6 ms·

There is no such thing as a developer shortage; there is a shortage of wildly, identifiably competent developers willing to work for the salaries you're offerin

There is no such thing as a developer shortage; there is a shortage of wildly, identifiably competent developers willing to work for the salaries you're offering. Offer more money (and especially, advertise it), and perhaps offer remote work to expand your search pool if you'd rather pay "Cincinnati well-off" than "Mountain View well-off" salary, find yourself with no shortage. The sense of entitlement is astounding. Or, as this article states, you can offer interesting work in a good environment - that's worth something (have you tried offering a 4-day week?), but really, your core problem is probably building something very boring with very high maintainability and reliability. So just offer more money, and advertise as such. It's really really simple.

arbuge 13y ago
Not quite. You have to offer a good work environment as the article suggests. I suppose you could theoretically pay large salaries that make up for really bad ones, but unless you're a running high volume 95% margin type of business, you probably won't find them affordable...
- fiatmoney 13y ago
  "Good work environment" as in, "don't be an asshole if they're getting their job done". The things actually mentioned in the article as recruiting tools (see below) absolutely have a pretty reasonable compensating differential in the form of cold, hard cash. And my, who are the (even non-technical) executives who have this much time to devote to seducing their developers with loving care? Just offer them money; you have a business to run. To quote: "Moreso, find out what is important to them besides coding and perks. Do they have a family? Find a way for them to bring their kids in a few times a week, or have a family meal on Fridays. Do they like to travel? Invent a travel bonus, where they get to go where they want one week every three months. Do they want to speak at conferences? Become their agent, allow them time to commit to open source."
  - greenyoda 13y ago
    "The things actually mentioned in the article as recruiting tools (see below) absolutely have a pretty reasonable compensating differential in the form of cold, hard cash." Absolutely. "Walk in the park, go to a movie, meet their spouse"? Don't waste my time with that, I really don't care about socializing with my future boss. Offer me 50% more money than I'm making now and you'll have my attention.
    - collyw 13y ago
      I agree. I work as the database developer for a scientific institute. I occasionally do something smart and my team leader says, maybe you could write it up and get a paper out of it. I am not in research, what use is (another) paper to me? A payrise would be appreciated.
fecak 13y ago
Do you feel there are thousnds of unemployed developers just holding out of the market until salaries rise, remote work and 4 day weeks are the norm, and the work is always interesting? I'm all for remote work and paying market value, but I still think we're short on people.
- kibibu 13y ago
  Don't discount simple inertia!
- fiatmoney 13y ago
  No, they are not unemployed. They are employed by firms that are not using them efficiently, because it's not worth their while to do so, because they're underpaid (you might say they're underemployed). If you actually started offering pretty large salaries to reasonably competent developers, the market would shift. Hiring contract shops, and letting them handle the actual recruiting (you're building "foursquare for trunk sales", what do you know about finding good developers?) is the other route.
  - jmillikin 13y ago
    Software developer salaries in the bay area start at 80k/year for computer science graduates fresh from state colleges. If you feel this is indeed being underpaid, what do you believe salaries ought to be?
    - dpritchett 13y ago
      Google's profit is a few hundred thousand per employee per year. Let's call that an anchor for how much room there is to give in salary.
      - fecak 13y ago
        We are going to use Google as the standard for profit? Do you think Google's success might be characterized as a bit of an outlier, as opposed to the norm?
IAmARealDev 13y ago
> So just offer more money, and advertise as such. I don't think it's that easy. There are a good deal of early stage startups in the Bay Area offering very competitive salaries. But for most of them a cursory look at what they've raised and the traction they have in the marketplace raises questions about how long they'll be able to sustain their burn. As a developer I don't just care about how much you're paying me. I also care about how long you're going to be able to pay me.
- nickonline 13y ago
  Hence "offer more money" If you make $80k/year in a stable job, but a company could be reasonably expected you'll crash and burn in 6 months maybe that company will have to offer $120k to account for the 3 months the dev is looking for work after you crash unexpectedly. It might not be your cup of tea to take jobs like that, that's fine someone will. And if you don't find anyone at 120k maybe it needs to be 130, or 140 to make up for that mean time to failure.
  - IAmARealDev 13y ago
    Your numbers are off for major markets. The startups offering market (6 figure) salaries for experienced engineers aren't looking for the developers who are making $80,000 today. They want to hire the engineers who are already making a comparable salary. They can't afford them, and most of the time the non-financial value propositions aren't that compelling either.
joesmo 13y ago
Exactly! It amazes me that this day and age so many companies are stuck in the prehistoric era of working onsite. Some of us have experience building whole companies and product remotely and they're going to tell me that "company culture" is the reason they want people onsite? No! It's the terrible working conditions that necessitate people being onsite. Or not having an option of a 4 day week (with 10 hours a day that's still 40 hours). I always said, there is only one thing I require of my job: to be afforded the respect that any stranger off the street would be. Doesn't seem like much, but believe me, it is. If most companies can't even afford that, the rest of the perks are really meaningless. (As a side note, it's really hard to truly disrespect me remotely).
- croggle 13y ago
  10 hour work days! Jeez, I have a life outside of the office. If you're going to offer a 4 day work week, stop making me miss my daughters bedtime (or evening surfing time) for the privilege.
- clavalle 13y ago
  I actually prefer to work on site when possible. It creates a nice 'event boundry' so I can switch gears. The office also has fewer distractions while at the same time allowing me to just chat with people about what is going on business wise. Not to mention the ease of grabbing someone for lunch. It is nice, however, to have the option of working offsite when it is more convenient for whatever reason.
  - thedufer 13y ago
    Most long-term remote workers have solved most of these problems. You have to have an office (a separate room, with a door), and use it only for work. The just chatting part is more difficult.
    - clavalle 13y ago
      I have an office with a door. What I really need is a time lock on the refrigerator and pantry.
BadassFractal 13y ago
The things I would do for a 4-day work week.
- memracom 13y ago
  1. Learn French for 2-3 hours every day with no holidays until... 2. Write the DELF [http://www.europa-pages.com/france/DELF-DALF.html http://www.europa-pages.com/france/DELF-DALF.html] 3. Move to France 4. Find a job ( stick this into Google... emploi developpeur informatique site:.fr 5 Profitez alors!
- deleted 13y ago
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deleted 13y ago
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azakai 13y ago
> There is no such thing as a developer shortage; there is a shortage of wildly, identifiably competent developers willing to work for the salaries you're offering. Depends on the subfield. If you want to hire 1,000 ARM JIT superhackers, those people just don't exist in the entire world. There are just not 1,000 people total that know ARM, know JITing on ARM, and are strong hackers. You could advertise double the usual salaries for those positions, and still those people would not show up, because they don't exist. So your only hope if you need 1,000 of them is to train them, which takes time and has risk. For something like web development on the other hand, sure, I do think the market is far more flexible and if you double salaries, more developers will show up fairly quickly.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- IAmARealDev 13y ago
  > ...if you double salaries, more developers will show up fairly quickly. Because throwing money at a problem is always the best way to solve it, right? Why would anyone consider hiring the type of developer they actually need? Here's the inconvenient truth about startups in the Bay Area... lots of them have basic CRUD apps with little to no traffic that a self-taught programmer out of high school could build. They don't need "engineers" with CS degrees from top schools who are Google or Facebook material.
  - collyw 13y ago
    Hmmm. I talked with a taxi driver in Dublin last year. His friend was in the IT business. The friend said that couldn't find enough experienced developers. Well, they were there, but they were asking for too much money.
  - mattgreenrocks 13y ago
    > lots of them have basic CRUD apps What's hilarious is they love to throw CS interview questions at you. There should be some sort of term for it; delusions of grander[sic] engineering? Let me make it obvious: technologists don't want to write CRUD apps.

arbuge 13y ago

Not quite. You have to offer a good work environment as the article suggests. I suppose you could theoretically pay large salaries that make up for really bad ones, but unless you're a running high volume 95% margin type of business, you probably won't find them affordable...

fiatmoney 13y ago
"Good work environment" as in, "don't be an asshole if they're getting their job done". The things actually mentioned in the article as recruiting tools (see below) absolutely have a pretty reasonable compensating differential in the form of cold, hard cash. And my, who are the (even non-technical) executives who have this much time to devote to seducing their developers with loving care? Just offer them money; you have a business to run. To quote: "Moreso, find out what is important to them besides coding and perks. Do they have a family? Find a way for them to bring their kids in a few times a week, or have a family meal on Fridays. Do they like to travel? Invent a travel bonus, where they get to go where they want one week every three months. Do they want to speak at conferences? Become their agent, allow them time to commit to open source."
- greenyoda 13y ago
  "The things actually mentioned in the article as recruiting tools (see below) absolutely have a pretty reasonable compensating differential in the form of cold, hard cash." Absolutely. "Walk in the park, go to a movie, meet their spouse"? Don't waste my time with that, I really don't care about socializing with my future boss. Offer me 50% more money than I'm making now and you'll have my attention.
  - collyw 13y ago
    I agree. I work as the database developer for a scientific institute. I occasionally do something smart and my team leader says, maybe you could write it up and get a paper out of it. I am not in research, what use is (another) paper to me? A payrise would be appreciated.

fecak 13y ago

Do you feel there are thousnds of unemployed developers just holding out of the market until salaries rise, remote work and 4 day weeks are the norm, and the work is always interesting? I'm all for remote work and paying market value, but I still think we're short on people.

kibibu 13y ago
Don't discount simple inertia!
fiatmoney 13y ago
No, they are not unemployed. They are employed by firms that are not using them efficiently, because it's not worth their while to do so, because they're underpaid (you might say they're underemployed). If you actually started offering pretty large salaries to reasonably competent developers, the market would shift. Hiring contract shops, and letting them handle the actual recruiting (you're building "foursquare for trunk sales", what do you know about finding good developers?) is the other route.
- jmillikin 13y ago
  Software developer salaries in the bay area start at 80k/year for computer science graduates fresh from state colleges. If you feel this is indeed being underpaid, what do you believe salaries ought to be?
  - dpritchett 13y ago
    Google's profit is a few hundred thousand per employee per year. Let's call that an anchor for how much room there is to give in salary.
    - fecak 13y ago
      We are going to use Google as the standard for profit? Do you think Google's success might be characterized as a bit of an outlier, as opposed to the norm?

IAmARealDev 13y ago

> So just offer more money, and advertise as such. I don't think it's that easy. There are a good deal of early stage startups in the Bay Area offering very competitive salaries. But for most of them a cursory look at what they've raised and the traction they have in the marketplace raises questions about how long they'll be able to sustain their burn. As a developer I don't just care about how much you're paying me. I also care about how long you're going to be able to pay me.

nickonline 13y ago
Hence "offer more money" If you make $80k/year in a stable job, but a company could be reasonably expected you'll crash and burn in 6 months maybe that company will have to offer $120k to account for the 3 months the dev is looking for work after you crash unexpectedly. It might not be your cup of tea to take jobs like that, that's fine someone will. And if you don't find anyone at 120k maybe it needs to be 130, or 140 to make up for that mean time to failure.
- IAmARealDev 13y ago
  Your numbers are off for major markets. The startups offering market (6 figure) salaries for experienced engineers aren't looking for the developers who are making $80,000 today. They want to hire the engineers who are already making a comparable salary. They can't afford them, and most of the time the non-financial value propositions aren't that compelling either.

joesmo 13y ago

Exactly! It amazes me that this day and age so many companies are stuck in the prehistoric era of working onsite. Some of us have experience building whole companies and product remotely and they're going to tell me that "company culture" is the reason they want people onsite? No! It's the terrible working conditions that necessitate people being onsite. Or not having an option of a 4 day week (with 10 hours a day that's still 40 hours). I always said, there is only one thing I require of my job: to be afforded the respect that any stranger off the street would be. Doesn't seem like much, but believe me, it is. If most companies can't even afford that, the rest of the perks are really meaningless. (As a side note, it's really hard to truly disrespect me remotely).

croggle 13y ago
10 hour work days! Jeez, I have a life outside of the office. If you're going to offer a 4 day work week, stop making me miss my daughters bedtime (or evening surfing time) for the privilege.
clavalle 13y ago
I actually prefer to work on site when possible. It creates a nice 'event boundry' so I can switch gears. The office also has fewer distractions while at the same time allowing me to just chat with people about what is going on business wise. Not to mention the ease of grabbing someone for lunch. It is nice, however, to have the option of working offsite when it is more convenient for whatever reason.
- thedufer 13y ago
  Most long-term remote workers have solved most of these problems. You have to have an office (a separate room, with a door), and use it only for work. The just chatting part is more difficult.
  - clavalle 13y ago
    I have an office with a door. What I really need is a time lock on the refrigerator and pantry.

BadassFractal 13y ago

The things I would do for a 4-day work week.

memracom 13y ago
1. Learn French for 2-3 hours every day with no holidays until... 2. Write the DELF [http://www.europa-pages.com/france/DELF-DALF.html http://www.europa-pages.com/france/DELF-DALF.html] 3. Move to France 4. Find a job ( stick this into Google... emploi developpeur informatique site:.fr 5 Profitez alors!
deleted 13y ago
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deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

azakai 13y ago

> There is no such thing as a developer shortage; there is a shortage of wildly, identifiably competent developers willing to work for the salaries you're offering. Depends on the subfield. If you want to hire 1,000 ARM JIT superhackers, those people just don't exist in the entire world. There are just not 1,000 people total that know ARM, know JITing on ARM, and are strong hackers. You could advertise double the usual salaries for those positions, and still those people would not show up, because they don't exist. So your only hope if you need 1,000 of them is to train them, which takes time and has risk. For something like web development on the other hand, sure, I do think the market is far more flexible and if you double salaries, more developers will show up fairly quickly.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
IAmARealDev 13y ago
> ...if you double salaries, more developers will show up fairly quickly. Because throwing money at a problem is always the best way to solve it, right? Why would anyone consider hiring the type of developer they actually need? Here's the inconvenient truth about startups in the Bay Area... lots of them have basic CRUD apps with little to no traffic that a self-taught programmer out of high school could build. They don't need "engineers" with CS degrees from top schools who are Google or Facebook material.
- collyw 13y ago
  Hmmm. I talked with a taxi driver in Dublin last year. His friend was in the IT business. The friend said that couldn't find enough experienced developers. Well, they were there, but they were asking for too much money.
- mattgreenrocks 13y ago
  > lots of them have basic CRUD apps What's hilarious is they love to throw CS interview questions at you. There should be some sort of term for it; delusions of grander[sic] engineering? Let me make it obvious: technologists don't want to write CRUD apps.