4 ms·

Riiiiight..... just let me know when I can easily find good devs.

ogogmad 4y ago
I think he's talking about administration type jobs, or something.
feoren 4y ago
> just let me know when I can easily find good devs As a good dev looking for a job, I can tell you with 95% certainty that the good devs are not applying to your job because your company is a boring knockoff doing boring things and your job sounds like a boring dead-end where developers will be cordoned off into a little box with nary enough room to turn around while they implement mandates handed down from above by a product owner who never uses the actual product with no opportunity for actually discussing whether this new silly feature will make the product worse or not (it will) while technical debt and cruft accumulates and any attempt to invest in the long-term health of your product will result in a reprimand. After months of looking at job postings, hiring managers complaining about not finding good devs just sounds like incels complaining about not being able to date hot women. Look inward. Lots of good devs are out there looking. They're just not looking at you.
- acidburnNSA 4y ago
  What could I say to convince people that this is not the case? Like I have a small team trying to revolutionize nuclear power deployment performance with a highly customized PLM app but on paper it just seems to sound boring.
  - ambicapter 4y ago
    How in the blazes do you manage to make nuclear power sound boring?
  - feoren 4y ago
    Obviously I don't know your specific case, but I can offer a few ideas: > trying to revolutionize There are a lot of aspirational companies out there. I'd rather work at an aspirational company than one with no vision at all, but you still need to convince me that there's an actual chance you can deliver on this vision. If you told me you were going to revolutionize the world's energy sector with a perpetual motion machine, I'm obviously passing. Treat me like an investor -- convince me your company has a future. Because, of course, I am an investor; I'm considering investing a large percentage of my professional life in your company. > nuclear power deployment performance Nuclear power is interesting but highly regulated. If I come up with new and interesting ideas that contribute to this space, is it too tightly constrained by regulation to have any chance those ideas could get applied? Will I be in a position where anyone will actually listen to my ideas, or have you already made up your mind about how everything is going to work? Am I going to get to talk about the product development, or is this going to be handed down to me with people taking offense if I try to explain why that latest change doesn't make sense with the rest of the application? And what is "deployment performance" -- trying to cut the costs involved in building and deploying new nuclear power plants? If it is, just say that. Don't make me guess what your company actually does, because I'm going to guess using my priors, and as you probably guessed from my other comment, my priors are very negative. > a highly customized PLM app Two red flags here: "highly customized" -- I'm a software developer. I write code (among many other things, of course). What does "customized" mean? Are you building this in some other inner platform? "Customized" sounds much weaker than just plain new code. Will I find Apex code built on SharePoint or something awful like that? "Customized" is a huge red-flag word for me because it's almost exclusively used by people who are afraid of programming and don't understand the software development lifecycle. The other red flag: "app". You're trying to "revolutionize nuclear power deployment performance" with an ... app? Look, I get that "app" is just short for "application" and therefore could mean anything, including an advanced industry-centric analysis tool. But it doesn't, does it? You wouldn't use the word "app" for that. So you're trying to revolutionize nuclear power with a $2 app in the Apple Store or something? That's what it sounds like to me. Again, think of me as an investor. If that's your elevator pitch, I've come away with the message "big ideas with absolutely no idea how to deliver on them".
- kamranjon 4y ago
  With an attitude like that it’s no surprise you are still looking. Let’s be honest, the good devs, with good communication and people skills, they already have jobs and their companies will do whatever they can to keep them.
  - feoren 4y ago
    > they already have jobs and their companies will do whatever they can to keep them. I truly wish I lived in the world you imagine. I've been in the job I'm leaving for 13 years, received top-tier performance reviews every year, constant improvement, very good software, technical lead of one of the most profitable teams in the entire (huge) company. Everyone who has ever worked with me directly has great things to say. Meanwhile the vice presidents of such-and-such that play musical chairs with their titles every 2 years do not care. I have made it very clear what they need to do to keep me (and it's not onerous, in fact it's mutually beneficial for everyone and completely in line with the CEO's vision), and they do not care. I'm not sitting in the right seat; I'm not already buddies with the right VP; so fuck me. I can go get fucked. It honestly sounds like you either have no real-world experience or you've gotten extremely lucky with the company you found. If it's the latter, do whatever you can to stay there as long as it doesn't turn to shit (and it can, at any point).
    - mcluck 4y ago
      To be fair, I wouldn't consider someone who has been in the same company for 13 years an expert on the quality and quantity of devs on the market. Your experience within your one company is not a good indicator of the rest of the market. Most people I know jump jobs every 2-5 years going on to more and more interesting opportunities. Even at these more interesting places, the message is the same: we cannot find enough people.
      - betaby 4y ago
        Job hoppers with 2 years stints can't have any deep domain knowledge. Neither can judge even their own code quality/robustness/usefulness - that way too short period of time.
sage76 4y ago
Define good. What specific skills do you want? How much experience in each of those skills? I have noticed that too many times employers want literal gods to come in and fix their entire tech stack, their product, and by extension their company. Of course, they are frequently only paying average salaries.
wonderwonder 4y ago
Supply and demand. The devs are out there, most likely your salary offer is too low. What makes a dev good in your mind? How many hours a week do you expect the devs to work? Work from home? Is your salary enough to lure them from FAANG or vc backed companies? There is always a reason the devs are not coming and most of the time it has something to do with work / life balance, benefits or salary or any of the above. I dont know you, you could be the coolest boss on earth but if something is wrong with the above points then you wont find what you are looking for.
mikkergp 4y ago
I think it's fairly clear even in his example that not all white collar is created equal. I'm not sure how you'd divide it but certain professions like Doctors and developers are not in the same camp as management/accountants/lawyers. So, for the following quote from the article, who are the people actually necessary for "creating and delivering the goods and services that consumers want and need on a daily basis." "there is a massive shortage of blue collar jobs like truck drivers, hospitality and restaurant employees, and other employees necessary for actually creating and delivering the goods and services that consumers want and need on a daily basis."

I think he's talking about administration type jobs, or something.

> just let me know when I can easily find good devs As a good dev looking for a job, I can tell you with 95% certainty that the good devs are not applying to your job because your company is a boring knockoff doing boring things and your job sounds like a boring dead-end where developers will be cordoned off into a little box with nary enough room to turn around while they implement mandates handed down from above by a product owner who never uses the actual product with no opportunity for actually discussing whether this new silly feature will make the product worse or not (it will) while technical debt and cruft accumulates and any attempt to invest in the long-term health of your product will result in a reprimand. After months of looking at job postings, hiring managers complaining about not finding good devs just sounds like incels complaining about not being able to date hot women. Look inward. Lots of good devs are out there looking. They're just not looking at you.

acidburnNSA 4y ago
What could I say to convince people that this is not the case? Like I have a small team trying to revolutionize nuclear power deployment performance with a highly customized PLM app but on paper it just seems to sound boring.
- ambicapter 4y ago
  How in the blazes do you manage to make nuclear power sound boring?
- feoren 4y ago
  Obviously I don't know your specific case, but I can offer a few ideas: > trying to revolutionize There are a lot of aspirational companies out there. I'd rather work at an aspirational company than one with no vision at all, but you still need to convince me that there's an actual chance you can deliver on this vision. If you told me you were going to revolutionize the world's energy sector with a perpetual motion machine, I'm obviously passing. Treat me like an investor -- convince me your company has a future. Because, of course, I am an investor; I'm considering investing a large percentage of my professional life in your company. > nuclear power deployment performance Nuclear power is interesting but highly regulated. If I come up with new and interesting ideas that contribute to this space, is it too tightly constrained by regulation to have any chance those ideas could get applied? Will I be in a position where anyone will actually listen to my ideas, or have you already made up your mind about how everything is going to work? Am I going to get to talk about the product development, or is this going to be handed down to me with people taking offense if I try to explain why that latest change doesn't make sense with the rest of the application? And what is "deployment performance" -- trying to cut the costs involved in building and deploying new nuclear power plants? If it is, just say that. Don't make me guess what your company actually does, because I'm going to guess using my priors, and as you probably guessed from my other comment, my priors are very negative. > a highly customized PLM app Two red flags here: "highly customized" -- I'm a software developer. I write code (among many other things, of course). What does "customized" mean? Are you building this in some other inner platform? "Customized" sounds much weaker than just plain new code. Will I find Apex code built on SharePoint or something awful like that? "Customized" is a huge red-flag word for me because it's almost exclusively used by people who are afraid of programming and don't understand the software development lifecycle. The other red flag: "app". You're trying to "revolutionize nuclear power deployment performance" with an ... app? Look, I get that "app" is just short for "application" and therefore could mean anything, including an advanced industry-centric analysis tool. But it doesn't, does it? You wouldn't use the word "app" for that. So you're trying to revolutionize nuclear power with a $2 app in the Apple Store or something? That's what it sounds like to me. Again, think of me as an investor. If that's your elevator pitch, I've come away with the message "big ideas with absolutely no idea how to deliver on them".
kamranjon 4y ago
With an attitude like that it’s no surprise you are still looking. Let’s be honest, the good devs, with good communication and people skills, they already have jobs and their companies will do whatever they can to keep them.
- feoren 4y ago
  > they already have jobs and their companies will do whatever they can to keep them. I truly wish I lived in the world you imagine. I've been in the job I'm leaving for 13 years, received top-tier performance reviews every year, constant improvement, very good software, technical lead of one of the most profitable teams in the entire (huge) company. Everyone who has ever worked with me directly has great things to say. Meanwhile the vice presidents of such-and-such that play musical chairs with their titles every 2 years do not care. I have made it very clear what they need to do to keep me (and it's not onerous, in fact it's mutually beneficial for everyone and completely in line with the CEO's vision), and they do not care. I'm not sitting in the right seat; I'm not already buddies with the right VP; so fuck me. I can go get fucked. It honestly sounds like you either have no real-world experience or you've gotten extremely lucky with the company you found. If it's the latter, do whatever you can to stay there as long as it doesn't turn to shit (and it can, at any point).
  - mcluck 4y ago
    To be fair, I wouldn't consider someone who has been in the same company for 13 years an expert on the quality and quantity of devs on the market. Your experience within your one company is not a good indicator of the rest of the market. Most people I know jump jobs every 2-5 years going on to more and more interesting opportunities. Even at these more interesting places, the message is the same: we cannot find enough people.
    - betaby 4y ago
      Job hoppers with 2 years stints can't have any deep domain knowledge. Neither can judge even their own code quality/robustness/usefulness - that way too short period of time.

sage76 4y ago

Define good. What specific skills do you want? How much experience in each of those skills? I have noticed that too many times employers want literal gods to come in and fix their entire tech stack, their product, and by extension their company. Of course, they are frequently only paying average salaries.

wonderwonder 4y ago

Supply and demand. The devs are out there, most likely your salary offer is too low. What makes a dev good in your mind? How many hours a week do you expect the devs to work? Work from home? Is your salary enough to lure them from FAANG or vc backed companies? There is always a reason the devs are not coming and most of the time it has something to do with work / life balance, benefits or salary or any of the above. I dont know you, you could be the coolest boss on earth but if something is wrong with the above points then you wont find what you are looking for.

mikkergp 4y ago

I think it's fairly clear even in his example that not all white collar is created equal. I'm not sure how you'd divide it but certain professions like Doctors and developers are not in the same camp as management/accountants/lawyers. So, for the following quote from the article, who are the people actually necessary for "creating and delivering the goods and services that consumers want and need on a daily basis." "there is a massive shortage of blue collar jobs like truck drivers, hospitality and restaurant employees, and other employees necessary for actually creating and delivering the goods and services that consumers want and need on a daily basis."