4 ms·

The problem is one of miscommunication between tech and media/government. There is definitely a shortage of developers, a shortage which tech companies have re

The problem is one of miscommunication between tech and media/government. There is definitely a shortage of developers, a shortage which tech companies have regularly been complaining about. Unfortunately, politicians and journalists just hear "we need more nerds" so assume there is a STEM shortage (in their non-technical minds, nerds are all equivalent). Thus the broad and pointless push for STEM graduates when what's really needed is a specific subsection of Technology.

aidanhs 12y ago
> There is definitely a shortage of developers Even this isn't quite true - I'd qualify 'developers' with 'good'. There are a lot of average/bad developers out there and companies don't really want to hire them...but many don't have a huge pool of candidates like Facebook and Google.
bicknergseng 12y ago
I wouldn't even say we have a shortage of "good developers." Like commenters pointed out a few days ago on the "how to make it in the tech mecca" post, there is a shortage of "ideal" developers willing to work for less and a strong employer willingness to pass on 100 or 1000 "ok" or "good" candidates that they could train in favor of that "ideal" candidate. So I would argue that it's a problem with an asymmetrical job marketplace and poor long term decision making on the part of employers.
- philwelch 12y ago
  Training doesn't always turn an "ok" or "good" candidate into a great one. The requirement is for developers. Either junior developers or senior developers. Hiring a trainee actually costs you developer time in the short run, for no guaranteed output in the long run as many of the trainees will just wash out. Besides, all you need is some books and open source software and you can train yourself, at least to the level that you're hirable. OK, some things you have to learn from experience in ways that are hard to accomplish outside of working for a big company (large scale distributed systems) but most of the companies that have large scale distributed systems are willing to hire straight out of college and, effectively, train them! So, the rational thing to do is to let the "ok" developers develop their own skills and then hire the ones that end up being good. But then, I don't think the standard is unreasonably high in the first place.
  - logfromblammo 12y ago
    You're correct in that most "good" developers can self-train on whatever stack the employer uses. The problem is that many employers are not even willing to buy one book and wait two weeks. If the candidate cannot be instantly profitable from day 0, they are deemed to be "not qualified" for the position. There are too many tech fads and trends for a developer to self-train on everything a potential employer could possibly want before knowing exactly what that is. In my opinion, tech employers should stop being so specific with their requirements and simply allocate some time for the new people to adjust to their in-house way of doing things. As many of us know well, every development team has its own slightly different way of doing things, which has to be learned in order to work more effectively. Nobody "hits the ground running", because the tech skills are hardly ever the limiting factor in hitting full productivity. And I assure you that any company that wants to hire people to "hit the ground running" will forget to mention their new hires will be doing that running as a steeplechase over mismanagement hurdles. Training doesn't improve the quality of a candidate. It assures the candidates you can find at the price level you have chosen are familiar with the specific technologies and processes that your company uses.
    - speeder 12y ago
      I am unemployed because of this. I worked for too long with Lua, and noone hires a Lua coder, so I am screwed :(
    - philwelch 12y ago
      Then there's a pretty big disconnect that I've seen. The bigger companies that try to hire all the best programmers--Google, Amazon, Microsoft--don't actually care much about tech stacks unless they're hiring for a senior specialist in some specific technology, and even then it'll have more to do with a problem domain than a programming language. The employers who care about tech stacks tend to be either mediocre large companies (who by definition aren't very clueful) or small companies and startups (who really do need you to hit the ground running because they really do have limited resources).
      - 12y ago
- Guvante 12y ago
  I dunno, it feels to me that there are lots of okay developers, but few good ones. Given the nature of the tools available, I am incurring technical debt at a significant rate unless I hire a good developer.
  - keithpeter 12y ago
    Can you not design a process that can achieve your objectives with the help of 'OK' developers?
    - coolsunglasses 12y ago
      If we knew how to do that, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in. There are things that can help teach OK developers to become good developers though.
      - drdeadringer 12y ago
        In the absence of this process we do not have, what are these things which can help elevate "ok developers" to "good developers"?
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
scottcha 12y ago
I see this miscommunication also extended to within the schools. Both my daughter's schools (elemetary and middle schools) have STEM specific programs but they are entirely focused on the Science or Math aspect (where job prospects are not easy to come by) with virtually no emphasis on technology or engineering (where job prospects are more available). When I asked my daughters teacher who is one of the STEM chairs how they would better incorporate technology she said she hadn't thought about it. We've created this acronym when really we need to be bumping up the TE as I feel the already existing availability in primary education of SM is sufficient.
- foobarian 12y ago
  I feel a lot of the STEM stuff in K-12 boils down to hypothesis testing. Do X a hundred times, plug and chug into this formula, and presto! the outcome is successful with confidence Y%. The variation is just on what X is.
msabalau 12y ago
STEM as a term might have made sense if it had only been used to refer middle and high school teaching. Getting "more nerds" pre-career path would mean more people would at least be prepared to pursue whatever the subsection of tech was in demand when they are at college.
IndianAstronaut 12y ago
A professor I worked with absolutely hated the acronym STEM. Each letter of it was very different from each other. It also brought with it an over simplification of education and the issues around it. It does make for a handy political acronym though..

aidanhs 12y ago

> There is definitely a shortage of developers Even this isn't quite true - I'd qualify 'developers' with 'good'. There are a lot of average/bad developers out there and companies don't really want to hire them...but many don't have a huge pool of candidates like Facebook and Google.

bicknergseng 12y ago

I wouldn't even say we have a shortage of "good developers." Like commenters pointed out a few days ago on the "how to make it in the tech mecca" post, there is a shortage of "ideal" developers willing to work for less and a strong employer willingness to pass on 100 or 1000 "ok" or "good" candidates that they could train in favor of that "ideal" candidate. So I would argue that it's a problem with an asymmetrical job marketplace and poor long term decision making on the part of employers.

philwelch 12y ago
Training doesn't always turn an "ok" or "good" candidate into a great one. The requirement is for developers. Either junior developers or senior developers. Hiring a trainee actually costs you developer time in the short run, for no guaranteed output in the long run as many of the trainees will just wash out. Besides, all you need is some books and open source software and you can train yourself, at least to the level that you're hirable. OK, some things you have to learn from experience in ways that are hard to accomplish outside of working for a big company (large scale distributed systems) but most of the companies that have large scale distributed systems are willing to hire straight out of college and, effectively, train them! So, the rational thing to do is to let the "ok" developers develop their own skills and then hire the ones that end up being good. But then, I don't think the standard is unreasonably high in the first place.
- logfromblammo 12y ago
  You're correct in that most "good" developers can self-train on whatever stack the employer uses. The problem is that many employers are not even willing to buy one book and wait two weeks. If the candidate cannot be instantly profitable from day 0, they are deemed to be "not qualified" for the position. There are too many tech fads and trends for a developer to self-train on everything a potential employer could possibly want before knowing exactly what that is. In my opinion, tech employers should stop being so specific with their requirements and simply allocate some time for the new people to adjust to their in-house way of doing things. As many of us know well, every development team has its own slightly different way of doing things, which has to be learned in order to work more effectively. Nobody "hits the ground running", because the tech skills are hardly ever the limiting factor in hitting full productivity. And I assure you that any company that wants to hire people to "hit the ground running" will forget to mention their new hires will be doing that running as a steeplechase over mismanagement hurdles. Training doesn't improve the quality of a candidate. It assures the candidates you can find at the price level you have chosen are familiar with the specific technologies and processes that your company uses.
  - speeder 12y ago
    I am unemployed because of this. I worked for too long with Lua, and noone hires a Lua coder, so I am screwed :(
  - philwelch 12y ago
    Then there's a pretty big disconnect that I've seen. The bigger companies that try to hire all the best programmers--Google, Amazon, Microsoft--don't actually care much about tech stacks unless they're hiring for a senior specialist in some specific technology, and even then it'll have more to do with a problem domain than a programming language. The employers who care about tech stacks tend to be either mediocre large companies (who by definition aren't very clueful) or small companies and startups (who really do need you to hit the ground running because they really do have limited resources).
    - 12y ago
Guvante 12y ago
I dunno, it feels to me that there are lots of okay developers, but few good ones. Given the nature of the tools available, I am incurring technical debt at a significant rate unless I hire a good developer.
- keithpeter 12y ago
  Can you not design a process that can achieve your objectives with the help of 'OK' developers?
  - coolsunglasses 12y ago
    If we knew how to do that, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in. There are things that can help teach OK developers to become good developers though.
    - drdeadringer 12y ago
      In the absence of this process we do not have, what are these things which can help elevate "ok developers" to "good developers"?
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]

scottcha 12y ago

I see this miscommunication also extended to within the schools. Both my daughter's schools (elemetary and middle schools) have STEM specific programs but they are entirely focused on the Science or Math aspect (where job prospects are not easy to come by) with virtually no emphasis on technology or engineering (where job prospects are more available). When I asked my daughters teacher who is one of the STEM chairs how they would better incorporate technology she said she hadn't thought about it. We've created this acronym when really we need to be bumping up the TE as I feel the already existing availability in primary education of SM is sufficient.

foobarian 12y ago
I feel a lot of the STEM stuff in K-12 boils down to hypothesis testing. Do X a hundred times, plug and chug into this formula, and presto! the outcome is successful with confidence Y%. The variation is just on what X is.

msabalau 12y ago

STEM as a term might have made sense if it had only been used to refer middle and high school teaching. Getting "more nerds" pre-career path would mean more people would at least be prepared to pursue whatever the subsection of tech was in demand when they are at college.

IndianAstronaut 12y ago

A professor I worked with absolutely hated the acronym STEM. Each letter of it was very different from each other. It also brought with it an over simplification of education and the issues around it. It does make for a handy political acronym though..