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We've been hiring for a little while in Los Angeles. The problem is that there are some Rails developers, but most of the ones I've met are pretty entitled. The

We've been hiring for a little while in Los Angeles. The problem is that there are some Rails developers, but most of the ones I've met are pretty entitled. They expect 100K+, benefits, telecommuting, etc. The problem is that most of them are fairly incompetent when it comes to everything else. Ask them about database design, sockets, parallelism, map/reduce, memory allocation, etc. and you'll get blank stares. This is good though, because it makes people who know those things that much more valuable as well they should be.

tomp 13y ago
Well, I've been programming since I was 13, I know everything about how computers work, from asm to HTTP, I've tried databases, parallelism, Haskell, distributed map/reduce, ... but I'm not a Ruby/Rails developer (yet, I grok Django ATM) and not from the US (so remote is the only option), so mostly uncompatible... :(
- PixelPusher 13y ago
  Honestly, I'd more likely work w/ someone like you and teach them Rails than the opposite. MVC frameworks are very similar and a good developer should be able to switch easily. I suspect that employers who only look for Rails developers are hurting themselves.
ericb 13y ago
> 100K+, benefits, telecommuting, So, a not particularly high salary considering cost of living and benefits too? Where would they get these crazy expectations? Oh right, the open market.
- PixelPusher 13y ago
  That's why i said it's a good thing. It bumps up the base developer salary and makes experienced developers even more valuable. At least those who are able to properly market themselves as such.
  - JimboOmega 13y ago
    $100k+ for a senior developer is really not that much... but. The "properly market themselves" is a catch. I don't seem to be able to 'speak' west coast right, or something. Which is why I find this article about a relocating person interesting. It's always been this way. When I got out of college, the division of the company I'd been interning with had an office in San Diego that was hiring for skills I had. I wanted to work there since my GF at the time was going to UCSD. Same industry, same company, same division of that company. Already vetted and approved by many months of interning. They wouldn't give me the time of day. Nor would any other companies I applied to out there. The local (to me) office and several other companies in the area had no problem giving me offers, even though I was putting almost no effort into the local search (since, after all, I wanted to be in SD). It's somewhat better now, when I'm trying to move to SF - I've gotten a few phone interviews, but nothing like the insanity the article is describing. Edit: I forgot the original reason I wanted to reply: To mention that I personally have no interest in telecommunicating. I'm a social person, and to me, a lot of the appeal of working for a startup is to be working with peers that I can engage with every day. I don't want (to be) a voice on the phone during scrums that comes to the office once a year.
benjaminwootton 13y ago
I don't think expecting $100k+, benefits, telecommuting etc necessarily indicates entitlement. Most people in finance, senior managers, doctors, lawyers, architects, management consultants etc wouldn't get out of bed for less than that, especially in a big city with high cost of living. I think its great that techies are starting to realise their value and grab a piece of that for themselves.
- zalew 13y ago
  why are you comparing a qualified doctor or lawyer to a web dev who doesn't know anything about database design?
  - benjaminwootton 13y ago
    I would argue that it's possible for even an average web developer to create at least a comparable amount of economic value as the doctor or lawyer. I don't know why our own community find this hard to accept? We're a rare species who can create massive value for ourselves or our employers. We can build great products that many would pay for, or automate away whole departments of people with our code - not that I take any pleasure from the latter. And yet we tacitly accept that there should be a whole class of people above us who have the right to earn more because they ground it out at school for a few years?
    - zalew 13y ago
      a web dev who doesn't know databases is like [some creative analogy about a doctor hurting people]
      - doktrin 13y ago
        It's practically impossible to be a web developer without knowing anything about databases. Most of the topics the parent listed are significantly more complex than "knowing about databases", which implies that "database design" in this context isn't simply drawing an ER diagram and correctly identifying the purpose of a foreign key. Given that the other topics listed include sockets, parallelism & map reduce, my guess is that "database design" might in this case mean distributed database concepts and/or sharding.
epoxyhockey 13y ago
Ask them about database design, sockets, parallelism, map/reduce, memory allocation, etc. and you'll get blank stares. You might have better success just advertising for someone who has experience with whatever large data requirement you are working with. Senior engineers can learn the framework if they aren't already familiar with it. I wouldn't expect a RoR engineer to be very concerned with memory allocation, parallelism or sockets. They are busy building sexy CRUD web applications.

tomp 13y ago

Well, I've been programming since I was 13, I know everything about how computers work, from asm to HTTP, I've tried databases, parallelism, Haskell, distributed map/reduce, ... but I'm not a Ruby/Rails developer (yet, I grok Django ATM) and not from the US (so remote is the only option), so mostly uncompatible... :(

PixelPusher 13y ago
Honestly, I'd more likely work w/ someone like you and teach them Rails than the opposite. MVC frameworks are very similar and a good developer should be able to switch easily. I suspect that employers who only look for Rails developers are hurting themselves.

ericb 13y ago

> 100K+, benefits, telecommuting, So, a not particularly high salary considering cost of living and benefits too? Where would they get these crazy expectations? Oh right, the open market.

PixelPusher 13y ago
That's why i said it's a good thing. It bumps up the base developer salary and makes experienced developers even more valuable. At least those who are able to properly market themselves as such.
- JimboOmega 13y ago
  $100k+ for a senior developer is really not that much... but. The "properly market themselves" is a catch. I don't seem to be able to 'speak' west coast right, or something. Which is why I find this article about a relocating person interesting. It's always been this way. When I got out of college, the division of the company I'd been interning with had an office in San Diego that was hiring for skills I had. I wanted to work there since my GF at the time was going to UCSD. Same industry, same company, same division of that company. Already vetted and approved by many months of interning. They wouldn't give me the time of day. Nor would any other companies I applied to out there. The local (to me) office and several other companies in the area had no problem giving me offers, even though I was putting almost no effort into the local search (since, after all, I wanted to be in SD). It's somewhat better now, when I'm trying to move to SF - I've gotten a few phone interviews, but nothing like the insanity the article is describing. Edit: I forgot the original reason I wanted to reply: To mention that I personally have no interest in telecommunicating. I'm a social person, and to me, a lot of the appeal of working for a startup is to be working with peers that I can engage with every day. I don't want (to be) a voice on the phone during scrums that comes to the office once a year.

benjaminwootton 13y ago

I don't think expecting $100k+, benefits, telecommuting etc necessarily indicates entitlement. Most people in finance, senior managers, doctors, lawyers, architects, management consultants etc wouldn't get out of bed for less than that, especially in a big city with high cost of living. I think its great that techies are starting to realise their value and grab a piece of that for themselves.

zalew 13y ago
why are you comparing a qualified doctor or lawyer to a web dev who doesn't know anything about database design?
- benjaminwootton 13y ago
  I would argue that it's possible for even an average web developer to create at least a comparable amount of economic value as the doctor or lawyer. I don't know why our own community find this hard to accept? We're a rare species who can create massive value for ourselves or our employers. We can build great products that many would pay for, or automate away whole departments of people with our code - not that I take any pleasure from the latter. And yet we tacitly accept that there should be a whole class of people above us who have the right to earn more because they ground it out at school for a few years?
  - zalew 13y ago
    a web dev who doesn't know databases is like [some creative analogy about a doctor hurting people]
    - doktrin 13y ago
      It's practically impossible to be a web developer without knowing anything about databases. Most of the topics the parent listed are significantly more complex than "knowing about databases", which implies that "database design" in this context isn't simply drawing an ER diagram and correctly identifying the purpose of a foreign key. Given that the other topics listed include sockets, parallelism & map reduce, my guess is that "database design" might in this case mean distributed database concepts and/or sharding.

epoxyhockey 13y ago

Ask them about database design, sockets, parallelism, map/reduce, memory allocation, etc. and you'll get blank stares. You might have better success just advertising for someone who has experience with whatever large data requirement you are working with. Senior engineers can learn the framework if they aren't already familiar with it. I wouldn't expect a RoR engineer to be very concerned with memory allocation, parallelism or sockets. They are busy building sexy CRUD web applications.