3 ms·

We just hired two junior devs, and we could have hired more if we had the recs. Please tell me where all these seniors are coming from, because we certainly co

by prhn 5y ago

We just hired two junior devs, and we could have hired more if we had the recs. Please tell me where all these seniors are coming from, because we certainly couldn't find a single qualified one during twelve+ months of interviewing. I also haven't observed "remote work makes onboarding and training more challenging" in companies that are dedicated to their remote workforce (which is basically everybody right now?). I've been remote for almost 10 years. Attrition of senior devs will always be a problem because managers don't properly incentivize sticking around. Most senior devs will never put in the long hours to reach Staff Engineer. I don't blame them, but there needs to be a way to see professional and financial growth for senior engineers who are doing their jobs well. And lastly "everyone's understaffed" because management never lets the calendar breathe. There's always more work scheduled in a given quarter than there are engineers, but management doesn't adjust the schedule accordingly. You could hire 5 senior engineers and they would still make this mistake.

whitepoplar 5y ago
What's the compensation range for senior devs your company wanted to hire?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Tarucho 5y ago
  And what age range?
  - nsonha 5y ago
    there is no such thing, sure if you look 60 (regardless of real age), there COULD be ageism.
    - Tarucho 5y ago
      ·Saying "there is no such thing" does not make it true. What are you? 10? ·You should be able to look whatever you want, even old. ·I`ve been in lots of situations where the first thing the hiring manager asks is the candidate age and drops the CV as soon it finds out is older than 35.
      - nsonha 5y ago
        yes you're right this is cutural, but the question doesn't really have any context. It's just in many countries it's illegal to ask that question, and from my experience working for a couple of Australian and (1) US companies, no one gives a shit about your age, as in the number. Your manager/workmates don't care, HR doesn't have a criterion for it, it's illegal and that's my answer to the question. Again they may care if you are really old. I know back in my home country in Asia it's legal to have an age criterion.
      - okhobb 5y ago
        Is the hiring manager invariably under 35 in these instances also?
    - jpindar 5y ago
      And we hire people of any ethnicity, as long as they don't look different. /s
TuringNYC 5y ago
>> Please tell me where all these seniors are coming from, because we certainly couldn't find a single qualified one during twelve+ months of interviewing. I'm not sure what the company's situation is but when I see these challenges, there are usually one of several issues: 1. Companies are expecting senior devs but not willing to give Senior pay 2. Companies are giving senior pay, perhaps on a national scale, but the pay is not sufficient for the region (e.g., 200k for a senior dev in the Bay Area is barely enough) 3. Companies are in an area w/o talent and are expecting relocations without sufficient risk permium given the cyclical nature of the tech job market 4. Expecting long hours but unwilling to pay sufficiently for employees to afford 24-hr childcare. I was naive 20yrs ago. This may be obvious, but it wasnt obvious to me 20yrs ago, so let me address the three above common causes 1. There is a strong correlation between senior dev and mature lives -- senior devs often have children, mortgages, dental payments, college tuition. This means you cant give them ramen-pay. The typical response on HN is "well if you marry another person at FAANG..." -- ok let me stop you there. My wife doesnt work at FAANG. She's not an engineer. Most devs dont have spouses at a FAANG, so you cant rely on some mysterious FAANG spouse who's subsidizes your company's poor pay. 2. A to-remain-unnamed Series A company in the Bay cold-reached out to me offering 120k/yr cash for a Staff engr role. That works for three dudes in bunk beds eating ramen. Except I cant bunk with three dudes if I have two kids. Nor can our family of four stay in a studio apartment. Also, you cant pay rent with illiquid stock options in a series A firm even if the options vested already. 3. This is less obvious, because the current bull cycle has been so long. But dev jobs come and go. Companies die and new comapnies are born. This is fine in NY/SF but a major problem in some rural city. You cant easily uproot a family and move to middle-of-nowhere for a job that may only last a year. It is very disruptive to families. So you have to pay -- a lot -- to make up for this. Otherwise, few are willing to take the risk. If someone does take the risk, they may be commuting and maintaining two residences, so you have to overpay for that. 4. Senior devs often have children. School drop-offs, pick-ups, etc. If you want senior devs to work long hours, you need to pay sufficiently for them to afford 24hr child care. Or you give them flexibility, or you give them remote. I dont think there is any mysterious job shortage or worker shortage. A lot of it is economics and the struggle of raising children, paying for school districts, death-by-a-thousand-cuts of medical copays/coinsurance, paying for childrens' braces, etc.
arnvald 5y ago
Hi! Author here. > Please tell me where all these seniors are coming from, because we certainly couldn't find a single qualified one during twelve+ months of interviewing. Are you looking for some niche skills? I've interviewed a number of candidates this year for a scale-up (senior Python devs) in Netherlands and I've talked to a lot of great developers, unfortunately most of the time they had a number of better offers that I could not match. > I also haven't observed "remote work makes onboarding and training more challenging" in companies that are dedicated to their remote workforce (which is basically everybody right now?). I've been remote for almost 10 years. I feel a lot of companies are not really "dedicated" to remote work, rather that they can't wait to bring people back to the office at least for 1-2 days a week. I've seen a number of issues with remote onboarding - laptops coming late, issues with setting up the dev environment (and doing a debugging over Zoom for 2h). I've changed jobs twice during pandemic and in both cases I felt the companies still haven't figured out how to move all the new employee introduction to on-line. Also, I can't agree more with your last 2 paragraphs, I have the same observations!
Aeolun 5y ago
> Most senior devs will never put in the long hours to reach Staff Engineer Are you implying you need to do a lot of overwork? Or just that it takes a long time?
- google234123 5y ago
  Significant accomplishments aren’t usually trivial…

by prhn 5y ago

whitepoplar 5y ago

What's the compensation range for senior devs your company wanted to hire?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Tarucho 5y ago
And what age range?
- nsonha 5y ago
  there is no such thing, sure if you look 60 (regardless of real age), there COULD be ageism.
  - Tarucho 5y ago
    ·Saying "there is no such thing" does not make it true. What are you? 10? ·You should be able to look whatever you want, even old. ·I`ve been in lots of situations where the first thing the hiring manager asks is the candidate age and drops the CV as soon it finds out is older than 35.
    - nsonha 5y ago
      yes you're right this is cutural, but the question doesn't really have any context. It's just in many countries it's illegal to ask that question, and from my experience working for a couple of Australian and (1) US companies, no one gives a shit about your age, as in the number. Your manager/workmates don't care, HR doesn't have a criterion for it, it's illegal and that's my answer to the question. Again they may care if you are really old. I know back in my home country in Asia it's legal to have an age criterion.
    - okhobb 5y ago
      Is the hiring manager invariably under 35 in these instances also?
  - jpindar 5y ago
    And we hire people of any ethnicity, as long as they don't look different. /s

TuringNYC 5y ago

>> Please tell me where all these seniors are coming from, because we certainly couldn't find a single qualified one during twelve+ months of interviewing. I'm not sure what the company's situation is but when I see these challenges, there are usually one of several issues: 1. Companies are expecting senior devs but not willing to give Senior pay 2. Companies are giving senior pay, perhaps on a national scale, but the pay is not sufficient for the region (e.g., 200k for a senior dev in the Bay Area is barely enough) 3. Companies are in an area w/o talent and are expecting relocations without sufficient risk permium given the cyclical nature of the tech job market 4. Expecting long hours but unwilling to pay sufficiently for employees to afford 24-hr childcare. I was naive 20yrs ago. This may be obvious, but it wasnt obvious to me 20yrs ago, so let me address the three above common causes 1. There is a strong correlation between senior dev and mature lives -- senior devs often have children, mortgages, dental payments, college tuition. This means you cant give them ramen-pay. The typical response on HN is "well if you marry another person at FAANG..." -- ok let me stop you there. My wife doesnt work at FAANG. She's not an engineer. Most devs dont have spouses at a FAANG, so you cant rely on some mysterious FAANG spouse who's subsidizes your company's poor pay. 2. A to-remain-unnamed Series A company in the Bay cold-reached out to me offering 120k/yr cash for a Staff engr role. That works for three dudes in bunk beds eating ramen. Except I cant bunk with three dudes if I have two kids. Nor can our family of four stay in a studio apartment. Also, you cant pay rent with illiquid stock options in a series A firm even if the options vested already. 3. This is less obvious, because the current bull cycle has been so long. But dev jobs come and go. Companies die and new comapnies are born. This is fine in NY/SF but a major problem in some rural city. You cant easily uproot a family and move to middle-of-nowhere for a job that may only last a year. It is very disruptive to families. So you have to pay -- a lot -- to make up for this. Otherwise, few are willing to take the risk. If someone does take the risk, they may be commuting and maintaining two residences, so you have to overpay for that. 4. Senior devs often have children. School drop-offs, pick-ups, etc. If you want senior devs to work long hours, you need to pay sufficiently for them to afford 24hr child care. Or you give them flexibility, or you give them remote. I dont think there is any mysterious job shortage or worker shortage. A lot of it is economics and the struggle of raising children, paying for school districts, death-by-a-thousand-cuts of medical copays/coinsurance, paying for childrens' braces, etc.

arnvald 5y ago

Hi! Author here. > Please tell me where all these seniors are coming from, because we certainly couldn't find a single qualified one during twelve+ months of interviewing. Are you looking for some niche skills? I've interviewed a number of candidates this year for a scale-up (senior Python devs) in Netherlands and I've talked to a lot of great developers, unfortunately most of the time they had a number of better offers that I could not match. > I also haven't observed "remote work makes onboarding and training more challenging" in companies that are dedicated to their remote workforce (which is basically everybody right now?). I've been remote for almost 10 years. I feel a lot of companies are not really "dedicated" to remote work, rather that they can't wait to bring people back to the office at least for 1-2 days a week. I've seen a number of issues with remote onboarding - laptops coming late, issues with setting up the dev environment (and doing a debugging over Zoom for 2h). I've changed jobs twice during pandemic and in both cases I felt the companies still haven't figured out how to move all the new employee introduction to on-line. Also, I can't agree more with your last 2 paragraphs, I have the same observations!

Aeolun 5y ago

> Most senior devs will never put in the long hours to reach Staff Engineer Are you implying you need to do a lot of overwork? Or just that it takes a long time?

google234123 5y ago
Significant accomplishments aren’t usually trivial…