
I’d Pay You $500k a Year, but You Can’t Do the Work - smaili
http://www.shellypalmer.com/2017/04/id-pay-500000-year-cant-work/
======
psyc
I'm at the point where I simply don't believe a word hiring people say about
hiring anymore. I have 20 years of experience at world-class companies, and
have shipped multiple very well known products that have collectively sold
~150 million copies. I've had nothing but stellar performance reviews and
LinkedIn recs. Coworkers and managers have told me often that I'm one of the
best devs they've had the pleasure of working with, and I believe they meant
it. I'm very comfortable with every major OS and language, and every stack
level.

Nobody is going to pay me $500K. Nobody is going to pay me $200K. As recently
as 2015, I still had well-known companies trying as hard as they could to
bring me on at under $100K! The last time I talked to an SV company publicly
claiming to offer $250K, it turned out they were reserving the "top end" for
imaginary devs. My work experience only weighed in at $150, according to them.
Also, despite having a very rare combination of two unrelated specialties (the
reason I applied), and being proficient in 6 languages, _including JS_ , they
passed because they felt my JS experience was too light. Writing the AJAX and
UI framework used by a team of 30, and working on the front end of a major
portal, both at BigCo, were apparently too small-time.

My whole career in the industry I was aggressively low-balled 9 times out of
10. Hiring people can't hire who they want, because they're scheming double-
talkers, and they've convinced themselves that it's just good business. I
started a small business that pays the bills, and I've never been happier. I
sincerely would not go back to the industry even if you _did_ pay me $500K.

~~~
luckydude
Back when we were thriving (as recently as 2015) my top engineers made about
$400K/year in salary, bonus, & 401K. That does not include health insurance,
we footed the bill for 100% of the health insurance and we covered the whole
family.

Truth in advertising though. I'm the founder, I'm weird, I ran that company
much more like a cooperative than just about anyone else would have. So I
don't expect that comp to be that commonplace.

I also tracked salaries at the big companies and made sure we were
competitive. In general, we were very competitive but it is possible to get a
better package, not common, but possible. One of my guys went to Saleforce or
Linkedin, and I could not beat their package (well I could but then I'd have
to bump everyone else up to that and we all agreed that didn't make sense for
us).

~~~
psyc
I know a tiny handful of founders who are this kind of "weird" just on moral
principle. They often get criticized as naive idealists, for _actually valuing
employees_ , including by paying them. All I can say is thank you for doing it
your way.

~~~
luckydude
Well I didn't get to where I had hoped, I really wanted to get each person who
stuck it out some serious retirement money, like a couple million after tax. I
really regret not getting to that but it is what it is.

On the other hand, I treated people really well, much better than most people
would have. So I don't agonize over the retirement part.

And one of my guys, as we were winding it down, said something really nice: he
pointed out that yeah, we didn't get to the retirement part, everyone got to
work from home. He got to be there with his kids, watching them grow up. His
best friend is out the door at 6am, 1.5 hour commute, rarely makes it back in
time for dinner. The contrast is pretty stunning and I made that possible.

Hearing that was very cool. He's right, there are other rewards besides money.

------
sheetjs
The "tech shortage" is a real myth. The ultimate problem is that people want
"unicorns for peanuts" and no one (including Shelly Palmer) wants to take the
risk of hiring and developing potential talent. If all you can accept is
demonstrated talent, you should be ready to outbid other companies who are
looking for demonstrated talent. And if $500K isn't cutting it, that could
mean you aren't offering enough (it could also mean your company is in a field
that can't really attract top talent, but that's not the case here)

~~~
xux
> The "tech shortage" is a real myth

Except that's wrong. As much as you may dislike the tech industry, you can't
contradict the data that shows there are more job openings than developers in
the Bay Area

~~~
MrLeap
I'd love to serve some bay area companies, but I'd really prefer to not live
there. None of the companies I've spoken to so far have any interest in remote
help.

One west coast company has interviewed me. The company recruiter sent me like
14 "how to prep for tech screens" links and recommended I check them out days
before the actual tech screen. I'm on a job right now so I don't have time to
be doing that sort of thing so I didn't prep. It made me expect I was going to
have to implement a BSP decompiler with a hand tied behind my back.

The guy who called me allotted 50 minutes to solve 1 problem "two if I
finished the first early" on collabedit. I finished both in 6 minutes. I'm a
good, experienced developer but I'm no genius. Their tech screen was so
ludicrously easy it made me wonder what the current standard is for
developers.

After I finished the guy said "huh I normally don't have to end these early.
Great I guess." I pressed him a little and he went on to say his questions had
done a great job invalidating candidates. Most people couldn't do it.

It's pretty beguiling since my midwest salary demands would be peanuts
compared to my west coast equivalent. There'd have to be >60% remote-related
productivity penalty for it not to be a no brainer to hire people like me.

The last few years has taught me that job seekers and dev seekers both have a
hard time connecting.

~~~
adviceadam
Were these fizz-buzz level questions or were they more difficult?

~~~
MrLeap
A little tougher than fizz-buzz. I'd hope that people who take 6 minutes on
fizz-buzz aren't calling themselves good and experienced. Am I taking crazy
pills?

Here's basically what they asked me to do:

#1) Write a function that accepts one parameter. An array of numbers. Convert
those numbers to pseudo-binary strings. Instead of "0" use "Y" and instead of
"1" use "X"

#2) Do the reverse, Write a function that accepts an array of pseudo binary
and convert it to an array of numbers.

~~~
adviceadam
Six minutes for them to explain the questions, you to make sure you have the
question right, and then answer and explain your reasoning doesn't sound too
crazy does it? Even for easy questions.

Anyways, thanks for answering!

~~~
MrLeap
When you include that stuff, you're right! I'm just talking about the thinking
-> writing step. 6 minutes is a really long time for something like fizzbuzz.
That's 360 seconds. The second hand has to go around the clock 6 times. If
your script is 6 lines of code that's a MINUTE per line. FizzBuzz's lines are
so self similar that's real weird for me to imagine.

My 6 minutes didn't include them explaining the question or them going over my
answer. I didn't really explain my work. I did talk a little while I wrote,
but after I finished he just went through my code line by line himself.

~~~
adviceadam
That's fair enough, I probably should have thought that it was just the time
for answering the question, not the entire time, based on the context. Cheers!

------
maxsilver
That's an awfully lot of words to write, just to say "I'm lying about my $500k
offer". If they were actually paying that, they'd have no shortage of talent
to burn out with their standard consulting work.

Tons of companies claim "we would pay [huge number]", or "there's no upper
bound of income for the best talent". It's almost never true.

~~~
iaw
Facebook and Google total comp for average programmers ~2 years in is >$400K
right now.

$600k isn't that hard to make at these companies.

~~~
geebee
Can you post some kind of evidence for this? I know salaries are somewhat
secretive, but do you have _something_ to support this?

The reason I'm skeptical is that while I do know people at google as
relatively senior dev (very talented, elite CS degrees, 15+ years experience),
they were well above 200k a year, but nowhere close to 600k. This was also
more than 2 years ago.

Again, I understand data isn't public, but do you have _something_ to support
the notion it isn't hard to make 600k as a dev?

~~~
iaw
This is in total compensation terms. There are two documents floating around
where employees detailed their compensation coming into Google and Facebook.

What everyone replying fails to realize is that if you include the
appreciation of the preliminary and refresher grants these engineers are
making >$400K rather quickly.

~~~
geebee
I appreciate your reply, but I do see this as just a more detailed claim
without evidence, other than referring to documents floating around. I
understand publicly available data is hard to come but, but this also just
doesn't square with the few data points I have, for senior devs at google
(albeit a couple years ago).

I suppose some of this may turn on what you mean by "rather quickly" for
compensation in excess of $400k a year (let alone $600k/yr, which seems _very_
high). I can't say you're wrong, because I don't have evidence... but that's
the problem here, I don't have any evidence to believe you either. You're
claiming everyone is failing to realize something, but in the absence of
credible and available data.

Just give me _something_ here. I can be convinced by evidence, but references
to documents "floating around" just isn't enough for me, as it contradict my
direct conversations with google employees, though my conversations are
limited, slightly old, and personal information may be unreliable.

$250k, sure, that squares with what I've heard.

~~~
iaw
I feel comfortable speaking anecdotally but I don't feel comfortable formally
doing the math here for reasons that I prefer not to disclose. I appreciate
your desire for more details on my claim but I cannot provide it.

$250K is accurate assuming zero/normal stock appreciation. Assume half that is
in equity compensation with a 38% (for FB) growth rate on a 4 year schedule
and determine what the figures get to.

------
alexc05
> if a recruiter sends us three candidates who cannot pass our coding test, we
> fire the recruiter

is there any room to take blame for the quality of the test?

All testing must consider its _reliability_ and _validity_ as a measure.

If it is VALID it measures what you think it measures. EG: by passing a
programming test it measures that someone CAN or CANNOT code.

If it is RELIABLE it has the same results time and again.

I'd suggest in their case, that they may have a test which produces a high
number of false-negatives - people who can program but struggle with their
specific test for one reason or another.

Anyways, it's up to them to do whatever they want with respect to their
hires... It's up to the rest of us to not let them get away with blowing smoke
up our butts about how great their test is or the exceptionally high quality
of their candidates are.

Joel had a great article saying roughly "no you don't really hire the top 1%
of programmers"

~~~
snarf21
Right, or publish an (old) copy of this amazing test and let it be critiqued.
Also, if someone is a "top 1%" and you want them to work 100 hour weeks, maybe
$500K is just too low.

~~~
iaw
> want them to work 100 hour weeks, maybe $500K is just too low.

I think this is the subtext.

~~~
logfromblammo
A 7-day week is 168 hours to begin with. 56 of those must necessarily be for
sleep if you want the others to be worth anything. That leaves 112 waking
hours. If 100 of those are working at the office, that is 12 hours for
personal business. Roughly 100 minutes per day to eat, shower, commute,
exercise, etc.

$500k is not enough. $500M is not enough.

If you put more hours in your labor export category, you have to take some
from your leisure consumption category of your time budget. Whatever you earn
from selling labor time is generally consumed during your leisure hours, after
you subtract all your overhead expenses.

And $500k for 100hr work weeks is only about $96/hr. If you subtract $175k for
taxes and $75k for overhead expenses, that gives you $250k left to spend over
your 624 hours of leisure time, which means you would have to party hard at
$400/hr to enjoy it all. You would have to play 4 times as hard as you work.

In contrast, $150k for 40hr work weeks is $72/hr. Subtract $42k for taxes and
$58k for overhead, and you have $50k left to spend over 3744 leisure hours,
which is about $13/hr. If you play just 1/5 as hard as you work, you're
directly enjoying all the fruits of your labor. For reference purposes, if you
spend $350/mo on a cable TV subscription, that's about $1 for every non-
working, non-sleeping hour. If your movie theater charges $10 per 90-minute
movie, spending every minute there that you aren't working or in bed is still
less than $7/hr. Most leisure time activities repackaged for sale out there
are targeted to lower-income households, so it's really difficult to burn up
all your disposable income (at that level) just on typical middle-class
entertainments without enlisting the help of dependents.

That 100hr work week essentially means that you need to have a trophy spouse
and some kids that don't know you, so they can spend your money for you. No,
thank you; I don't want that.

~~~
iaw
I couldn't have said it better myself. The one thing we can't buy is time.

------
tsunamifury
The technology talent pool in America is just too small right now (even worse
abroad)... and requires too many skills that aren't taught in school. On top
of that, only the big firms can afford to apprentice as this article points
out, but getting into them is difficult for most.

Short term these market dynamics appear to benefit the big firms, but long
term it constrains the entire ecosystem. All the big firms need a huge
ecosystem of competent little companies who handle integrations at a more
local scale. I.e. Google needs small business people who know the webstack
well so that Google can integrate its services with your business and sell you
ads. So Google is incentivized to invest in community education because every
one of those future hackers is a potential future customer.

If you want to differentiate in hiring, I'd say the main thing to offer people
choosing between Google and you is leadership opportunities. Don't stick your
techies in the basement -- offer then 1:1 time with top execs and owners so
they can give the feedback they need to build better products.

~~~
Breefield
> I'd say the main thing to offer people choosing between Google and you is
> leadership opportunities.

Agreed!

~~~
beambot
So now smaller companies (startups?) will be full of engineers who have been
promised leadership opportunities? That's untenable and deceptive from my
vantage. What happens in 2 years when only 10% achieve those promotions?

(Massive turnover and high recruiting costs for new "leaders".)

~~~
tsunamifury
If the company grows, early stage individuals should all easily be able to
become leaders somewhat automatically. If it doesn't grow, they can enjoy
leadership and access to the top. Both can be satisfying when compared to big
firms.

------
mattnewton
I think the "we run a buisiness, not a school" could be the answer to this
guy's dilemma. Hiring diamonds in the rough and cultivating talent
relentlessly is how the best engineers were found and kept in my limited
experience at Apple, and it seems Google has an even stronger internal
education culture.

~~~
matwood
> Hiring diamonds in the rough and cultivating talent relentlessly is how the
> best engineers were found and kept in my limited experience at Apple, and it
> seems Google has an even stronger internal education culture.

Yeah, that was a weird statement in the article. Tech moves so fast that
allowing for internal education needs to be a requirement at any company. I
literally learn something new every single day. When I look to hire, I look
for some raw talent and enthusiasm to learn because whatever the candidate
knows right now will be obsolete in 12 months (except for CS foundational
topics, but that's for a different post).

~~~
sevensor
I live in flyover country, so we hire from a different pool. I'm not sure if
this is a general rule, or if the Bay Area has sucked all of the talent out of
the region, but I have yet to interview a competent graduate from the CS
program down the street at Big State U. We've had better luck hiring from
engineering and the applied sciences. Ceteris paribus, I'd prefer candidates
with some theory background, but the ceteris are not paribus.

~~~
wbl
Probably because CS is the obvious route to a programming job, while doing
something else for intellectual satisfaction speaks to being inquisitive.

------
jaredklewis
There is something to be said for risk aversion, but I often encounter
attitudes like the one in this blog post that seem proud they are willing
avoid risk at any cost. It's irrational.

If every company only wants the best of the best programmers and adopts a
"better a false negative than a false positive" attitude to hiring, then it is
just economics that programmers who are not obviously first class are being
undervalued. Translation: if every company wants programmers with a perfect
git profile, you can get a programmer w/o a good git profile at bargain
prices. Even when you price in the risk of hiring duds, with such an
irrational attraction to top-performers, there is a huge opportunity to profit
here.

Sure, no one should go seek out unnecessary risks, but I think companies
should employ a little more cost benefit analysis. Training people is a risk.
Hiring junior programmers is a risk. Hiring programmers from a second tier
college is a risk. But risks are opportunities to innovate.

If you only want to hire MIT grads with 10,000 GitHub stars, fine, but don't
expect to get a competitive advantage from this, because this is by and large
what all your competitors are doing.

The company that learns to identify and retain new talent or manage the risks
of hiring "B-team" programmers will be the one with the competitive advantage.

------
tomtemplate
> Feel free to send me a link to your GitHub account. No resumes required.

Does anyone have some example github accounts for a talented web developer?
Interested to see what a github account for someone who earns $500k looks
like.

~~~
phamilton
I think the $500k example is misleading. At that level of seniority, your open
source work isn't your primary qualification.

What the author is pointing to is the $250k dev who just 2 years back was
struggling to land a $90k job.

~~~
iaw
Two years out of college programmers are making that much in total comp at
Facebook and Google. If there's no equity component, $500K is actually in the
ballpark.

~~~
kzisme
Do you have any data or source of this?

~~~
iaw
There are a couple documents floating around detailing software engineer pay
at Facebook and Google. If you do the math on their equity grants, with the
past stock growth, you can reach the same figure.

------
mnm1
For $500k, a company could hire three excellent engineers. I don't care how
good an engineer is, he won't be doing the work of two people, let alone
three, especially in things like UI design/programming which is 95% grunt
work. The reason FB and other big companies' products are the quality they are
isn't because they have geniuses working for them. It's simply because they
have thousands of workers and therefore can concentrate on all the most minute
details and follow all the byzantine paths that regular companies simply do
not have the manpower to do.

The author thinks he can find someone to pay $500k and this person will
outperform multiple teams of dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of people.
That's delusional and a horrible way to "lead" a company. Damn right he won't
be hiring anyone with that $500k. Such a human being does not exist. Not at
FB, not anywhere.

------
ljoshua
Some days I think about the 18-25% cut of first year salaries that recruiters
are collecting, and I think about transitioning from being a technical person
to being a technical recruiter!

Unlike most tech recruiters, I actually _could_ vet candidates before
presenting them, in theory generating higher quality candidates who are more
likely to get placed. There's still a supply-side issue though...

~~~
hocuspocus
It definitely seems to attract highly qualified people. I've dealt with a
recruiter who holds a J.D. law degree and passed the bar to be real-estate
attorney. Surely that cannot be easy/cheap in the US? (I'm in Europe). And
she's an internal recruiter at that, so salaried with some target bonus I
assume.

------
derialstrazus
I'm just starting out in my career, but what do they mean by "good enough to
work for us"? Is there a way to measure this metric? And how do I know if I'm
there?

My personal understanding (as a web developer) had always been, someone who is
"good enough" is someone who can build a system from the ground up, with the
capability to handle requests at high capacity and manage performance. BUT,
this would just be an advanced CRUD app and I fail to see how that would reach
a salary of $500,000 a year.

It looks like ShellyPalmer has a special focus on machine learning and data
science. Perhaps their requirements are beyond what I am even aware of.

~~~
Alex3917
> someone who is "good enough" is someone who can build a system from the
> ground up, with the capability to handle requests at high capacity and
> manage performance

Being a good developer (usually) doesn't mean writing especially performant
code, at least not beyond what's noticeable in terms of the end user's
experience. It means creating products with:

\- intuitive database schemas

\- clean code architecture

\- good overall readability

\- simplicity and optionality

Being a developer isn't much different than being any other type of writer.
The best way to figure out if someone is likely to be a good developer is to
ask yourself whether they'd likely be successful as a contributor to the New
Yorker.

~~~
CoolGuySteve
I agree with all of this, these are the most important skills for a developer,
but none of these things are tested for in the typical programming interview.

If you want to min/max your stats, all that matters is mastering the 'Cracking
the Coding Interview' style. So many companies cargo culting Google interview
style such that it's now pretty dominant, at least in NYC.

On one hand you'd think this would be self correcting, more nimble companies
would find more effective ways of interviewing. On the other hand, software
development is one of the most fad driven industries out there.

------
forgottenpass
I don't want look hard, train on the job, or provide the best long-term career
opportunities to candidates. Instead, I'll limit my selection pool to
perfectly-tailored candidates that also happen to publish on GitHub.

Oh no, other companies are swooping the people I want based on their GitHub!
Those candidates are my low hanging fruit, damnit!

------
wohlergehen
TLDR (I think): Due to Github, recruiters can poach employees easily. As such,
hiring anyone who has not peaked is useless, because he might be poached after
training/getting better and we will have to compete with other (possibly more
wealthy) employers to retain him.

------
JamesBarney
One I would be very surprised if his consultancy actually pays an average
salary of $500k for developers.

Also $500k is more than 1 in 300 developers make. Every billion dollar company
in the world was built with people less talented than the ones your demanding.
I would like to see what specific tasks a 1 in 300 developer can accomplish
this his 1 in 10 or 50 peer cannot.

~~~
phamilton
Look at Netflix for good examples of a $500k engineer.

What did Chaos Monkey require that a 1 in 10 peer could not have done?
Technically? Maybe it wouldn't have gone smoothly, or maybe it wouldn't have
been as fast, but I am fairly certain most decent developers (with sufficient
sysadmin chops) could have built chaos monkey. But the reason that engineer is
worth $500k is because of the unique value it added. Their job wasn't to build
Chaos Monkey, it was to make Netflix operations more robust. They identified
that they didn't know how their software would behave during infrastructure
failure and found a way to better understand failure proactively.

1 in 10 engineers add value by writing code. 1 in 50 engineers build value by
solving problems. 1 in 300 engineers add value by identifying and solving
problems.

~~~
JamesBarney
1 in 10 engineers are real smart guys who identify and solve problems all the
time. What about the 1 in 300 is different? Is it technical knowledge? Is it
the ability to sell his ideas to upper management?

Google would pay $10 million for a lawyer that would win a case against
Microsoft for IP. Similarly defining a 1 in 300 developer as one that makes
great contributions is problematic. You're no longer paying for the developer
but for the outcome. And people are willing to pay a lot more for outcomes
than people.

------
OhHeyItsE
I kept waiting for the punchline that gave away the piece as satire. But... it
seems 100% serious.

> In practice, we could train these workers, but not at market prices with
> added recruiter vigorish. We just can’t get enough value out of B-team
> players while they are in training

Does the author realize that this is the exact cause of his "problem"?
Developers live in constant fear of "if you don't stay up to date, you'll
never get another job". Combine that with the generally risky venture-backed
tech climate, an at-will employment culture and the zeitgeist of youth worship
and blatant ageism. All I can say is: you reap what you sew.

Turn this toxic culture around so that devs can feel comfortable that being a
great engineer is enough, instead of chasing frameworks and books about
algorithms.

------
tboyd47
Yep. Great article. Google and Facebook really have learned how to game the
talent system with strategic open sourcing of tech. And you're right, it is
Macchiavellian.

And here's how you, as a smaller tech company, can beat the system and snag
great talent anyway: look for devs with expertise in technologies other than
those created by Google and Facebook.

You've seen what lies behind the shadows on the cave wall. You know that the
talent gold rush is not really about getting the right tech skills, but using
tech to get the right people. Now make a bold move based on that knowledge and
go with Ruby on Rails. Or Django. Or Ember. Or Intercooler. Or heck, even PHP,
which Facebook uses but hardly has a monopoly on. Or even - dare I say it? -
.NET!

Step off the hype train. Break the monopoly.

------
DanBC
> In practice, we could train these workers, but not at market prices with
> added recruiter vigorish. We just can’t get enough value out of B-team
> players while they are in training, and by the time we help them become
> A-team players, their GitHub accounts and contributions will reflect their
> learning. At that point, they will be firmly on the radar of top-tier tech.
> And we would have played the role of pre-school for Facebook, Google, or
> Apple. Great for Zuck, Larry, or Tim, but not so great for us.

They create a culture that doesn't value the workforce, and then they wonder
why people leave?

------
pjungwir
Personally I feel a mix of eagerness and skepticism. Just to rule out the
bait-and-switch, this is $500k to write code? Not to travel half the time and
bring in more sales? They say they want "React/Redux specialists, Unity
developers, data scientists, and data engineers (proficient with TensorFlow),
technical project managers (who used to do the above, but have evolved into
managers), and technical account executives." The hero image is just some
React.

If this is for real, I'm willing to apply. I've built web-based software for
clients for 17 years. I can handle the tech, but also lead a team, manage a
project, design products and features, learn a customer's problems and advise
them, and offer creative solutions that bring massive value and savings. I'm a
great fit for a consulting company. I do pretty well right now working for
myself, but $500k would still be a big bump up. So I'm looking for the call-
to-action, and it is . . . "Subscribe to the newsletter." Really? Who is this
article for anyway? It is just one executive commiserating to others? It
definitely doesn't seem to show ShellyPalmer in their best light: I don't see
any solutions, just complaining and excuses. They are advertising their
inability to hire the best people?

Offer me $500k to solve technical problems (and not leave Oregon), and I'll
apply. But I can't even find a Careers page. I guess they feel I should have
to work for it. That's fine, I'll tweet at you if you want, but in that case
I'd like to see some proof first that this offer is for real.

------
srpablo
Wow there's a ton about this that I'm reacting badly to.

* It's a jobs ad; it shouldn't be frontpaged and they're not paying anyone $500k.

* Nobody says "I want 100 steaks for 200 dollars and I couldn't find it; there's a steak shortage!!" Labor markets and scarcity are a thing, I'm sorry this person isn't getting (by their own admission) the same output from their few employees as the world's most valuable companies. I wonder how good their consulting is if their reaction to tech's labor market is "the world is rigged and most developers are useless or untrustworthy."

* I'd be curious to know what the author's tech chops are. There's no shortage of non-tech people who think building an app is "simple" because "I know what I want and explained it to you" and surely the issue, should problems arise, is that the developer was subpar. "I'd pay you, but you can't do the work." Please.

This is exactly the person you avoid in your career, life.

------
dlwdlw
There might be a correlation between effective workers and large companies. A
person who is willing to memorize "Cracking the Coding Interview" is the type
of person who has his or her life on guided rails and would prefer the upper
middle class of a large company rather than the scrappiness of a smaller
company which results in poor/rich. Chinese culture especially has a long
history of exam guided lives dating to ancient dynasties. Stereotypical
desired professions like lawyers and doctors are also very credential-gated
and similar.

So small companies are left with a much smaller pool of candidates, often less
credentialed and much stronger willed. They cannot grow a workforce of highly
credentialed/technical workers who do what they are told.

Are there mavericks who are also very technical out of passion rather than
trying to oull their families out of poverty? Yes. But they usually aren't
willing to play second fiddle.

------
jacquesm
Wasn't the who is hiring thread yesterday?

------
hidden_sheepman
I miss the days of expertise, you expect doctors to specialize, why can't
software developers specialize? I get the point but, its really hard to expect
someone in the software industry to be top tier at something when they are
expected to know everything.

Basically I think developers need more focus instead of the industry expecting
us to know everything. I am not saying that we shouldn't know or try to learn
different things, but its really hard to become the best when your spending
your time on frontend, or backend or tweaking the database or algorithms there
is just so much going on. people just need time, just like doctors need time
to become a good doctor, developers also need time. People who really get this
understand how to build teams and good engineers in which inevitably leads to
a good product.

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taude
In reading this, I'm thinking to myself, they probably don't want to pay for
this A-grade talent. It shouldn't be too hard to keep employees away from
Google/FB/etc if you're place is really that great to work.

It's more likely the OP's employees don't like consulting, and the lifestyle
of having to deliver unreasonable amount/quality of work in a short time that
was over-sold to clients.

If they can get B-Players into their company, that's doing well in my book.
I'm often stuck hiring C and D players because of the corporate pay rates my
company offers, and lack of perks that make us not competitive around town.

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CiPHPerCoder
...but is it remote? I would turn down a $500,000 a year job if it were
onsite-only.

~~~
speeder
Or sometimes you can't accept it.

Yesterday who is hiring made me sort of depressed, I am in desperate need for
work, yet all work I was qualified for was non remote in other countries, or
semi remote, the few ones that allowed real remote required some random
citizenship I don't have.

Seemly being born in the wrong place can heavily cripple a career.

~~~
ben_jones
The formula I've found is 2-3 months on site where you convince the employer
of your value, integrity, professionalism, etc., then 1 month of partial
remote work where you show an increase in productivity. Then the question of
'can I just remote' is often a cake walk.

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ohstopitu
So TLDR:

1\. We want to hire experienced programmers for 500k

2\. We don't want to train junior programmers to become senior programmers
because they'll leave for BigCo.

3\. BigCo. with bigger budgets are stealing such senior employees and somehow
it's not fair

I'm still waiting for the "it's satire" post. That said, out of curiosity: why
a Github account? If you are that good, and work that hard currently, you'll
probably not have time for a Github account that'll land you a job anyway :/

Or are they looking for "branded" devs that work in open source? (because not
all companies even allow for open source on stuff you work on)

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pjc50
This is the footballer hiring model again. At least in football there's a
reason why you can't replace one Lionel Messi with half a dozen cheaper
people, but are we _really_ sure that this doesn't apply in software
development? Is it really that non-parallelisable?

~~~
hutzlibu
"Is it really that non-parallelisable?"

Yes. If you have a very complex problem, it won't help to just put more people
to it. Rather the opposite.

Though there are also plenty of jobs for not-genius programmers.

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iFookinHate8
Hire people and train them. This is how it worked for thousands of years, yet
dbags like shelly think they should be able to skip this step.

Google, Facebook, etc., hire college kids and give them time to learn.

There is the difference. I'm so sick of the fucking idiots in this industry.

