to manage the coordination inefficiencies still probably comes out ahead. You still need to hire (or get a vendor that hires) good developers or you'll be screwed though. I was burnt by some bad Indian outsourcing earlier in my career, but since then have worked with excellent firms from India, Ukraine and Columbia. But we paid top of market (for the foreign market) rates for that value.
Oras 5y ago
"establish a dual career path for managerial and technical staff, and invest in employee education and training." I have the impression that the article is assuming: 1. The work is already interesting for developers and they are learning and applying what they learn. 2. Developers are paid well. 3. There is a good culture.
SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
You can either give me more money, or make me more attractive to those who will pay me more, so I suppose either way works for me.

samspenc 5y ago

The actual title is "The 2021 Software Developer Shortage Is Coming", which is what I had initially submitted, but it looks like HN automatically trims off "The" and the current year?

rolph 5y ago
its very common to tag a year to the end as well, such as : Software Developer Shortage Is Coming[2021]
- pandem 5y ago
  That's really only used for old articles to give context and is not considered to be part of the title.
  - rolph 5y ago
    its a tag for the date and its a way of keeping the date in the title

qeternity 5y ago

Has it not already been here for some time?

commandlinefan 5y ago
That was my first thought - isn't that why I get two or three recruiter offers a day on LinkedIn?
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  > isn't that why I get two or three recruiter offers a day on LinkedIn? Do people really get this? I get two or three a year. Here's something I tell people - I was hired a couple of years ago from a completely cold LinkedIn message. Nobody else was sending me them so it really caught my attention that someone would be so interested in what I was doing! Lots of people assume everyone's getting courted by recruiters - I think there's probably a very very long tail of decent people who aren't and are only simple a reach-out to away.
  - zoover2020 5y ago
    Yes. As an almost medior at FAANG I get 2-3 a day on average
    - chrisseaton 5y ago
      > medior Cool word.
  - futureproofd 5y ago
    Maybe your profile needs some updating. The market is HOT right now.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - tudelo 5y ago

tester756 5y ago

Nice, maybe it'll help me steal a job in a country with way better currency and salaries

dragosmocrii 5y ago
you live in Europe?
- tester756 5y ago
  yup
- odiroot 5y ago
  This hits close to home.
- onion2k 5y ago
  I do, and I would also like a job working for a US company that pays better than the UK. Email address is in my profile.
SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
As a Canadian - I totally agree. One day I'll see 6 figures (and that's in our funny coloured money), but it's not this day.

warmcat 5y ago

How Can Companies Improve Their Retention and Hiring? Answer is simple, Pay the people appropriate salaries and remove micromanagers to improve conditions.

crooked-v 5y ago
Actual raises would help. In every software dev job I've had, every significant pay increase has come from either switching employers or threatening to switch employers.
- 1000100_1000101 5y ago
  I think most HR departments are hoping people can't do math, and as such, raises should be expressed in after-inflation-and-taxation values. If we force credit-cards and car loans to use a standard annual easy to understand APR format, why not enforce simplicity on our incomes too. I think my last raise, after inflation and income tax changes were taken into account, ended up being something like a 0.1% increase. I'm happy I'm employed and all, but lets stop pretending I got a "raise".
  - milkytron 5y ago
    > I think my last raise, after inflation and income tax changes were taken into account, ended up being something like a 0.1% increase. My last raise was actually a decrease when compared with inflation. I took on the responsibilities of a dev that left and a lead that didn't lead. I asked for a raise and they gave me what they said, "Was the best we could do." I left and got a 40% raise somewhere else, and started a mass exodus once others knew how much I got offered. I'm pretty sure that company now outsources all development aside from a couple people who stayed to start their career. They were already beginning to outsource development jobs, and we could all see the glass ceiling that was installed on top of our heads, despite being told it didn't exist.
    - derekp7 5y ago
      I wonder if instead of asking for a higher raise, if there is better luck asking for a promotion. A promotion can typically be justified as getting an additional 10 - 15% bump in pay on top of the last merit increase, and can happen at any time of the year. Technically you are leaving one role and getting hired into a new one, but at the same company.

logical_person 5y ago

This article is absurd, the statistics are entirely around "computer and information science" degrees - note this is NOT comp. sci. What software developers do any of us know with that major, lol? As if the # of software engineers in the job market is tied to that major at all (or any specific major, really)...

xxpor 5y ago
what? i'd say ~90% of the people I know in software have CS degrees, and the balance have EE, CE, or no degree at all.
- logical_person 5y ago
  CIS is not computer science.
  - gameswithgo 5y ago
    I understand that there are many people who want to insist that "computer science" is not programming, and that computer science degrees have nothing to do with programming. At the same time, many of us went to college and got degrees that our university called "computer science" and we learned how to develop software and became software developers. and people continue to do this.
    - mden 5y ago
      That's not relevant to the point they are making. CIS is a different major than CS.
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ranma4703 5y ago

Maybe companies will finally start hiring new developers, instead of starting each of their positions at 2+ years of experience?

twwy_qqqq 5y ago
I am an experienced developer. Worked in many companies, last term 4 years. Current back end Java and other skills. Looking for work for more than a year. Can't find a position - no good reasons when rejected after interviews. Becoming skeptical about actual developer shortage in Bay Area.

EvilEy3 5y ago

> Shortage of abused developers who work for peanuts* Fixed title a bit.

rawtxapp 5y ago
Yep, as evidenced by the fact that FAANG seems to have no issues finding new developers.
- codegeek 5y ago
  FAANGs can afford to pay very high salaries. Good for the devs who can get those jobs. But there are quite many companies that cannot match FAANG level of pay but still pay well and have a good environment. Are you saying that unless a company can pay FAANG level, they should struggle to find devs ?
  - VRay 5y ago
    I'd happily hire a full time live-in butler for minimum wage plus room and board. Are you saying that unless I can pay the market rate, I should struggle to find a butler?
    - codegeek 5y ago
      "pay the market rate" Is FAANG salary really market rate ? That's the question.
      - doytch 5y ago
        It's the market rate for a live-in butler. If you can't afford that, maybe just get the cleaning staff who comes in once a month and order pizza once a week.
  - rawtxapp 5y ago
    I'm not saying they should struggle, I'm saying they should re-adjust their expectations on how many/what level of engineers they can get. You can't get greatest level of engineering when those engineers have options that pay them 2-3x what these companies are offering.

mcharezinski 5y ago

It's an interesting topic. From my observation industry is divided. For well-paying companies there is an influx of candidates - these companies can be very picky and calibrate hiring process to get the best of the best. Whatever it means in FANG+ big tech context. On the other side, there are plenty of small, medium, mediocre, old-school places and these companies have to fight for talent if they don't pay a top dollar.

kingsuper20 5y ago

I think I've read that same article every year for 40 years. Gotta love it.

gilbetron 5y ago
This is actually more focused, specifically on the effect the pandemic has on how many new development-related graduates are coming into the market for the next several years.

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whimsicalism 5y ago

Whenever I read labor shortage, I just replace with wage shortage. Calling something a labor shortage is a political choice.

anm89 5y ago
This isn't really much of a revelation or hot take. That's literally what an economist means when they say there is a labor shortage. The graph for labor shows the intersection between the quantity supplied and the price it is supplied at. It would be meaningless to talk about one without the other.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  No, shortage in this context is actually a colloquialism, it is not what an economist means when they refer to a shortage. In this case, business owners are using this as a short hand for "the market equilibrium price for this labor is too high!" The only people imposing price ceilings here are the managers themselves for their individual firm. My argument is that this is a bad colloquialism, and a political one.
  - anm89 5y ago
    > the market equilibrium PRICE for this labor is too high Are you saying that an economist wouldn't say we are in a labor shortage right now? Because that is dead wrong. So then an economist would say that we are in a labor shortage but what they mean is that not enough labor is being supplied at THE CURRENT PRICE? Right? As in that is what an economist means by a labor shortage. So I really don't get what you are saying.
    - whimsicalism 5y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortage Look at the difference between the "economic" and the "common" usage. Namely, > There are almost always willing buyers at a lower-than-market-clearing price; the narrower technical definition doesn't consider failure to serve this demand as a "shortage", even if it would be described that way in a social or political context (which the simple model of supply and demand does not attempt to encompass). If we've failed to reach equilibrium price for some reason or other, it is because of monopsony effects - namely firms failing to raise wages to equilibrium level. It is in this sense that I think flipping "labor shortage" to "wage shortage" is valuable.

alexashka 5y ago

I wish there was a shortage - it'd help shift the power dynamics from stupid people with money funding uber for cats, to people who have a modicum of sense.

tboyd47 5y ago

> Companies can get ahead of the shortfall with two strategic steps: establishing a dual career path that allows employees to grow, and investing in employee education and training. This advice is really tired and has worn thin over the years. The effects of the pandemic are not specific to the computer programming industry. Every industry in every area is experiencing a post-pandemic talent shortage, and the solution is going to be the same in every case: raise wages. Yes, it's really that simple. The last companies to realize this are going to be the last to solve their staffing problems. But the programming world will be hit with a one-two punch. Devs don't spend money on expensive training courses and certs to gain skills; we just get hired somewhere and then pester our co-workers. This is why junior dev jobs are always on site. No one wants to hire a junior developer remotely. When all the software companies went full remote, they just took a break from hiring juniors (!). Junior-level hires are charity, senior-level hires are desperation, and mid-level jobs drive the industry. In about 2 years, we'll be dealing not only with more demand for mid-level talent but less supply -- a lot less. Companies need to raise wages and get back to hiring juniors, pronto.

golemotron 5y ago
> Companies need to raise wages and get back to hiring juniors, pronto. It's time to hedge against inflation too.
- tboyd47 5y ago
  Scary, but true. It's 100% inflation. I don't know what else to call it.
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forrestthewoods 5y ago
> The effects of the pandemic are not specific to the computer programming industry. Every industry in every area is experiencing a post-pandemic talent shortage, and the solution is going to be the same in every case: raise wages. Companies can’t raise wages beyond what they have. Gamedevs will never be able to compete with FANG because most games devs lose money and FANG profits billions per quarter. Grocery stores can’t hire fast enough. They also earn less than $5000 annual profit per employee. So they can’t raise wages without also raising prices. Now you could say “then those places deserve to go out of business”. Maybe so! But that doesn’t mean a profitable business that can afford larger wages will magically rise from the ashes. The current jobs situation is really really weird imho. For both fancy white collar jobs and low wage jobs.

therealjumbo 5y ago

The timeless response: https://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-crisis-is-a-myth https://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-crisis-...

rangoon626 5y ago

Or we could try moving away from the full-time thing and run the field under a contract model instead of initiating an arms race? This crunch is entirely the fault of the c-suite.

fallingknife 5y ago

Yep it's another labor shortage. Guess we'll have to bring in foreign developers who we have more leverage over and pay much lower wages to. Sorry, but we have no other choice. (Pay no mind to the 10 million unemployed Americans) Sincerely, Management

bialpio 5y ago
That's just invisible hand of the market at work. Why should a company spend more than it has to? Isn't this what the oh-so-sacred capitalism is all about?
- fallingknife 5y ago
  I pay taxes to the government supposedly so that it will act in my interest. I'd like it to do it's damn job for once.
  - bialpio 5y ago
    Except you are not the only one paying taxes (and lobbying) and now the government needs to come up with solutions that satisfy everyone, with the current approach seemingly being that regulation is a slippery slope to socialism and eating bark off of trees. In order for the government to limit outsourcing (which IMO would increasingly happen if you ban immigration), you'd have to impose limits on what private companies can do with their own assets - I don't think this'll fly.
    - fallingknife 5y ago
      Well a solution that satisfies everyone is impossible, but most people derive the vast majority of their income from labor, not capital assets, so policies that prevent expansion of the labor supply will benefit the vast majority of citizens.
outside1234 5y ago
Agreed, some large fraction of those 10M unemployed Americans should learn how to code at some level (could be a CNC machine, could be Excel, ..., could be Python) to get to employable.

jandrewrogers 5y ago

To put it a bit more precisely, there is neither a developer nor labor shortage. There is a skill shortage. Companies don't pay you for being a "developer" or "labor", they pay for specific skills and the ability to apply them effectively and competently. There is a persistent shortage of many skill domains in software. The barrier is that, in many cases, there are few paths to acquiring those skills aside from years of diligent self-study and experience, so it isn't simply a case of manufacturing them on demand. These are the highly paid jobs that are going unfilled even with stratospheric wages, and the demand in some of these skill areas is growing rapidly with no matching increase in supply. In some skill domains, the market clearing wage for an experienced developer is around $1M right now. I would think that should provide sufficient incentive if increased pay could solve the problem.

flukus 5y ago
> Companies don't pay you for being a "developer" or "labor", they pay for specific skills and the ability to apply them effectively and competently. Companies tend to be way too specific about the skills required and any learning curve is not permitted. I've used just about every desktop UI framework under the sun and a whole bunch of web ones, but companies that need react developers won't look at me for instance. There might be some highly specialized skills that can command a premium but those are mostly rare exceptions. Along with companies not training there's also been a shift away from specialized roles and requiring all devs be experts in every tech the company uses past, present and future. When they hire someone that knows x "just in case" they're shrinking the talent pool available.
- bostik 5y ago
  > Companies tend to be way too specific about the skills required This is true at least for finance and (technical) hedge funds. Having observed from the sidelines over the last few years, a common pattern has emerged. Companies realise out that they have a skill or functionality gap (good), figure out what an ideal candidate would look like (fine), carve out a very specific pigeon hole in their organisation chart for that person (wait what), and then start hiring to fit that pigeon hole exactly. I guess that makes sense if you can afford to wait for and/or poach the ideal person. For mere mortals it feels absurd.

mbrodersen 5y ago

Easy solution: fire 50% of middle management and use the saved money to raise software developer salaries. Firing 50% of middle management alone will (for most companies) increase productivity. Especially if you fire the middle managers who are busy in meetings all the time (they are the incompetent ones).

flavius29663 5y ago
Not only you'll raise salaries and keep devs happier. You'll get more productivity, since those managers like to fill their calendar and yours with useless meetings.

sam_lowry_ 5y ago

Here is a totally different view from Europe. I have 20+ years of career in R&D, consulting, startups and multinationals, publications in 1-tier conferences, lots of Java/PHP, a bit of Cloud, Big Data and ML experience. I grew up to IT Director, downshifted to a SSE at a unicorn. I've been searching for a new job for over half a year in Europe. Mostly remote. I am willing to do legacy programming. My only requirement is to work on a product creating real value. But I always bump into artificial niches: GDPR/CCPA/KYC compliance, all sorts of crypto, yet another social network, data mining users, trading floor software... Exactly the sort of things I am tired of. There is no shortage of software developers, but a big shortage of decent work.