

The War for Developers is on. Can you compete? - trorer
http://blog.loftjobs.com/post/4400804234/the-war-for-developers-is-on-can-you-compete

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staunch
It's one of my pet conspiracy theories that Google has hired tens of thousands
of the best programmers not because they actually need them for anything, but
primarily to keep them out of the hands of rivals and potential killer
startups.

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qq66
Why would you think they don't need them?

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staunch
Because more programmers != more productivity. Brook's Law, etc.

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qq66
Right, but Google is one of the biggest websites in the world, operating in
nearly every country, etc. etc., it shouldn't be at all surprising that they
have thousands of engineers, even though the productivity of each will be
lower than it would in a smaller organization.

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staunch
It's software. Running the same software in 100 countries doesn't require 100x
more programmers.

Ask a random Googler what he works on at Google. In my experience 9/10 times
it's something they could easily do without.

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rmason
You could do all that stuff. Or you could switch to an entirely different
playing field. How about hiring your developers in the Rust Belt where they
work for a third less and are unlikely to be poached by other startups?

Surely you're joking right? Create a billion dollar company where it snows
four months out of the year? Yes and a recent example rhymes with coupon;<).

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runT1ME
I know a few developers there. If they're good enough, they _still_ work there
and get a very high salary...

The problem is not that great developers are expensive, it's that they're
expensive and very rare.

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invalidOrTaken
I've heard this before and it makes basic sense. So here's my question: what
do I do to become a "great" developer? Are we talking "any specialty beyond
PHP?" Hadoop knowhow? Advanced statistical algorithm knowledge? Database
theory? Or is the bar absurdly low, and _if we can just find a !@#$% developer
who can code fizzbuzz and isn't an idiot_ is the thought process?

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illumin8
To be honest, most people that are great developers didn't just turn middle-
aged, think "I want to be a great developer," and spend a few years becoming
one. Most of these developers have been hacking since they were literally
single-digit age. Read Notch's AMA on Reddit (creator of Minecraft) - he was
only 9 when he started hacking and he's 31 years old now. So, if you're asking
how do I become a great developer now, it's probably too late.

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invalidOrTaken
Ok, but something doesn't jive here. When people complain that it's hard to
retain/find talent, are they seriously complaining about how hard it is to
find developers who've been hacking since single-digit age?

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bugsy
No, when companies "complain that it's hard to retain/find talent" they mean
that they are paying far below market rate, have poor working conditions,
don't pay relocation or interview expenses, have poor benefits, are in a god
forsaken location, and believe they are entitled to top talent for bargain
basement rates.

There is no such thing as a company paying true market rate, with acceptable
working conditions and terms, who cannot find talent. The problem is there are
many companies that are in denial about the realities of the competitive
market.

All this silly nonsense about only hiring people who started programming at
age 8 is just a distraction to avoid contending with the real issues here.

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mellery451
Is this "war for talent" local to the Bay Area? I departed the Bay Area ten
years ago due to lack of affordable housing, but I'm genuinely curious if a
strong developer job market exists anywhere else (I haven't found it where I
am now).

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rdouble
The only other place is NYC.

Other locales have spokespeople who talk about how they are desperate for
programmers and how great it would be to work there. Then you find out the
reality and it's 50k top salary programming tps reports in an office park in
the suburbs.

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blahblahblah
I've always been somewhat puzzled as to why NYC is the software development
hub that it is. It's easy to get why the Bay area is such a powerful draw for
developers. It's the one place in the continental U.S. where the climate is
perpetually perfect, so it's only natural that people want to live there and
it's inevitable that people with rare and valuable skills that can command
high salaries will congregate there. It's not as clear to me what the draw is
for NYC since the weather there is as bad or worse than Chicago, Detroit,
Minneapolis, or Milwaukee and the cost of living is higher than those
Midwestern cities. It seems like Boston should be a bigger software hub than
NYC just on the basis of the proximity of MIT and Harvard and the intellectual
community that fosters. On the basis of desirable climate (and astonishing
natural beauty), it seems like Honolulu ought to be a major software hub, but
it isn't. What's NYC's secret of success as a software hub?

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btcoal
(A) The weather in NYC is definitely not as extreme as ANY of the places you
listed. I have lived in all five for varying lengths of time.

(B) Many more creative types than just developers are attracted to NYC such as
fashion, tv, finance (if you don't think CDOs are creative then look closer).

(C) Because of the diversity of people you get really interesting experiences
and ideas you couldn't get anywhere else. The Bay Area's idea of diversity is
hackers that like to wear black t-shirts vs VCs that like to wear Polos.

(D) For being a much bigger city, New York is much more compact time-wise
because you don't have to drive _everywhere_ , which makes it fundamentally
more liveable.

And (E) as for Boston, as an MIT alum currently still in the Boston area, I
can tell you that nobody wants to stay here after graduation....the city is
tiny and the bars close at 1 AND it's freezing 8 months out of the year.

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z92
Bad contrast of font color. Can't read it without pressing ctrl-a.

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rwolf
Thank god for readability.

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bugsy
The article says "early stage startups need to compete". I agree with this. I
haven't really seen much movement in that direction though. So many startups
try to get early employees to shoulder all risk themselves with no hope of
reward, bogus equity deals, no benefits, etc. You hear about these VCs buying
substantial slices of ownership for $12,000 or $6,000 or other such trivial
amounts less than their weekly cost of first class airfare, which makes it
impossible to offer real salaries to new hires.

Very little action going on that indicates there is a true understanding in
the start up community that top talent is needed to invent top products that
draw customers.

Heck, there was recently an announcement here from some company that was
telling startups they didn't even need to have developers, they had plugin
disposable cog developers in india that could do whatever was needed remotely,
as if killer product development was a solved problem now handled by line
workers. Obviously these nameless overseas developers won't be getting equity.

Really has seemed like amateur hour in the startup community for some time. So
little activity is consistent with a desire to build solid companies with good
products that are sustainable. Instead, more and more VC funds are run by guys
with little successful business experience, who seem mostly interested in
living the high life at the expense of the investors they are fleecing.

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metaprinter
Yeah I got an email today from elance(i've never used them) telling me they
have thousands of web developer jobs that have only been bid on by a few
people and they need more developers.

Taking a look at the site, all the jobs are for less than $500... the war
rages on.

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erickhill
Seattle is booming, too. Amazon alone has around 1900 open positions.

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hugh3
Really, what can Amazon even _do_ with 1900 developers?

Oh well. Who wants to hire me? I got a fancy-lookin' PhD and I can code
quantum mechanical simulation codes in my sleep, so I figure whatever you're
doing can't be much harder. I know absolutely nothing about Rails, SQL or
Lisp, but how fricking hard can it be? And I'm willing to accept any offer in
excess of One Shitload.

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erickhill
They aren't all 1,900 developer jobs. But a ton are engineering related.
Amazon owns so many products/sites beyond the store it's incredible (e.g.
woot, imdb, kindle, S3, audible, etc.).

People always talk about Apple, Google and (less now) Microsoft. But Amazon is
a huge sleeping dragon.

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earl
Has anyone noticed salaries rising in correlation with this supposed demand? I
personally haven't seen salaries rising as much as I would have thought...

