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"I'm honestly starting to believe that it isn't hard to hire" If this were true, then engineer salaries would not be rising so much. The demand for good engine

"I'm honestly starting to believe that it isn't hard to hire" If this were true, then engineer salaries would not be rising so much. The demand for good engineers vastly outstrips supply. Also, any explanation that requires you to posit mass irrationality is usually a bad one.

a8da6b0c91d 13y ago
Mass irrationality happens all the time.
djb_hackernews 13y ago
Do you have any data to back up the engineering salaries rising "so much"? From where I am standing engineering salaries have stagnated for the last 5 years, possibly even 10.
- gaius 13y ago
  Allowing for inflation, since the dotcom bust.
- j_baker 13y ago
  You're correct. Source: http://www.epi.org/publication/pm195-stem-labor-shortages-microsoft-report-distorts/ http://www.epi.org/publication/pm195-stem-labor-shortages-mi...
  - russell_h 13y ago
    My observation has been that while average compensation isn't trending upward that much, variance is increasing a lot. I've seen market research which bears this out. Especially among top candidates straight out of school, salaries have gone up a lot in the last few years.
tptacek 13y ago
That's true but a sloppy way to say it. A more precise way to characterize his argument is that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Then: is it an extraordinary claim to suggest that the hiring processes used by most tech companies are doing a bad job of selecting candidates? Are engineers hired through these processes but then fired within the first 6-9 months a rarity? Is turnover generally low? Is hiring so risky that companies working in the middle of a "talent crunch" are demanding that candidates take temporary contracting roles so they can evaluate performance? Is the typical startup engineering team staffed by engineers uniformly capable of production? Are tech company hiring practices carefully designed and executed, or is it more the norm that they're delivered by whatever engineers happen to be available for candidates when they show up? If the latter is the case, isn't it instead an extraordinary claim to suggest that these processes could work at all, given that they're essentially stochastic?
- abc_lisper 13y ago
  > Is hiring so risky that companies working in the middle of a "talent crunch" are demanding that candidates take temporary contracting roles so they can evaluate performance Heh. Somebody had to say this. I don't know what the difficulty is all about. In the SV I have been more to more than 1 interview where I solved all the questions(in a day long interview) and didn't get the job. Not sure what the high bar is all about.
brown9-2 13y ago
This is supposing that the all of the excess demand for good engineers is coming from companies that have gotten good at hiring and have moved passed these "we only hire the 0.1%" mentalities. In a lot of places there might be extra, hard-to-satisfy demand because their processes for sifting through the supply of developers is poor or not working.
okaram 13y ago
Are salaries actually rising so much ? From survey below, they've risen 2.3% last year, 2.1% the year before ... my memory of other surveys is similar ... doesn't even seem to be rising faster in SV ... (http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9237985/IT_gets_its_groove_back http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9237985/IT_gets_its_g...)

a8da6b0c91d 13y ago

Mass irrationality happens all the time.

djb_hackernews 13y ago

Do you have any data to back up the engineering salaries rising "so much"? From where I am standing engineering salaries have stagnated for the last 5 years, possibly even 10.

gaius 13y ago
Allowing for inflation, since the dotcom bust.
j_baker 13y ago
You're correct. Source: http://www.epi.org/publication/pm195-stem-labor-shortages-microsoft-report-distorts/ http://www.epi.org/publication/pm195-stem-labor-shortages-mi...
- russell_h 13y ago
  My observation has been that while average compensation isn't trending upward that much, variance is increasing a lot. I've seen market research which bears this out. Especially among top candidates straight out of school, salaries have gone up a lot in the last few years.

tptacek 13y ago

That's true but a sloppy way to say it. A more precise way to characterize his argument is that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Then: is it an extraordinary claim to suggest that the hiring processes used by most tech companies are doing a bad job of selecting candidates? Are engineers hired through these processes but then fired within the first 6-9 months a rarity? Is turnover generally low? Is hiring so risky that companies working in the middle of a "talent crunch" are demanding that candidates take temporary contracting roles so they can evaluate performance? Is the typical startup engineering team staffed by engineers uniformly capable of production? Are tech company hiring practices carefully designed and executed, or is it more the norm that they're delivered by whatever engineers happen to be available for candidates when they show up? If the latter is the case, isn't it instead an extraordinary claim to suggest that these processes could work at all, given that they're essentially stochastic?

abc_lisper 13y ago
> Is hiring so risky that companies working in the middle of a "talent crunch" are demanding that candidates take temporary contracting roles so they can evaluate performance Heh. Somebody had to say this. I don't know what the difficulty is all about. In the SV I have been more to more than 1 interview where I solved all the questions(in a day long interview) and didn't get the job. Not sure what the high bar is all about.

brown9-2 13y ago

This is supposing that the all of the excess demand for good engineers is coming from companies that have gotten good at hiring and have moved passed these "we only hire the 0.1%" mentalities. In a lot of places there might be extra, hard-to-satisfy demand because their processes for sifting through the supply of developers is poor or not working.

okaram 13y ago

Are salaries actually rising so much ? From survey below, they've risen 2.3% last year, 2.1% the year before ... my memory of other surveys is similar ... doesn't even seem to be rising faster in SV ... (http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9237985/IT_gets_its_groove_back http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9237985/IT_gets_its_g...)