

Silicon Valley Hiring Perks: Meals, iPads and a Cubicle for Spot - gaurav_v
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/26/technology/26recruit.html?hp

======
orijing
"But even with a glut of engineers on the job market, few have the skills that
tech companies look for, said Cadir Lee, chief technology officer at Zynga.
Colleges rarely teach the newer programming languages like PHP, Ruby and
Python, which have become more popular at young Web companies than older ones
like Java, he said."

That seems a little demeaning to portray a computer science education as one
of languages and syntax. It's not about learning PHP or Ruby; it's about
learning programming paradigms, concepts, algorithms, etc to make better
software.

Perhaps the author of the article isn't particularly versed on how the CS =>
Software jobs process works. But to suggest that many engineers can't find
jobs because they weren't taught PHP in school is grossly incorrect.

Does anyone actually know of academic programs that teach PHP?

~~~
donw
The problem isn't that universities don't teach Blurb. The problem is that at
most schools, computer science students go into the field because it pays
well, and aren't otherwise interested in programming.

If you aren't interested in programming, you aren't going to take the time to
play around with new languages. You won't spend thousands of hours outside the
classroom, hacking on your own projects just for the sake of creating
something you think is cool.

The end result is that there are two strata of programmers; those with
passion, and those without. In my experience, it's easy to spot the difference
with one question during the interview process: "What's the coolest thing
you've ever built?"

If the answer to this question is something they built because they were told
to, they lack passion. If, on the other hand, they built something because it
scratched an itch (at school, work, or otherwise), then that's something else
entirely.

My best hires have always been programmers with less on-paper experience, but
a ton of hours building stuff because they wanted to.

~~~
nikcub
My main resume to interview filter is finding out what projects they have
worked on in their spare time. They usually have a homepage, blog, github or
bitbucket account, or something similar.

On the other hand, there is a class of 'rockstar' developer who are actually
not very good. The best way I can explain this is by giving an example.

I was hiring for a new higher-level dev, a Rails role. I was referred to a
developer whos name I knew by somebody internal. I thought 95% of the task
would be me convincing him to join us, and his profile was lots of twitter
followers, a good following on HN and other forums, a high profile as a
developer, attached his name to a lot of open source projects and spec work
etc.

Turned out he knew none of the basics. He had 'C' on his resume yet he could
skype chat me the simplest C routine. I asked him to scp a file up to a dev
server, and he said 'I had no idea that you could FTP over SSH' - which he
said after a 3-4 minute pause where it was obvious that he was googling. I
learnt then that a public profile and being involved in such projects
sometimes also isn't the best indicator.

~~~
rgbrgb
Unix and and C expertise seem like lousy litmus tests for a Rails dev. How was
his rails work?

~~~
nikcub
Terrible - he mixed controller and view code. I was only testing what his
resume said, and since we are small the role also requires a bit of everything

------
fourspace
Maybe it's just my age showing, but going to work somewhere because they're
buying you an iPad seems totally ludicrous. One would think that with a
$90,000 salary, a $500 tablet should not be a deciding factor.

~~~
jp
I think the haircut part is much stranger. The iPad is about moving people
into the multitouch paradigm.

~~~
nostrademons
The haircut part is about not having to leave campus and go do errands on a
weekend, so your weekends can be about having fun (or more realistically,
doing more work for the startup ;-)). It's actually pretty handy, being able
to tuck away a 20-minute haircut appointment in between two meetings.

------
eugene_b
"Then there are salaries. Google is paying computer science majors just out of
college $90,000 to $105,000, as much as $20,000 more than it was paying a few
months ago."

That's a pretty remarkable stat.

~~~
jonah
Everyone got a fairly substantial raise in response to heavy poaching by
Facebook and others.

~~~
dtby
I do wish we could get rid of the "poaching" term for at-will employees.
Either it's easier to bag trophy talent on the Google reserve than in the open
field (in which case, good on those employees for improving their lot) or it's
harder (in which case, good on Facebook and others for figuring out how to
compete for them.) Either way, it's hardly a situation for which an external
observer needs a judgmental descriptor.

~~~
phlux
Actually I disagree - the poaching between FB and Google actually sets
difficult precedents for pretty much everyone else.

You get FB enticing talent from google, and google giving raises to keep
people and this makes all other companies at a disadvantage.

Further, paying college grads 100K+ sets them up to be prima donnas almost
immediately.

Last, it is against the stance that when starting your own company, and taking
on money, the VCs want you to take smaller salaries to show that you have skin
in the game, that you're hungry etc... This makes it such that lifestyles
become set and the likelihood of anyone willing to take less is not going to
happen.

Over time - the overall market salary expectations increase, but now the
available talent pool that is actually worth those salary levels shrinks -
putting both talent and employers in a catch 22.

Every single entrepreneur in the valley should see Google, and even more,
Facebook as nothing but their enemy (until they try to acquire you, that is)

~~~
lurker14
Considering inflation over the past 20 years, $100K salary is not prima donna
material. Engineers aren't overpaid; they are fortunate enough to have salary
keeping pace with inflation.

Much of the rest of the educated working class is underpaid, with real wages
falling, due to weak bargaining power against the aristocracy.

~~~
phlux
Based on your comment then, do you believe that the only thing anyone should
be really interested in is stock?

Here is why I ask, my salary ranges between 110K and 175K depending on the
project, position, how interested I am in it etc...

I am a very senior infrastructure deisgner and PM.

I am 36.

To say that someone out of college getting 100K as an expected base salary is
not pirma donna material -- then you are setting them up to believe that, as
an engineer, their salary expectations should grow over time to say ~350K.

However - nobody pays that.

We can argue that everyone is underpaid, sure, I feel underpaid. But the truth
is that the only way I am going to get a comfortable windfall is to build /
sell somethinf of my own.

The fact seems to be that the mean salary is fairly flat regardless of
experience in general - but in the relatively more rare cases that people cash
out, there i wild profit to be made.

This is clear in SV where it is far more common for people to make out on
their stock -- but that clearly indicates at least some sort of bubble for
silicon valley as compared to the rest of the country/world.

------
rdouble
This has been happening for the past 12 years. At ArsDigita you got 100k, free
food, massages and weekend drives in a Ferarri. And that was to compete with
places like "Sapient" who offered more money. Even further back in ancient
history, I believe Symbolics used the same approach to recruiting. I guess the
new twist is that Google and Facebook can actually afford these salaries and
perks.

------
waterlesscloud
"Shannon Callahan, who recruits engineers for the venture capital firm
Andreessen Horowitz’s portfolio of companies, said a third of the engineers
she called ask for financing to start their own companies instead."

This seems like it would be the biggest problem in finding top talent.

~~~
lurker14
Not every talented engineer wants to be a CEO.

~~~
woan
Nor does every entrepreneur.

I think a lot of entrepreneurial engineers just want to be CTO or VP of
Engineering or Product. There's a lot of selling and all that goes around that
I think many entrepreneurial engineers are not predisposed to even when they
can be good at it.

I know a lot of startup execs and enterprise execs step back after a while to
rejoin the ranks of individual contributors for a while to catch their
breathe. It was worse during the IPO dotcom boom where I had friends that
really felt that as execs they were forced into ethical compromise in handling
the finances and misleading analysts when they were running public companies.

------
netmau5
90k for entry level is pretty crazy. Any Googlers in the Atlanta area who can
give the range in those parts now?

~~~
oniTony
From another HN discussion a while back: "entry level", as in starting
position at a company is not the same as "entry level" as in first job ever.
Yes, the article mentions recent grads, but I bet most of those who end up
hired already have industry experience (through internships or otherwise).

------
akkartik
"cubicle for spot"? What does that mean?

~~~
brianbreslin
Companies let their employees bring their dogs to work. Dog=spot (popular name
for a dog, google "see spot run")

------
spitfire
Not a bubble!

------
sunkan
So proud to be working with two of the startups mentioned in the article.

------
lurker14
This article makes many claims. A few of the claims I am in a position to
verify, and all of these are false.

This observation does not give me confidence that the other claims are true.

~~~
alphakappa
Care to elaborate?

