4 ms·

Here's a related question that I never see addressed: how big of a programmer shortage do you think there would be if salaries were 50% higher? All the talk se

Here's a related question that I never see addressed: how big of a programmer shortage do you think there would be if salaries were 50% higher? All the talk seems to assume that the makeup of industry is utterly inelastic. Fine, maybe your small company in Cleveland can't go out tomorrow and hire 10 A+ developers, but do people really not believe that if starting salary for an A+ developer was $150k, or whatever, that we might get more high-achievers choosing CSCI majors than pre-med or pre-law? Nobody could sanely argue that there isn't tons of talent outside the US; and maybe it would be good to bring some of it in. But I have yet to see the argument for why these companies with balance sheets that Switzerland would envy couldn't solve this problem by getting out the checkbook. Yeah, the problem wouldn't go away tomorrow, but I'm not sure that making it go away tomorrow should be the only acceptable solution. Guess what, guys: I can't hire people to come and drywall my office tomorrow at whatever price I feel like paying, either. Put another way, there's probably a reason we don't hear about the great doctor and lawyer shortage. Not apples to apples, obviously, but maybe it's oranges to grapefruits.

chetanahuja 12y ago
So basically you're proposing protectionist policies to limit supply and thus inflate the price of labor (that is, you). Would you also support similar arguments for say, oh I don't know, taxi or hotel prices in the area where you live so the existing pool of taxi drivers or hotel owners can protect the income they are making?
- shanusmagnus 12y ago
  It may be useful for you to actually read TFA, which (spoiler alert) is not by me saying that we need to screw down the number of people we allow into the country, but is rather by another gentleman who has been stranded someplace unpleasant due to the ill winds of supply and demand, and wants to transform immigration policy until he washes up someplace more suited to his temperament.
- chetanahuja 12y ago
  Downvotes don't faze me but I find it telling that I don't see an actual reply to my point regarding protectionist policies. If you find yourself instinctively downvoting my comment, please also take a minute to form a coherent reply to it and post it. Why is it ok for the (American) hacker news crowd to demand a legally mandated supply shortage to keep the prices of their labor inflated while it's not ok for (usually much poorer) taxi drivers to demand the same (campaigning against Uber and such)?
  - kamaal 12y ago
    You make a few valid points. But the issue is like always, every one feels their work is the most important occupation in the universe and every one else must just accommodate to whatever the conditions there are. Even more specifically if there really programmers out there who are best of the best. Making a lot of money would be least of their problems.
  - shanusmagnus 12y ago
    I didn't downvote you, but maybe other people did because, as my original reply suggested, you're arguing against a position that nobody was taking. Nobody was talking about eliminating immigration, and not re-legislating immigration policy at the behest of MSFT and GOOG or Paul Graham cannot reasonably be translated as a 'mandated supply shortage.'
    - chetanahuja 12y ago
      "Nobody was talking about eliminating immigration," That's a strawman. Eliminating immigration is not the only way to restrict supply of software developers. "and not re-legislating immigration policy at the behest of..." The fact that you felt the need to add a couple of other "baddies" after "at the behest of" should be an indicator that the original argument is weak. This entire thread thread is filled with software engineers making the argument that increased supply of software engineers is going to decrease wages. That's exactly what happens in a free market of labor. As a thought experiment, imagine a world who got a job offer from a US company was free to move to the US and start working. Any situation short of that is a legally mandated labor supply shortage.
kar2014 12y ago
> but do people really not believe that if starting salary for an A+ developer was $150k, or whatever, that we might get more high-achievers First, US is already the third country in list for highest paid programmers, there is not much room to grow. Second, Companies are in business, not for charity. Companies are there for profit so if they could hire a beginner programmer for 50k, they should, otherwise they would be out of business and you would be buying everything made in China.
- Amezarak 12y ago
  Well then, that means one of two things: 1. There is, as dictated by the law of supply-and-demand, not an undersupply of good programmers, otherwise good programmers would be in a negotiating position such that they would reject your 50k offer for a 150k offer elsewhere; or 2. The market cannot support this hypothetical company's business model. If my restaurant fails because labor costs leave me overrunning my revenue, few people would argue that is evidence we need immigration reform so I can find cheaper labor.
  - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
    But unlike a resteraunt, you can open abroad and capture labor resources in other countries. So if programmers get too expensive in the states, or Silicon Valley, relative to the world market, there is a point where you are forced to open an office elsewhere (if not your competition does and eats your lunch). Without immigration, that would happen sooner (rather than the mythical doubling of American programming salaries).
    - Amezarak 12y ago
      Programmers in the US are already wildly, wildly expensive in the USA relative to the world market, often by an order of magnitude. So, if that's the case, we're already screwed and we're only being saved by some market inefficiency. We should all prepare for the inevitable future where we are doing very well to make 15-20k. EDIT: http://www.payscale.com/research/IN/Job=Web_Developer/Salary http://www.payscale.com/research/IN/Job=Web_Developer/Salary The maximum on that scale is 530,000 Rs, which is 8000 USD for a web developer. No doubt other countries have even lower salaries.
HillRat 12y ago
Well, there is a doctor shortage, particularly in the general practitioner space, where salaries are much lower than specialist medicine; likewise, while there's not a shortage of lawyers, oversupply has pushed down wages (and pushed would-be attorneys out of the market), and law school enrollments have fallen appropriately. Comp-sci salaries are really, really good, to the point that a single experienced developer is single-handedly in the top ten percent of earners; a household with two developers is easily in the top 3-4% of household earners. And a superstar developer can make a hell of a lot more, if you're willing to play the casino economy of startups. Yes, a b- or law-school grad who went to school in Boston is going to economically outperform their brethren from land-grant schools, but a lot of that has to do with background privilege and the ability to build a relationship graph. (If Harvard excluded the academically-mediocre children of the rich and powerful and admitted solely on merit, nine-tenths of the wealth-generating potential of its diploma would be extinguished.) Your average MBA or JD is lucky to do as well as a senior software developer. Computer science, like medicine, is hard, while it's easier to tune one's grad school experience for less-rigorous subjects. And we all know that even credentialed programmers often can't pass the FizzBuzz test, while even fewer can speak authoritatively about complex system design and architecture. We could add more bodies to CS curricula, but it's far from clear that robbing from MBA and JD programs would add to the stock of high-quality programmers.
- shanusmagnus 12y ago
  My point was less that we bring in the big guns by poaching them from these other fields, then that we address the issue the way it's traditionally been addressed, which is to let the market take care of it. If these development jobs are really magnificent engines of wealth creation, then pay more to hire for the positions and more qualified people will appear. If, as you point out, there's now a lawyer glut, and now lawyers must roll naked in five dollar bills instead of fifties, then that's a sign the process works. The idea that developers already make enough money, and so instead of letting the market set prices and the shortages work themselves out, that we should rather blow up the current system because some giant companies would just, you know, really appreciate it -- I can't even finish the sentence. I would really enjoy paying less money to get my transmission rebuilt or the plumbing in the downstairs bathroom fixed. I would love a glut of massage therapists so that I could get my shoulder worked on for the price of an expensive coffee. I do not, however, suggest we change immigration policy to make my dreams a reality. That seems to be what it comes down to.

chetanahuja 12y ago

So basically you're proposing protectionist policies to limit supply and thus inflate the price of labor (that is, you). Would you also support similar arguments for say, oh I don't know, taxi or hotel prices in the area where you live so the existing pool of taxi drivers or hotel owners can protect the income they are making?

shanusmagnus 12y ago
It may be useful for you to actually read TFA, which (spoiler alert) is not by me saying that we need to screw down the number of people we allow into the country, but is rather by another gentleman who has been stranded someplace unpleasant due to the ill winds of supply and demand, and wants to transform immigration policy until he washes up someplace more suited to his temperament.
chetanahuja 12y ago
Downvotes don't faze me but I find it telling that I don't see an actual reply to my point regarding protectionist policies. If you find yourself instinctively downvoting my comment, please also take a minute to form a coherent reply to it and post it. Why is it ok for the (American) hacker news crowd to demand a legally mandated supply shortage to keep the prices of their labor inflated while it's not ok for (usually much poorer) taxi drivers to demand the same (campaigning against Uber and such)?
- kamaal 12y ago
  You make a few valid points. But the issue is like always, every one feels their work is the most important occupation in the universe and every one else must just accommodate to whatever the conditions there are. Even more specifically if there really programmers out there who are best of the best. Making a lot of money would be least of their problems.
- shanusmagnus 12y ago
  I didn't downvote you, but maybe other people did because, as my original reply suggested, you're arguing against a position that nobody was taking. Nobody was talking about eliminating immigration, and not re-legislating immigration policy at the behest of MSFT and GOOG or Paul Graham cannot reasonably be translated as a 'mandated supply shortage.'
  - chetanahuja 12y ago
    "Nobody was talking about eliminating immigration," That's a strawman. Eliminating immigration is not the only way to restrict supply of software developers. "and not re-legislating immigration policy at the behest of..." The fact that you felt the need to add a couple of other "baddies" after "at the behest of" should be an indicator that the original argument is weak. This entire thread thread is filled with software engineers making the argument that increased supply of software engineers is going to decrease wages. That's exactly what happens in a free market of labor. As a thought experiment, imagine a world who got a job offer from a US company was free to move to the US and start working. Any situation short of that is a legally mandated labor supply shortage.

kar2014 12y ago

> but do people really not believe that if starting salary for an A+ developer was $150k, or whatever, that we might get more high-achievers First, US is already the third country in list for highest paid programmers, there is not much room to grow. Second, Companies are in business, not for charity. Companies are there for profit so if they could hire a beginner programmer for 50k, they should, otherwise they would be out of business and you would be buying everything made in China.

Amezarak 12y ago
Well then, that means one of two things: 1. There is, as dictated by the law of supply-and-demand, not an undersupply of good programmers, otherwise good programmers would be in a negotiating position such that they would reject your 50k offer for a 150k offer elsewhere; or 2. The market cannot support this hypothetical company's business model. If my restaurant fails because labor costs leave me overrunning my revenue, few people would argue that is evidence we need immigration reform so I can find cheaper labor.
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  But unlike a resteraunt, you can open abroad and capture labor resources in other countries. So if programmers get too expensive in the states, or Silicon Valley, relative to the world market, there is a point where you are forced to open an office elsewhere (if not your competition does and eats your lunch). Without immigration, that would happen sooner (rather than the mythical doubling of American programming salaries).
  - Amezarak 12y ago
    Programmers in the US are already wildly, wildly expensive in the USA relative to the world market, often by an order of magnitude. So, if that's the case, we're already screwed and we're only being saved by some market inefficiency. We should all prepare for the inevitable future where we are doing very well to make 15-20k. EDIT: http://www.payscale.com/research/IN/Job=Web_Developer/Salary http://www.payscale.com/research/IN/Job=Web_Developer/Salary The maximum on that scale is 530,000 Rs, which is 8000 USD for a web developer. No doubt other countries have even lower salaries.

HillRat 12y ago

Well, there is a doctor shortage, particularly in the general practitioner space, where salaries are much lower than specialist medicine; likewise, while there's not a shortage of lawyers, oversupply has pushed down wages (and pushed would-be attorneys out of the market), and law school enrollments have fallen appropriately. Comp-sci salaries are really, really good, to the point that a single experienced developer is single-handedly in the top ten percent of earners; a household with two developers is easily in the top 3-4% of household earners. And a superstar developer can make a hell of a lot more, if you're willing to play the casino economy of startups. Yes, a b- or law-school grad who went to school in Boston is going to economically outperform their brethren from land-grant schools, but a lot of that has to do with background privilege and the ability to build a relationship graph. (If Harvard excluded the academically-mediocre children of the rich and powerful and admitted solely on merit, nine-tenths of the wealth-generating potential of its diploma would be extinguished.) Your average MBA or JD is lucky to do as well as a senior software developer. Computer science, like medicine, is hard, while it's easier to tune one's grad school experience for less-rigorous subjects. And we all know that even credentialed programmers often can't pass the FizzBuzz test, while even fewer can speak authoritatively about complex system design and architecture. We could add more bodies to CS curricula, but it's far from clear that robbing from MBA and JD programs would add to the stock of high-quality programmers.

shanusmagnus 12y ago
My point was less that we bring in the big guns by poaching them from these other fields, then that we address the issue the way it's traditionally been addressed, which is to let the market take care of it. If these development jobs are really magnificent engines of wealth creation, then pay more to hire for the positions and more qualified people will appear. If, as you point out, there's now a lawyer glut, and now lawyers must roll naked in five dollar bills instead of fifties, then that's a sign the process works. The idea that developers already make enough money, and so instead of letting the market set prices and the shortages work themselves out, that we should rather blow up the current system because some giant companies would just, you know, really appreciate it -- I can't even finish the sentence. I would really enjoy paying less money to get my transmission rebuilt or the plumbing in the downstairs bathroom fixed. I would love a glut of massage therapists so that I could get my shoulder worked on for the price of an expensive coffee. I do not, however, suggest we change immigration policy to make my dreams a reality. That seems to be what it comes down to.