
Atlanta, Seattle, Chicago Desperate for Software Engineers, Says Job Search Firm - teklaperry
http://spectrum.ieee.org/view-from-the-valley/at-work/tech-careers/atlanta-seattle-and-chicago-are-desperate-for-software-engineers-says-job-search-firm
======
eschaton
It's amazing how employers seem to think they're exempt from supply and
demand.

The real problem is that employers in those areas can't find employees in
those areas at the rates they want to pay—and not just in monetary terms.
Employers outside California often demand onerous non-compete agreements, and
claim they're "standard." Employers outside California often lowball
candidates, and claim "that's the average pay here, besides that the cost of
living is lower!"

Guess what? If you want to hire now, you're competing with employers in an
area with beautiful weather, high pay, AND state law prohibiting non-compete
agreements that actually gets upheld regularly in court. That means you need
to actually make at least as attractive an offer just to keep up.

~~~
balls187
Generally speaking, we don't advertise the salary range for positions.

So when we find it difficult to fill a role, it's not because we're not going
to pay a competitive salary. It's more likely because the candidates that are
applying aren't the right fit. When that happens, we revamp our sourcing
approach: change the JD, tweak the keywords we filter on, etc.

> Employers outside California often lowball candidates, and claim "that's the
> average pay here, besides that the cost of living is lower!"

With websites like Glassdoor and Payscale it's pretty trivial to determine the
market rate in a given location.

It's probably a variety of factors, but I believe one factor is a lot of the
companies (at least in Seattle) are companies you haven't really read about in
Techcrunch, Re//code, or even HN. While the big-cos: facebook, msft, Amazon,
Google, have their share of open job recs, they at least have the brand name
recognition to recruit engineers. Silicon Valley probably has their share of
off-brand software companies, but by and large, there are many more house-hold
names there.

~~~
deciplex
Define 'right fit.' (Asking the question in earnest, not to be snarky.)

~~~
lostcolony
Usually the candidates being seen don't measure up or match the intended
position.

As an example, "we want to hire a devops person"; okay, you start getting
people who do a lot of on premise stuff with Ansible/Chef/Puppet, and have to
be told explicitly what to do. What you really wanted was someone familiar
with AWS, setting up cloudformations, autoscaling, VPC configuration, etc, and
who could be given an app, said "here's how it runs", and then figure out what
needs to be done on their own.

------
devonkim
I looked at the cities with average salaries and saw that they were at an
average of $110k. Why would you bother with that kind of salary when you can
work for a SV based company remotely for probably more cash and better growth
opportunities? It's rather rare to get stock options or grants to begin with.
Then add in how unexciting the companies are typically (can someone even name
a tech-heavy company from Kansas City that's not an onshore outsourcing center
like a lot of NC's RTP area or much of the Southeast?).

Unlike the FB or Googler comparisons often cited I'm nobody special or
talented and managed to get $130k+ from miserly employers in not very tech
friendly areas, so I can't see how anyone with decent talent taking local jobs
in places with as horrible traffic like Chicago or Atlanta with solid career
prospects would want to go there. Lack of locally grown talent from
universities certainly isn't a problem for most (Georgia Tech is pretty solid,
for example). So doesn't that mean they're suffering from brain drain to a
fair degree?

~~~
curiousgal
I am always in awe of how well-paid SW Engineers in the US are, like, I know
SAP developers in my country with a salary of $7k per year.

~~~
tuna-piano
Curious, what country? And do you think the $7k developer is a similiar
quality as the US $100k developer? Crazy that the difference in citizenship
can matter that much.

By the way, I'm from Chicago, and knew many talented folks with 2-3 years post
college getting in the $70k's. Much lower than the easy $100k quoted here.

~~~
ghostly_s
Someone I know in Chicago with 2 years post-school experience has entertained
several offers in the 90k range for front-end dev positions this past year,
and this is with a 2-year degree. I assumed back-end/compsci grads were
pulling much higher than that, am I missing something?

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joezydeco
I'm in Chicago and I'd jump in a second if someone was offering a competitive
salary. Nobody is budging here. They're trying to find senior devs with junior
salaries.

~~~
misiti3780
how are the consulting opportunities there?

~~~
borkborkbork
Chicago consultancies won't pay you market rate either

~~~
tptacek
Working as an FTE for a consultancy isn't consulting.

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burger_moon
Sure didn't feel desperate in Atlanta last fall when I was looking for a job.
I left the state and got a job elsewhere.

~~~
frankydp
That comment is a surprise. The demand in ATL is pretty crazy. That being
said, if you are not wanting to go downtown things can get pretty scarce in a
hurry.

On a side note, Atlanta is very much a recruiter town. The size of even the
smaller firms lends them to recruiter models. Other than the startups in the
incubators, the "small" software companies are 100+.

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BuckRogers
Not surprised about Chicago and Atlanta but Seattle seems odd to be on that
list. It's a great town that I'd love to be stuck in.

I'm from Chicago and currently in Austin. My wife and I would be happy to move
back, if anyone has 110K for me. Fork that over with no on-call rotation and
I'll join your devops team.

~~~
forrestthewoods
Why is Seattle odd? Tech is booming here! Largely fueled by Amazon at the
moment. But all the big software companies are growing their Seattle presence.

~~~
kabdib
Many companies are hiring in the Seattle area. And there's always Microsoft .
. . or Amazon, if you're hungry (in several senses of the phrase :-) ).

As to the climate: I spent 20 years in Silly Valley, have lived in the Seattle
area for 12 now, and I don't miss the Bay Area at all.

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revisualize
Where are those Junior: DevOps Engineer, general software engineer, and front-
end developer jobs?

Is it the responsibility of the job market to allow people to gain the
experience needed to fill the mid-level and senior level jobs. Overall, how
are we as aspiring developers supposed to gain the needed experience to fill
the demanding roles?

I have several years of experience in IT via System/Network Administration and
I've been teaching myself programming after my work hours (mostly JavaScript
over the last 8 months). I've taken the Microsoft Virtual Academy for
Introduction to Programming with Python, Getting Started with PowerShell 3.0,
Advanced Tools & Scripting with PowerShell 3.0; Codecademy for HTML/CSS,
JavaScript, Python even college for C# and a myriad of other free online
courses to push my knowledge further.

As an individual that lives in Seattle, I'd love to fill an engaging and
exciting opportunity to round out my experience while growing my skill set.
Sadly, I'm just not seeing the opportunities out there that would allow me to
move forward. I know that there are some that would say, create the
opportunities to move your career forward. But, as an individual that is bound
by an employment contract that has an "Employment Exclusivity" clause and
broad reaching "Ownership Of Intangible Property" clause. That is extremely
difficult. There's also the other side of the thought process that states if
companies are truly desperate for talent, that they'd find a way to curate and
grow the talent in those areas to fill the demand. I don't know if that is
even happening. Hell, I'd even be willing to work at sub-standard wages if I
was able to find an organization that is willing to work to mentor a candidate
to solidify their skills and experience. (No, my current employer doesn't do
that.) Average wage is what 89k/yr ... I'm pretty sure that several people
would be willing to work for $54k to $60k if it meant the opportunity to grow
their skills, knowledge and work on exciting projects. But, maybe I'm just
thinking of myself here.

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chriscampbell
I feel like this will be controversial to this thread but what about companies
that do match SV wages? I am sure there are several in all these cities, there
are many in Chicago.

it is super difficult to find the talented candidates that are passionate,
curious and are down for solving complex issues at the seniority we want to
higher at.

Maybe I am wrong to think its not a salary thing, the market doesn't currently
have / isn't pulling in enough talent to feed the demand.

Do the HN economists think if the salaries were raised 20% in a market it
would correct the problem?

------
Taylor_OD
Tech Recruiter here in Chicago. It depends on the field/tech stack. Looking
for a Windows DevOps engineer? Good luck. Need a senior .net developer? No
problem. Enterprise .net and java have been in chicago forever so there are
plenty of developers. Mobile, Automated QA, DevOps, even Ruby developers are
all a lot more difficult to find here. I think that's quickly changing though.
I've helped two guys from Florida and another from Nashville relocate here
this year. Those type of people hit the ceiling in their smallish tech
community and gravitate to a legitimize tech hub like Chicago.

Edit: I'll add a self promotional bit here... I read hackernews on my own for
fun but I am a tech recruiter in Chicago. I am confidant that I cant help
almost any 2-8 year software developer looking for 80K-120K find a new job. I
don't code but I can promise you I am better than most the recruiters that
message you every day. If you are interested in chatting, even if you are not
looking right now, i'd love to talk.

Proof I'm a real person:
[https://www.linkedin.com/in/taylordorsett](https://www.linkedin.com/in/taylordorsett)

I got a couple reviews on there from some people you may know if you are local
to chicago.

Email me at taylor.dorsett@jobspringpartners.com or dorsetttaylor@gmail.com

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hackaflocka
I'd love to hear HN readers' explanations of the differences between these
terms:

\- mobile engineer vs. mobile developer

\- software developer vs. general software engineer vs. software architect

~~~
ryanSrich
About 30% in pay...always call yourself an engineer if you're a developer.

~~~
hackaflocka
LOL. I think you're on to something.

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dabockster
I'm graduating from a Seattle area college on Saturday. This is exciting news
to hear.

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tomp
I'm desperate for a Ferrari. But I'd rather not pay for it...

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buttershakes
I'm constantly getting lowballed by recruiters in NY. The truth is these
places aren't paying enough to get the talent. I.e trying to pay good local
rates, when software development is increasingly remote and world wide.

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cheradenine01
Translation: Companies idea of "Market Rate" is not, in fact "Market Rate".

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ilostmykeys
The situation is beyond hopeless

