

Ask YC: Are talented web developers hard to find? - matt1

A quick glance at TechCrunch's Job Board shows lots of employers looking for talented web developers. Their requirements usually include all the latest web 2.0 technologies like JQuery, YUI, Dojo, Prototype, Rails, plus PHP, SQL, etc etc...<p>I don't work in the industry, and am not sure what its actually like out there: Is it hard to find people who possess all of these skills?
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icey
It's not hard to find people who claim to possess those skills. It is hard to
find people who are proficient in them, and exceedingly difficult to find
people who are very good at them.

If you're hiring, and you live in a metro area, and you don't know any hackers
yourself; then I would suggest frequenting some user groups in your area to
get to know some of the people there. People who go to user groups are far
more likely to be good developers. In fact, anyone who does programming
related stuff in their free time is likely going to be much stronger than
someone who just does it for the check.

If you're not hiring and are instead thinking about getting into the industry,
then there's a corollary somewhere in my second paragraph for you.

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markbao
I'll agree with this. If you're hiring or looking for a job - do attend user
groups, found on Meetup.com or the site for your local networking site for
your city, if there is one (I know for Boston there's MarksGuide.com and
myeventguru.)

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gaius
It's always difficult to hire people based on a long shopping list of very
specific skills. What're the chances that someone who is in exact match is in
your area AND looking for work AND wants to work for you? Especially when the
skills overlap... Why would someone use Rails and PHP? I bet you could find
plenty who had one or the other, etc.

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astrec
It's not too hard to find people who actually possess those skills, but it's
very difficult to hire them: They don't generally apply to you, you apply to
them.

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gaius
LOL yeah, it was like that in the late 90s too. Then NASDAQ imploded and all
the "rockstars" got a reality check.

~~~
icey
Define the "Reality check" you're talking about?

When the dotcom burst happened, I got a big fat pay raise to guarantee I'd
stick around at the firm I was at.

[Edit: I realize this wasn't terribly clear.

Those of us who knew what we were doing at the burst generally didn't hit hard
times; but the developers who were in the industry because they saw it as an
easy paycheck are the ones who got hurt. In that way, the burst was good for
our industry - it helped separate the wheat from the chaff.]

