6 ms·

I think the subtext of "I would hire thirty great programmers tomorrow!" is "I would hire thirty great programmers tomorrow! They just need to think 55 hours a

by patio11 12y ago

I think the subtext of "I would hire thirty great programmers tomorrow!" is "I would hire thirty great programmers tomorrow! They just need to think 55 hours a week is a nice relaxing pace, have impeccable pedigrees, and be capable of spinning up within single-digit weeks. Also, we're looking for top-of-the-skill-curve at a combination of five technologies, two of which are fairly niche. For a variety of reasons we'd strongly prefer if they were located in one particular geographic area where we happen to be in vicious, frothy competition with a hundred firms trying to hire exactly this profile of people." This happens to be very similar to the rough description that Wall Street is looking for in certain niches of programmers. I have not heard Wall Street loudly complaining about the impossibility of finding Haskell programmers who can code against FIX and also have PhDs in physics. I rather strongly believe this is because Wall Street institutionally believes in market prices and, unlike Silicon Valley, is willing to tolerate the market telling them that the market clearing price for hiring this type of programmer times thirty is $200k base plus a $600k bonus as opposed to $120k base plus an equity grant with expected value in the $X0k range.

ryanSrich 12y ago
> $120k base plus an equity grant with expected value in the $X0k range. Or not even $120k. You'd be surprised at what some SV companies get away with. Take a look at angel list and you'll commonly see wages lower than $100k for experienced developers. I'd say the only epidemic that exists in the US's technology field is a lack of adequate compensation, not a lack of talent.
- encoderer 12y ago
  Using job ads to gauge market salaries will leave you at a disadvantage. There aren't many engineers in the bay area taking work today at $100k or below. Those that are are usually right out of school, or working for a cause they believe in.
  - geebee 12y ago
    It's very hard to get real data, so I can't really fault you for the lack of a good cite. However, it's not like the companies claiming a shortage are exactly forthcoming with the data themselves. Here's a pretty eye-opening story about a journalist and professor trying to get good data to study the issue http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2013/09/20/profs-immigration-challenge-to-silicon-valley-let-me-observe-how-you-hire-tech-workers/ http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2013/09/20/profs-immigr... I find it remarkable that people make claims of shortages without sharing information about the skill set they need and the compensation they're offering. Well, I don't find it remarkable, in the sense that I don't find PR-speak especially surprising anymore. I guess I should say I find it galling.
    - s54b32dd 12y ago
      I think the true intent of PR-speak like this is to drive the government to subsidize business growth via tax breaks, etc.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- foobarqux 12y ago
  $400k in RSUs over what time period and what vesting schedule?
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- encoderer 12y ago
  I've not hired as many engineers lately as I'm sure others have, but while I agree with your sentiment, I think you're painting only 1/2 the picture. Yes, people routinely under-estimate salaries of engineers in the bay area. And I certainly know people at Google and Apple who have comp packages in the neighborhood you mention. But I'm skeptical of calling that the "norm", and even if it is, it's only the norm for RSU-granting, established tech companies. Half the employment for engineers in the area is for smaller companies with ISO grants with Expected Value well below $300k and salaries 25% below your quote. What's wonderful for engineers in the SFBA is that you have this choice. Take a front row seat at a startup and consistently make $110-130k, go to a huge tech giant like Google and make far more in a more narrowly defined role, or pick some place in the middle. Like Trulia, for example! We're always hiring Android and iOS engineers.
justincormack 12y ago
If Google paid out the same proportion of its earnings as salaries as investment banks do, they would roughly double overall compensation.
vasilipupkin 12y ago
I agree with you. Generally, there is no shortage of tech resumes on Wall Street - because wages are higher.
- encoderer 12y ago
  Also because there are fewer choices in NYC than engineers have in the SF Bay Area.
  - vasilipupkin 12y ago
    My guess is high frequency trading jobs in California pay more than startup jobs in California also if engineers had fewer choices, wages would be lower, wouldn't they ?
    - encoderer 12y ago
      Of course, pay isn't the only motivation behind a career choice. Many engineers take jobs in less lucrative verticals like game development because the work interests them. That said, if you're an experienced engineer and you told me you wanted to make $200k next year, if you're in NYC I would say "go into finance" which is far more limited than the advice I would give in SFBA which is "go work for just about any publicly traded tech company, or slightly more risky go work for a tech company that seems to have an imminent IPO, or more risky still go work for a well-funded private marquee tech company (many of these companies would overlap with the 2nd group). In the end, it's a much bigger pond. Look, I'm not saying NYC is void of these types of opportunities. I've got friends who work in the city for Tumblr and Spotify among others. I'm just saying, it's about density. You could take the skyline of SF and put it in a few blocks of lower manhattan. And you could take the tech population of NYC and put it in a "few blocks" of SF. All that said, the relation to wages is more complicated than you suggest. Less variety doesn't speak to the balance between labor talent and demand.
      - vasilipupkin 12y ago
        Less variety should put downward pressure on wages, all things being equal, not upward pressure All I am saying is, software development wages are too low, especially relative to the demands of the job - that's why there is a perceived shortage. Raise the wages and smart people from other fields will teach themselves to code and join the fray
abalone 12y ago
It seems highly improbable that cash-based Wall Street compensation packages could be offered by Silicon Valley startups. Maybe established companies could, but it would massively increase the fundraising requirements for early stage companies, with probably bad effects on the SV ecosystem. Perhaps you can argue that startup equity grants should be higher. Would hiring issues be resolved if the average equity grant tripled? Would more talented people in the U.S. pursue Silicon Valley careers if they got 3% instead of 1% to be an early employee? I can't prove it, but I'd conjecture it would only have a modest effect. The notion of "expected value" of equity is problematic. It's not like it's simply a 3X stronger offer. The bigger issue is whether the company will be worth anything at all.
- patio11 12y ago
  "That totally blows out my business model!" may be true [+], but is not an objection which should escape the lips of someone who has the word "capitalist" literally in their job title. [+] I'm agnostic on this. Pinterest just raised, what, $450 million dollars? That's presumably not intended to buy the world's biggest vat of chocolate pudding.
  - davidw 12y ago
    Out of curiosity, what are programmer salaries like in Japan, and how is immigration there?
    - mechanical_fish 12y ago
      Read and discover: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan/ http://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan/ (I could pull an answer to your question out of this -- hint, search the page for a dollar sign -- but if you're reading "out of curiosity" you should just get some coffee or something and read the whole glorious thing, because the number is useless without the context, and the context is very different from the USA.)
      - davidw 12y ago
tokenadult 12y ago
It's a pity your thoughtful comment is losing visibility as the submitted story has been flagged off the front page.
- pen2l 12y ago
  Sadly, it hasn't truly been "flagged off", it was done by the volition (or rather, the acquiescence of HN mods). This has happened for almost every immigration-related submission critical of pg's point-of-view. When you call them out for this, they go back to the excuse "the users voted it off!" But that's not really a good response, since they do routinely take the initiative of bringing to life stories that were voted off. I know things get politically dirty on these kinds of submissions, but the conversation needs to happen -- pg can't just open the lid to say what he wants, and immediately close it. This is our bread and butter on the line, why shouldn't we be able to have this conversation without the submissions constantly getting killed.
  - tptacek 12y ago
    That's a rather inflammatory claim to make without a lick of evidence, and attributes a whole lot of agency in story selection to a person who appears to have no current involvement with HN whatsoever. It's also a drive-by from an anonymous throwaway account.
    - pen2l 12y ago
      I would back up my claims with evidence other than my stated observations if HN software wasn't so opaque. And anyway, the burden of proof falls upon the party with the pertinent pattern of the acts which they are being accused of. HN often slowbans folks who don't toe the line (michaelochurch, larrys, rayiner (rayiner was rankbanned precisely because of disagreeing with pg on the immigration issue), etc., as well as manipulates ranking of comments to put YC-funded startups in a positive light. Considering all of this, I'm fine making the accusation, YC-staff has to defend this with solid evidence. Anyway, to be clear, I'm not accusing pg, or really anyone particular of doing anything -- I'm saying HN mods (whoever they may be) are behind this story falling off from #1 to not being on the frontpage in a matter of a minute.
bkessler100 12y ago
I miss the quality and due-diligence of pg's earlier essays. He appears indistinguishable from a Silicon Vally VC now.
Alex3917 12y ago
That doesn't address the question of whether or not we should increase immigration quotas though. I don't think there's any question that if the only thing we do to increase the supply of great coders is to increase immigration quotas, then this basically just amounts to a pyramid scheme to further enrich the silicon valley elites at the expense of the public. But pg never says that this is the only thing we should do, he only says that it's one of the things we should do. I don't necessarily agree with pg's realpolitik view of reality, but I also think a lot of the criticism of this piece is based on things that just aren't there.
- vasilipupkin 12y ago
  I think both are true: we should let more talented people into the country AND there is actually no shortage of programmers - there is a lack of programmers at the prevailing rather low programmer salaries.

by patio11 12y ago

ryanSrich 12y ago

> $120k base plus an equity grant with expected value in the $X0k range. Or not even $120k. You'd be surprised at what some SV companies get away with. Take a look at angel list and you'll commonly see wages lower than $100k for experienced developers. I'd say the only epidemic that exists in the US's technology field is a lack of adequate compensation, not a lack of talent.

encoderer 12y ago
Using job ads to gauge market salaries will leave you at a disadvantage. There aren't many engineers in the bay area taking work today at $100k or below. Those that are are usually right out of school, or working for a cause they believe in.
- geebee 12y ago
  It's very hard to get real data, so I can't really fault you for the lack of a good cite. However, it's not like the companies claiming a shortage are exactly forthcoming with the data themselves. Here's a pretty eye-opening story about a journalist and professor trying to get good data to study the issue http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2013/09/20/profs-immigration-challenge-to-silicon-valley-let-me-observe-how-you-hire-tech-workers/ http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2013/09/20/profs-immigr... I find it remarkable that people make claims of shortages without sharing information about the skill set they need and the compensation they're offering. Well, I don't find it remarkable, in the sense that I don't find PR-speak especially surprising anymore. I guess I should say I find it galling.
  - s54b32dd 12y ago
    I think the true intent of PR-speak like this is to drive the government to subsidize business growth via tax breaks, etc.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

foobarqux 12y ago
$400k in RSUs over what time period and what vesting schedule?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
encoderer 12y ago
I've not hired as many engineers lately as I'm sure others have, but while I agree with your sentiment, I think you're painting only 1/2 the picture. Yes, people routinely under-estimate salaries of engineers in the bay area. And I certainly know people at Google and Apple who have comp packages in the neighborhood you mention. But I'm skeptical of calling that the "norm", and even if it is, it's only the norm for RSU-granting, established tech companies. Half the employment for engineers in the area is for smaller companies with ISO grants with Expected Value well below $300k and salaries 25% below your quote. What's wonderful for engineers in the SFBA is that you have this choice. Take a front row seat at a startup and consistently make $110-130k, go to a huge tech giant like Google and make far more in a more narrowly defined role, or pick some place in the middle. Like Trulia, for example! We're always hiring Android and iOS engineers.

justincormack 12y ago

If Google paid out the same proportion of its earnings as salaries as investment banks do, they would roughly double overall compensation.

vasilipupkin 12y ago

I agree with you. Generally, there is no shortage of tech resumes on Wall Street - because wages are higher.

encoderer 12y ago
Also because there are fewer choices in NYC than engineers have in the SF Bay Area.
- vasilipupkin 12y ago
  My guess is high frequency trading jobs in California pay more than startup jobs in California also if engineers had fewer choices, wages would be lower, wouldn't they ?
  - encoderer 12y ago
    Of course, pay isn't the only motivation behind a career choice. Many engineers take jobs in less lucrative verticals like game development because the work interests them. That said, if you're an experienced engineer and you told me you wanted to make $200k next year, if you're in NYC I would say "go into finance" which is far more limited than the advice I would give in SFBA which is "go work for just about any publicly traded tech company, or slightly more risky go work for a tech company that seems to have an imminent IPO, or more risky still go work for a well-funded private marquee tech company (many of these companies would overlap with the 2nd group). In the end, it's a much bigger pond. Look, I'm not saying NYC is void of these types of opportunities. I've got friends who work in the city for Tumblr and Spotify among others. I'm just saying, it's about density. You could take the skyline of SF and put it in a few blocks of lower manhattan. And you could take the tech population of NYC and put it in a "few blocks" of SF. All that said, the relation to wages is more complicated than you suggest. Less variety doesn't speak to the balance between labor talent and demand.
    - vasilipupkin 12y ago
      Less variety should put downward pressure on wages, all things being equal, not upward pressure All I am saying is, software development wages are too low, especially relative to the demands of the job - that's why there is a perceived shortage. Raise the wages and smart people from other fields will teach themselves to code and join the fray

abalone 12y ago

It seems highly improbable that cash-based Wall Street compensation packages could be offered by Silicon Valley startups. Maybe established companies could, but it would massively increase the fundraising requirements for early stage companies, with probably bad effects on the SV ecosystem. Perhaps you can argue that startup equity grants should be higher. Would hiring issues be resolved if the average equity grant tripled? Would more talented people in the U.S. pursue Silicon Valley careers if they got 3% instead of 1% to be an early employee? I can't prove it, but I'd conjecture it would only have a modest effect. The notion of "expected value" of equity is problematic. It's not like it's simply a 3X stronger offer. The bigger issue is whether the company will be worth anything at all.

patio11 12y ago
"That totally blows out my business model!" may be true [+], but is not an objection which should escape the lips of someone who has the word "capitalist" literally in their job title. [+] I'm agnostic on this. Pinterest just raised, what, $450 million dollars? That's presumably not intended to buy the world's biggest vat of chocolate pudding.
- davidw 12y ago
  Out of curiosity, what are programmer salaries like in Japan, and how is immigration there?
  - mechanical_fish 12y ago
    Read and discover: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan/ http://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan/ (I could pull an answer to your question out of this -- hint, search the page for a dollar sign -- but if you're reading "out of curiosity" you should just get some coffee or something and read the whole glorious thing, because the number is useless without the context, and the context is very different from the USA.)
    - davidw 12y ago

tokenadult 12y ago

It's a pity your thoughtful comment is losing visibility as the submitted story has been flagged off the front page.

pen2l 12y ago
Sadly, it hasn't truly been "flagged off", it was done by the volition (or rather, the acquiescence of HN mods). This has happened for almost every immigration-related submission critical of pg's point-of-view. When you call them out for this, they go back to the excuse "the users voted it off!" But that's not really a good response, since they do routinely take the initiative of bringing to life stories that were voted off. I know things get politically dirty on these kinds of submissions, but the conversation needs to happen -- pg can't just open the lid to say what he wants, and immediately close it. This is our bread and butter on the line, why shouldn't we be able to have this conversation without the submissions constantly getting killed.
- tptacek 12y ago
  That's a rather inflammatory claim to make without a lick of evidence, and attributes a whole lot of agency in story selection to a person who appears to have no current involvement with HN whatsoever. It's also a drive-by from an anonymous throwaway account.
  - pen2l 12y ago
    I would back up my claims with evidence other than my stated observations if HN software wasn't so opaque. And anyway, the burden of proof falls upon the party with the pertinent pattern of the acts which they are being accused of. HN often slowbans folks who don't toe the line (michaelochurch, larrys, rayiner (rayiner was rankbanned precisely because of disagreeing with pg on the immigration issue), etc., as well as manipulates ranking of comments to put YC-funded startups in a positive light. Considering all of this, I'm fine making the accusation, YC-staff has to defend this with solid evidence. Anyway, to be clear, I'm not accusing pg, or really anyone particular of doing anything -- I'm saying HN mods (whoever they may be) are behind this story falling off from #1 to not being on the frontpage in a matter of a minute.

bkessler100 12y ago

I miss the quality and due-diligence of pg's earlier essays. He appears indistinguishable from a Silicon Vally VC now.

Alex3917 12y ago

That doesn't address the question of whether or not we should increase immigration quotas though. I don't think there's any question that if the only thing we do to increase the supply of great coders is to increase immigration quotas, then this basically just amounts to a pyramid scheme to further enrich the silicon valley elites at the expense of the public. But pg never says that this is the only thing we should do, he only says that it's one of the things we should do. I don't necessarily agree with pg's realpolitik view of reality, but I also think a lot of the criticism of this piece is based on things that just aren't there.

vasilipupkin 12y ago
I think both are true: we should let more talented people into the country AND there is actually no shortage of programmers - there is a lack of programmers at the prevailing rather low programmer salaries.