3 ms·

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 wo

by 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?
      - randomdata 13y ago
        As long as Google is hiring, you have to compete against them though. You don't get to offer $50K for the same job Google is offering hundreds of thousands for just because you are a small company not making any money. I mean, you can, but don't expect anyone to give you a second thought.
        mgkimsal 13y ago
        "for the same job" - there's almost nothing like 'the same jobs' google hires for and 90+% of the rest of the tech jobs out there. No, most companies aren't competing against Google for hiring people, unless by "most" you're only looking in SV. I was contacted by Google last summer for a potential job. I was shocked at how mediocre their recruiting staff were - unfocused, intentionally vague/evasive, rambling, didn't answer my questions, didn't followup when they said they would. Perhaps Google can't convince some people to uproot their lives and move across country because they're not doing a very convincing job in their initial outreach?
  - greenyoda 13y ago
    "what do you believe salaries ought to be?" The economics of a free market says that salaries should be at the point where supply meets demand. If there's a shortage of labor, it implies that salaries are not high enough. And there's nothing in economic theory that precludes a developer from being paid more than a CEO, if that's the price it takes to hire a developer. Unfortunately, we know that the big Silicon Valley companies don't believe in a free market for labor since they were busted for conspiring to keep salaries down by not recruiting each others' employees (while simultaneously lobbying the government to allocate more H1-B visas).
    - bradleyjg 13y ago
      I love the congnitive dissidence demonstrated in calling for free markets in labor, while simultaneously exulting in artificial barriers to entry against your would-be competitors in other countries.
    - jmillikin 13y ago
      > The economics of a free market says that salaries should > be at the point where supply meets demand. If there's a > shortage of labor, it implies that salaries are not high > enough. This is only true if supply is easily increased. The percentage of the population willing and able to be trained as software developers appears to be strongly inelastic. > lobbying the government to allocate more H1-B visas If a company is willing to pay above market rates to import a developer from another country, doesn't that imply that there is indeed a lack of local talent?
      - greenyoda 13y ago
        "This is only true if supply is easily increased. The percentage of the population willing and able to be trained as software developers appears to be strongly inelastic." If the salaries of software developers go up relative to the salaries of Wall Street analysts or neurosurgeons, more smart young people will quickly start going into CS. Conversely, if word gets out that tech companies are doing everything they can to hold salaries down while making their employees work long hours, fewer people will major in CS. The number of people willing to enter a field is a function of the job prospects in that field. Also, people in other fields who already write code as part of their jobs (e.g., scientists using NumPy) wouldn't be that hard to train as software developers. I've known some excellent software developers who used to be scientists. "If a company is willing to pay above market rates to import a developer from another country, doesn't that imply that there is indeed a lack of local talent?" If a company has been caught illegally colluding with other companies to artificially hold down the salaries of local employees, wouldn't you be somewhat suspicious that its goal in importing more workers (increasing the supply of workers and thus the competition among workers for jobs) might also be to keep down the price of labor? An alternative would be to offer higher salaries, at which point they'd have a much better chance of recruiting developers from other parts of the U.S. to move to Silicon Valley, which is one of the most expensive places in the country to live. If a Silicon Valley company offered me 50% more than what I'm making now, my standard of living would probably decline, especially due to the quality of housing I could afford within easy commuting distance of work.
  - georgemcbay 13y ago
    Your question kind of reflects the backwards thinking that causes the situation the OP was talking about, IMO. Instead of going into it with the mindset of "Well, I want to hire a software developer for $80k because that's what they should make" the thinking should be more based on "how much value will be added to the company/product/etc if this particular software developer we are seeking is hired, and what number can we afford to offer him or her based on that?" People can argue until they are blue in the face if the best developers are 2x, 5x, 10x or 100x better than the worst, but whatever it is, there is certainly a wide variation in productivity and overall talent. Assuming that there should be a nearly fixed salary number based on years of experience is as ridiculous as assuming that all NBA players should make some flat rate based on years in the league or whatever else. The software industry pays a lot of lip service to "meritocracy" but then they often throw the idea out the window when it comes to compensation of non-founders, which is goofy.
    - jmillikin 13y ago
      I want to hear what HN thinks the minimum software developer salary should be. A college graduate with no work experience from an unremarkable school is a decent proxy for that, because they'll likely be in the bottom percentiles in terms of both raw skill and trenches experience. If a fresh grad is making $80k, then a junior developer (say 2-3 years experience) will probably be making $160k (x2), a senior developer might pull $400k (x5) or more, and beyond that you start to get into the world-famous engineers who receive whatever they ask for. According to Google's financials at http://investor.google.com/financial/tables.html http://investor.google.com/financial/tables.html, they have approximately $220k of unallocated profit per employee. Even if they were to take all of that and convert it into salary, it would likely only bump the fresh grad's compensation to around $100k because the junior and senior developers will demand percentage-equivalent increases in their own pay. > Assuming that there should be a nearly fixed salary > number based on years of experience is as ridiculous > as assuming that all NBA players should make some flat > rate based on years in the league or whatever else. Years of experience is useful as a rough approximation of value, because someone who is not constantly improving their skillset is unlikely to be promoted and will eventually leave their position for greener pastures.
  - mooreds 13y ago
    If 80k/year is what the market clears at, that's the right salary. If it is 40k/year or 120k/year, that's the right salary too. The free market works for buyers and sellers of labor too, not just of goods. (Within certain limits, of course--labor isn't fungible like books.)
  - randomdata 13y ago
    And outside of the Valley: A well respected software firm in my area is advertising $40-60K salaries in their job postings and they seem to pick up some really good talent. A friend of mine has his PhD in computer science, working in the next city over, and he is also making around that $60K mark last I spoke to him. For comparison, the average male high school graduate who has experience under his belt in this same region will will earn $52K per year. $10K above that average is not exactly what I would expect a shortage to look like for a supposedly rare skill that is in high demand. Maybe you could argue that it is only a Valley shortage, but it makes you wonder why the Valley isn't attracting some of these people outside of that region? Perhaps $80K (or even $120K) isn't interesting enough for them to give up their current life to make the move?
    - collyw 13y ago
      That's refreshing to hear that outside silicon valley that the salaries are at least comparable to here in Europe. I feel very short changed reading this site and seeing what the average US developer seems to earn. Cost of living must be a big one. I released that with different tax rates I would need to add around 50% extra onto my Spanish salary to make a move to Germany worthwhile.
  - clavalle 13y ago
    80k for the Bay area is underpaid for graduates these days if they are any good. That might work out somewhere like Texas.
    - saryant 13y ago
      Not quite. I'm in San Antonio. Fresh grads start at $55-60k here and move up to $80k within 3-4 years with senior devs making >$100k pretty easily.
      - clavalle 13y ago
        I'm in Austin (though I have friends in and visit SF often). When I graduated UT quite a few years ago, friends were getting offers of between 75 and 85K. Granted, they were really, really good and were already consulting on the side. San Antonio might be a bit cheaper. You /might/ be able to find a decent Texas State grad for 60K. Maybe.
  - x0x0 13y ago
    it's not where you start, it's where you are in your 30s, particularly when you start thinking about starting a family or owning a home. This is a very expensive place to live, and having 1-2 roommates and still paying $1200-$1600 a month gets old. if you want to have 2 kids, you're staring at a $600k+ condo, or a $1mm+ house; 2 cars; and daycare so you can both work. Plus 9% CA income tax. Oh, and if you ever want to retire, you're going to pay the state $1200/mo of rent just to be allowed to continue to live in the home you fully own (ps: don't take this the wrong way, I understand the state needs money, but $20k+ a year between property tax, insurance, utilities, and a handful of repairs is hard to budget into retirement.) A couple I'm friends with just left to move back to MI. One was a developer with a masters from a top 10, making $140k. The partner was an account manager and made $90k, for a total of $230. The engineer took a paycut to $105 and the partner took a paycut to $60, for a total of $165. However, you can buy a pretty nice home for $350k; they live near family to help with daycare (saying $400/week for infant childcare); and taxes are lower. It's a much better deal for them. And again, to own a home, they need $100k+ as a downpayment and still have a housing/income ratio of 600/230 for a condo and 1100/230 = 4.8 for a detached house. Compare to MI where they have a housing/income ratio of 350/165 of 2.1. That makes an enormous difference in your financial lives, particularly as you think about savings, retirement, paying for college, etc. So there is no "should" here. It's what do people need to be paid to live in an insane housing market with a busted ass public transport system, when there are far cheaper deals available elsewhere.
- fecak 13y ago
  That's an interesting concept. So you feel that if we took all the world's developer horsepower that they could supply all the world's demand for developer horsepower, but because we have people underemployed (could accomplish more given a different environment or salary) that are doing less than they could, we have a perceived shortage?
  - fiatmoney 13y ago
    I don't think it's reasonably up for debate that MegaCorps especially (which still hire the vast majority of the total dev pool) don't use talent as efficiently as they might. And it's not like there's a static pool, either. Hire enough developers at a high enough salary and people will be drawn to the profession. You'd be surprised how many spreadsheet jockeys are basically doing programming already, albeit in a roundabout fashion and a sketchy language/environment, and can be converted into "real" developers in relatively short order. EDIT: Here's an idea: take a group of actuaries (ie, people with quantitative skills, pre-screened IQ and diligence, and exposure to some sort of programming environment) and offer them jobs if they teach themselves Python on their own time. They'll even take a pretty rigorous test at the end if you ask them to; they're used to it. Their salary data is here: http://www.dwsimpson.com/2013_Actuarial_Salary_Survey.pdf http://www.dwsimpson.com/2013_Actuarial_Salary_Survey.pdf Do you think you might be able to hire developers for those kinds of salaries? I'd think so.
  - randomdata 13y ago
    Well, I for one develop software and farm. For the right price, I might give up farming and spend all my time developing software, but I haven't seen any offers that are attractive enough for me to consider that yet. Just because someone has developer abilities, it does not mean they are necessarily even working as a developer at all.
spartan213 13y ago
I'm sure that there are plenty of people like me that are holding out (probably forever) from moving to SV until salaries rise high enough. I currently have a good job with reasonable hours and a short commute. And I have nice house which has separate bedrooms for my kids and a fenced yard. In the rest of the US this really isn't anything to brag about, but in the valley this would be millionaire living. Is anyone there going to pay me enough so I can keep my standard of living? I doubt it. It's either naive or disingenuous for SV companies to complain about developer shortages. It's all about the economics.

by fecak 13y ago

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?
    - randomdata 13y ago
      As long as Google is hiring, you have to compete against them though. You don't get to offer $50K for the same job Google is offering hundreds of thousands for just because you are a small company not making any money. I mean, you can, but don't expect anyone to give you a second thought.
      - mgkimsal 13y ago
        "for the same job" - there's almost nothing like 'the same jobs' google hires for and 90+% of the rest of the tech jobs out there. No, most companies aren't competing against Google for hiring people, unless by "most" you're only looking in SV. I was contacted by Google last summer for a potential job. I was shocked at how mediocre their recruiting staff were - unfocused, intentionally vague/evasive, rambling, didn't answer my questions, didn't followup when they said they would. Perhaps Google can't convince some people to uproot their lives and move across country because they're not doing a very convincing job in their initial outreach?
- greenyoda 13y ago
  "what do you believe salaries ought to be?" The economics of a free market says that salaries should be at the point where supply meets demand. If there's a shortage of labor, it implies that salaries are not high enough. And there's nothing in economic theory that precludes a developer from being paid more than a CEO, if that's the price it takes to hire a developer. Unfortunately, we know that the big Silicon Valley companies don't believe in a free market for labor since they were busted for conspiring to keep salaries down by not recruiting each others' employees (while simultaneously lobbying the government to allocate more H1-B visas).
  - bradleyjg 13y ago
    I love the congnitive dissidence demonstrated in calling for free markets in labor, while simultaneously exulting in artificial barriers to entry against your would-be competitors in other countries.
  - jmillikin 13y ago
    > The economics of a free market says that salaries should > be at the point where supply meets demand. If there's a > shortage of labor, it implies that salaries are not high > enough. This is only true if supply is easily increased. The percentage of the population willing and able to be trained as software developers appears to be strongly inelastic. > lobbying the government to allocate more H1-B visas If a company is willing to pay above market rates to import a developer from another country, doesn't that imply that there is indeed a lack of local talent?
    - greenyoda 13y ago
      "This is only true if supply is easily increased. The percentage of the population willing and able to be trained as software developers appears to be strongly inelastic." If the salaries of software developers go up relative to the salaries of Wall Street analysts or neurosurgeons, more smart young people will quickly start going into CS. Conversely, if word gets out that tech companies are doing everything they can to hold salaries down while making their employees work long hours, fewer people will major in CS. The number of people willing to enter a field is a function of the job prospects in that field. Also, people in other fields who already write code as part of their jobs (e.g., scientists using NumPy) wouldn't be that hard to train as software developers. I've known some excellent software developers who used to be scientists. "If a company is willing to pay above market rates to import a developer from another country, doesn't that imply that there is indeed a lack of local talent?" If a company has been caught illegally colluding with other companies to artificially hold down the salaries of local employees, wouldn't you be somewhat suspicious that its goal in importing more workers (increasing the supply of workers and thus the competition among workers for jobs) might also be to keep down the price of labor? An alternative would be to offer higher salaries, at which point they'd have a much better chance of recruiting developers from other parts of the U.S. to move to Silicon Valley, which is one of the most expensive places in the country to live. If a Silicon Valley company offered me 50% more than what I'm making now, my standard of living would probably decline, especially due to the quality of housing I could afford within easy commuting distance of work.
- georgemcbay 13y ago
  Your question kind of reflects the backwards thinking that causes the situation the OP was talking about, IMO. Instead of going into it with the mindset of "Well, I want to hire a software developer for $80k because that's what they should make" the thinking should be more based on "how much value will be added to the company/product/etc if this particular software developer we are seeking is hired, and what number can we afford to offer him or her based on that?" People can argue until they are blue in the face if the best developers are 2x, 5x, 10x or 100x better than the worst, but whatever it is, there is certainly a wide variation in productivity and overall talent. Assuming that there should be a nearly fixed salary number based on years of experience is as ridiculous as assuming that all NBA players should make some flat rate based on years in the league or whatever else. The software industry pays a lot of lip service to "meritocracy" but then they often throw the idea out the window when it comes to compensation of non-founders, which is goofy.
  - jmillikin 13y ago
    I want to hear what HN thinks the minimum software developer salary should be. A college graduate with no work experience from an unremarkable school is a decent proxy for that, because they'll likely be in the bottom percentiles in terms of both raw skill and trenches experience. If a fresh grad is making $80k, then a junior developer (say 2-3 years experience) will probably be making $160k (x2), a senior developer might pull $400k (x5) or more, and beyond that you start to get into the world-famous engineers who receive whatever they ask for. According to Google's financials at http://investor.google.com/financial/tables.html http://investor.google.com/financial/tables.html, they have approximately $220k of unallocated profit per employee. Even if they were to take all of that and convert it into salary, it would likely only bump the fresh grad's compensation to around $100k because the junior and senior developers will demand percentage-equivalent increases in their own pay. > Assuming that there should be a nearly fixed salary > number based on years of experience is as ridiculous > as assuming that all NBA players should make some flat > rate based on years in the league or whatever else. Years of experience is useful as a rough approximation of value, because someone who is not constantly improving their skillset is unlikely to be promoted and will eventually leave their position for greener pastures.
- mooreds 13y ago
  If 80k/year is what the market clears at, that's the right salary. If it is 40k/year or 120k/year, that's the right salary too. The free market works for buyers and sellers of labor too, not just of goods. (Within certain limits, of course--labor isn't fungible like books.)
- randomdata 13y ago
  And outside of the Valley: A well respected software firm in my area is advertising $40-60K salaries in their job postings and they seem to pick up some really good talent. A friend of mine has his PhD in computer science, working in the next city over, and he is also making around that $60K mark last I spoke to him. For comparison, the average male high school graduate who has experience under his belt in this same region will will earn $52K per year. $10K above that average is not exactly what I would expect a shortage to look like for a supposedly rare skill that is in high demand. Maybe you could argue that it is only a Valley shortage, but it makes you wonder why the Valley isn't attracting some of these people outside of that region? Perhaps $80K (or even $120K) isn't interesting enough for them to give up their current life to make the move?
  - collyw 13y ago
    That's refreshing to hear that outside silicon valley that the salaries are at least comparable to here in Europe. I feel very short changed reading this site and seeing what the average US developer seems to earn. Cost of living must be a big one. I released that with different tax rates I would need to add around 50% extra onto my Spanish salary to make a move to Germany worthwhile.
- clavalle 13y ago
  80k for the Bay area is underpaid for graduates these days if they are any good. That might work out somewhere like Texas.
  - saryant 13y ago
    Not quite. I'm in San Antonio. Fresh grads start at $55-60k here and move up to $80k within 3-4 years with senior devs making >$100k pretty easily.
    - clavalle 13y ago
      I'm in Austin (though I have friends in and visit SF often). When I graduated UT quite a few years ago, friends were getting offers of between 75 and 85K. Granted, they were really, really good and were already consulting on the side. San Antonio might be a bit cheaper. You /might/ be able to find a decent Texas State grad for 60K. Maybe.
- x0x0 13y ago
  it's not where you start, it's where you are in your 30s, particularly when you start thinking about starting a family or owning a home. This is a very expensive place to live, and having 1-2 roommates and still paying $1200-$1600 a month gets old. if you want to have 2 kids, you're staring at a $600k+ condo, or a $1mm+ house; 2 cars; and daycare so you can both work. Plus 9% CA income tax. Oh, and if you ever want to retire, you're going to pay the state $1200/mo of rent just to be allowed to continue to live in the home you fully own (ps: don't take this the wrong way, I understand the state needs money, but $20k+ a year between property tax, insurance, utilities, and a handful of repairs is hard to budget into retirement.) A couple I'm friends with just left to move back to MI. One was a developer with a masters from a top 10, making $140k. The partner was an account manager and made $90k, for a total of $230. The engineer took a paycut to $105 and the partner took a paycut to $60, for a total of $165. However, you can buy a pretty nice home for $350k; they live near family to help with daycare (saying $400/week for infant childcare); and taxes are lower. It's a much better deal for them. And again, to own a home, they need $100k+ as a downpayment and still have a housing/income ratio of 600/230 for a condo and 1100/230 = 4.8 for a detached house. Compare to MI where they have a housing/income ratio of 350/165 of 2.1. That makes an enormous difference in your financial lives, particularly as you think about savings, retirement, paying for college, etc. So there is no "should" here. It's what do people need to be paid to live in an insane housing market with a busted ass public transport system, when there are far cheaper deals available elsewhere.
fecak 13y ago
That's an interesting concept. So you feel that if we took all the world's developer horsepower that they could supply all the world's demand for developer horsepower, but because we have people underemployed (could accomplish more given a different environment or salary) that are doing less than they could, we have a perceived shortage?
- fiatmoney 13y ago
  I don't think it's reasonably up for debate that MegaCorps especially (which still hire the vast majority of the total dev pool) don't use talent as efficiently as they might. And it's not like there's a static pool, either. Hire enough developers at a high enough salary and people will be drawn to the profession. You'd be surprised how many spreadsheet jockeys are basically doing programming already, albeit in a roundabout fashion and a sketchy language/environment, and can be converted into "real" developers in relatively short order. EDIT: Here's an idea: take a group of actuaries (ie, people with quantitative skills, pre-screened IQ and diligence, and exposure to some sort of programming environment) and offer them jobs if they teach themselves Python on their own time. They'll even take a pretty rigorous test at the end if you ask them to; they're used to it. Their salary data is here: http://www.dwsimpson.com/2013_Actuarial_Salary_Survey.pdf http://www.dwsimpson.com/2013_Actuarial_Salary_Survey.pdf Do you think you might be able to hire developers for those kinds of salaries? I'd think so.
- randomdata 13y ago
  Well, I for one develop software and farm. For the right price, I might give up farming and spend all my time developing software, but I haven't seen any offers that are attractive enough for me to consider that yet. Just because someone has developer abilities, it does not mean they are necessarily even working as a developer at all.

spartan213 13y ago

I'm sure that there are plenty of people like me that are holding out (probably forever) from moving to SV until salaries rise high enough. I currently have a good job with reasonable hours and a short commute. And I have nice house which has separate bedrooms for my kids and a fenced yard. In the rest of the US this really isn't anything to brag about, but in the valley this would be millionaire living. Is anyone there going to pay me enough so I can keep my standard of living? I doubt it. It's either naive or disingenuous for SV companies to complain about developer shortages. It's all about the economics.