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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 hors

by 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.

by fecak 13y ago

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.