
The STEM Crisis Is a Myth (2013) - discombobulate
http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-crisis-is-a-myth
======
RachelF
There is not a shortage of STEM graduates. However, from an employer's point
of view, there is a shortage of cheap STEM graduates. Hence the recent tech
company uproar over the skilled visa changes.

~~~
ecnal
Those are the same thing. You may as well say that there is no shortage of
food in Venezuela, just a shortage of cheap food.

The reason companies can't get STEM grads at the prices they're willing to pay
is because those STEM grads can simply work for a company willing to pay more.
That's not a problem for the grads (you bet your ass I'm not complaining too
much, haha), but it is for everyone who wants to hire them.

~~~
st3v3r
It's a problem with a pretty clear and easy solution: Pay more.

------
jamesmp98
In relation to programming specifically, I once saw someone on Quora put it
perfectly. It effecticly stated that we don't need more programmers. We need
more senior developers with 10+ years of experience.

~~~
techterrier
Chimes with anecdotal experience hiring in London. Glut of really well
educated, keen and passionate juniors but tumbleweed when trying to hire
seniors, even at higher salaries.

~~~
explainthisth
Have you tried offering internationally competitive salaries?

~~~
ScalaFan
Then there is also the issue of the ease or difficulty of getting someone from
a foreign country to work in the UK. Are work permits required? How much
paperwork? etc

If I were an American, what would it take to work in London?

~~~
Swizec
> If I were an American, what would it take to work in London?

A good internet connection and some perseverance in getting remote jobs. Also
strong work habits.

I have many friends back home in Slovenia who stay in Slovenia but work for
San Francisco. Sure they don't make 100k, but they don't have to. At 80k
they're socking away 40k+ per year. And the SF startup is super stoked because
they get good engineers for peanuts.

------
niftich
Lumping 'IT' in with STEM is a historical mistake from the days when IT was
not a mass-market phenomenon, but firmly the territory of academia, government
ventures, defense contractors, safety-critical systems, and research.

Today its placement increasingly serves to muddy facts and justify various
views and policies on H1-Bs and the like, either in favor or against. In
truth, IT should be split into its own category with distinct analyses and
approaches, addressed independently from S, E, M, and the leftovers of T.

------
NTDF9
Even as an immigrant to the US, I agree with this. A large part of the
shortage is self-inflicted.

Did we see a shortage of American workers who could do the job right away?

YES. Not many people work in the same area of technology. There really aren't
many people working in some areas of tech.

Did the employer try to compromise on their requirement of "rockstar coder
with 1000 wpm typing speed, PhD in app programming, merge k-sorted arrays in
15 mins with good syntax and no compiler?"

NO. And this is why there is no shortage. It's their demand for rockstars when
reality is most companies are mediocre (at best). It's not shortage, your
company sucks, interviews suck and nobody wants to work there.

~~~
amyjess
> Did the employer try to compromise on their requirement of "rockstar coder
> with 1000 wpm typing speed, PhD in app programming, merge k-sorted arrays in
> 15 mins with good syntax and no compiler?"

Or when they want years of experience with a specific framework, library, or
other system.

I remember looking at Java positions last year (before I got my current job),
and a lot of them would sound nice until I got to the item about "Must have X
years of experience with Spring".

Yeah, I have a whole bunch of core Java under my belt, and I made the
requirements for everything else, but because I don't have experience with
that _one_ library, I'm shut out.

~~~
mwfunk
In my experience, almost all of those "must have X years of experience with Y"
requirements are written up by HR people who are loosely interpreting poorly
understood requirements told to them by either the hiring manager, or other HR
people. In many or most cases, the people writing up those job postings are
not the same people who would be interviewing or hiring you, and they're more
aspirational requirements than anything else. They hope that someone with X
years of experience with Spring will magically come out of the woodwork and
send them a resume, but they're just as likely to hire a fresh grad who
doesn't know anything about Spring other than what they skimmed on Wikipedia
right before going to the interview. And the people doing the interviewing and
hiring might actually be fine with that.

Basically if something looks perfect except for some random "must have X years
of experience in Y" requirement, just apply anyway. Most likely it won't be a
dealbreaker for them (the hiring manager at a decent-sized company may not
even know that that was in the job posting), but the worst case scenario is
that you won't get the job but will get some good interview experience.

~~~
st3v3r
Why would I want to apply to a company that has demonstrated they don't know
much about technology?

~~~
narag
Because (taking the comment in its context) you need to get a _first job_ so
you haven't so many options and you have nothing to lose. If you're some
genius maybe Google had already recruited you right from uni.

------
analogwzrd
From my experience job searching, it seems that companies are looking for
someone to fit the job description exactly instead of being willing to hire
and to train someone. And when they can't find anyone, they complain about a
shortage of eligible workers.

It's really difficult to find a job the traditional way (submit resume/cover
letter, interview, etc.) in this economy. The article makes a good point that
if there was a shortage of STEM talent, companies would be drooling over
everyone with a B.S. degree, but I haven't really seen that.

I do agree with the article that there is a STEM literacy problem...I have
friends in grad school constantly complaining about people gaming the peer
review system, students getting by on shoddy research, etc. I've had co-
workers that I've been really disappointed with in terms of having solid
engineering fundamentals.

If the article is right, and there's not a STEM shortage, what would you tell
a high schooler applying to college? What field should they study so that
there's a better chance of them having jobs?

------
acchow
On a related topic, most of the unfilled "STEM" jobs can't be filled by
pushing college students into STEM fields.

Usually a scientist, programmer, engineer, or mathematician is made in
elementary school.

~~~
WillPostForFood
The approach Harvey Mudd took to get more women into Computer Science could
(and should) probably be applied across all STEM fields, and to all student
types.

[https://qz.com/730290/harvey-mudd-college-took-on-gender-
bia...](https://qz.com/730290/harvey-mudd-college-took-on-gender-bias-and-now-
more-than-half-its-computer-science-majors-are-women/)

 _The overhaul of the computer science curriculum to make it more inclusive
began the year before Klawe arrived from Princeton, where she was the dean of
engineering. The school had redesigned its introductory course, required for
all first-year students, to emphasize practical uses for programming and team
based-projects, and switched from the Java programming language to Python,
which more closely mimics the way humans communicate. The course is broken
into three tracks, including one for students with no programming background.

To make everyone feel at ease, professors urge know-it-all students who always
have their hand in the air to talk during office hours, instead of in
class.”Too often, people with experience are taking up all the air time,”
Klawe says.

As a result of the changes, women who take the introductory course are more
likely to leave with a positive impression of programming, and often sign up
for the second class in the sequence. Many go on to internships or research
projects in the field after their first year, and by then, they’re hooked._

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>Many go on to internships or research projects in the field after their first
year, and by then, they’re hooked. //

Are these the same people who are leaving the industry after a few years?
Seems like if you hoodwink people in to something that's not really their
vocation then that's the sort of effect you'd expect?

~~~
eli_gottlieb
I don't think people really have "vocations" built-in at some biological or
personal level. Lots of people train for one thing, retrain for another, and
work in a third.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
I've the feeling it's more common to move industries nowadays but some stats
that show "lots" of people move between sectors would be good support for your
assertion.

Anyone know of pertinent info?

------
th3rooki3
I think it's likely that both sides of the argument are correct. There are a
large amount of STEM jobs that are not being filled, while at the same time
there is a surplus of STEM graduates.

The takeaway is that businesses don't just need people that have STEM degrees,
they need people that will add value to their company. Just because you have a
STEM degree does not mean that you'll be a net positive for the company.

It seems to me that incentives for colleges right now are way out of wack.
They're not doing a good enough job at preparing students for actual industry
roles (elite institutions being the exception), yet their enrollment rates and
the cost of their tuition keeps going up.

~~~
matwood
> The takeaway is that businesses don't just need people that have STEM
> degrees, they need people that will add value to their company. Just because
> you have a STEM degree does not mean that you'll be a net positive for the
> company.

I agree. I graduated a long time ago with a CS degree and almost a minor in
business. The CS foundation helped with all the learning I have done since
then, but if I think about the most valuable classes I had in college they
were economics, accounting, finance and management. Of course some jobs need
PhD level CS without any other skill, but the majority of positions need
someone who knows how to program plus <insert skill here>.

------
ryanSrich
So is the engineering crisis and the talent shortage and the diversity gap.
You think Facebook wants more H1Bs because it wants to promote diversity? You
think it's because of a shortage? That's not how these things work. It just so
happens that what's currently en vogue aligns with the business interests of
the largest tech companies in the world.

~~~
mavelikara
Specifically, Mark Zuckerberg is a co-founder of FWD.us which "is mobilizing
the tech community in support of policies that keep the American Dream
achievable in the 21st century, starting with commonsense immigration reform"
according to their website [1].

The major issues they lobby for are (1) increase in H-1Bs (2) illegal
immigrants. The one thing they _don 't_ talk about is legal immigration paths
for people on H-1Bs. People on H-1B from India and China have long backlogs
for Green Cards, which causes them to stick with one employer for long, with
reduced negotiation leverage, and there by depressing wages for the entire
industry. But FWD.us does not have a care for that aspect of immigration -
presumably because this helps the bottom line of everyone involved in FWD.us.
Meanwhile they don't miss any opportunity to shed crocodile tears for the
plight of DREAMers. Sigh!

[1]: [https://www.fwd.us/](https://www.fwd.us/)

~~~
arjie
Do you know any Indian or Chinese people in the Bay? They switch all the time.
Getting your H-1B transferred isn't hard.

~~~
mavelikara
I am one.

When you switch jobs on H-1B, your GC application has to be redone from the
first step. This is an uncertain process that can get stuck in red tape for
indeterminate amounts of time. Your place in line stays intact in many cases
though. So, switching jobs is possible, but is no way easy.

While you wait decade+ for your GC, you freedoms are severely restricted as an
alien.

~~~
arjie
But once you've got your i140 (which is fairly quick after your PERM
application), you're going to hold onto your priority date.

You can switch at low cost at that point. I know so many people who've
switched jobs like this and retained their place.

------
st3v3r
Every time someone mentions that they have a hard time finding qualified
workers, or saying that qualified people don't apply to their company, they
tend to ignore a very important question: Why would those qualified people
want to apply at your company in the first place? A lot of people like to say
they're paying "market wages", but most qualified people are already making
that or more.

~~~
aub3bhat
Because the money for salaries is not generated out of thin air. It gets
determined by the profit-margin provided by the market.

Your competitors are paying market wages in China to "qualified people", or
have depreciated the high salaries in employees via higher-productivity and
thus pricing you out.

~~~
st3v3r
"Because the money for salaries is not generated out of thin air. It gets
determined by the profit-margin provided by the market."

While this is true, it's also very much not my problem. If your company is
offering X, and another company is offering 1.25X, then most of the good
people are going to go to the other company first. And it would be quite
dishonest of you to say that there's a "shortage" when it turns out you just
don't want to pay as much as the competition for your talent.

------
thedevil
So theoretically, without pricing controls, there's no such thing as a
shortage because prices will rise until demand == supply. So the arguments
that there's no shortage of STEM workers (only a shortage of below-market-
price STEM workers) makes sense.

But let me pitch a different angle: there are a lot of people who could do
their job better if they had certain specific STEM skills (e.g. business
analysts who were better at statistics, spreadsheets, and maybe SQL).

It's true that you can get these skills if you pay more. However, the cost of
hiring someone with these skills might be >= the business value, even though
the business value might be >= the cost of the education for these skills.

So I would argue that we're underinvesting in certain STEM skills.

~~~
arjie
Wait a minute, your premise is easily susceptible to a counterexample. Take a
2-employer world with 1 candidate. Let's say both employers have the same
desire for the candidate, i.e. no matter what salary one employer offers, the
other will offer the same and if one employer believes a salary is too high so
will the other.

This system will perpetually be in a shortage. No matter what rate is offered,
at least one employer will go without an employee.

~~~
thedevil
Wikipedia: "a shortage occurs when for some reason the price does not rise to
reach equilibrium"

In your example, the price is at equilibrium, even though one buyer cannot buy
at market price. Thus there is no shortage.

If we define shortage as one buyer not being able to buy at market price, then
you are technically correct.

~~~
arjie
That's just a problem with Wikipedia being Wikipedia. That's not a definition.
If you read the actual source that's used in that section§, you'll see that
what he uses as a definition is the following:

> A shortage is a market condition existing at any price where the quantity
> supplied is less than the quantity demanded.

He then goes on to talk about how the shortage provides a signal to sellers to
move the price closer to equilibrium (upwards, in this case) but that doesn't
make it not a shortage.

In questions of definitions, it's also informative to try an alternative
source. I propose the website of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (simply
because they have a convenient online glossary):
[https://www.stlouisfed.org/education/glossary](https://www.stlouisfed.org/education/glossary)

> Shortage: When the quantity demanded of a good or service exceeds the
> quantity supplied at a particular price.

I'm not going to update the Wikipedia page because the Definition section
needs quite some rewording and citation to make it authoritative and if I just
add this in, it will make that part incoherent.

§ Tucker's _Economics for Today_ , which is also wrongly named in that section
as _Economics Today_. In the 7th edition, this is on Page 80

------
HillaryBriss
SV Tech Companies remind me of contractors who want to build a giant mansion
on a hilltop.

But instead of hiring workers with years of experience building houses they
hire the best athletes from US university sports programs. Fantastically
talented athletes.

Then they give these great athletes a bunch of shovels, cement mixers, hammers
and nails and say: "Build the best mansion the world has ever seen."

Somehow it doesn't work out. They get a large house, but it isn't really any
better than other large houses. Some of the workers decide to leave.

I wonder if management really knew what it was doing in the first place. Maybe
they figured they could just hire "the best" and everything would take care of
itself?

------
Balgair
There is a nasty little issue that is not very well communicated: cheating.

There is a non-zero amount of grads from prestigious to lousy universities and
boot-camps that cheated. Some cheated a little bit, some cheated the whole
way. But this may be a factor in the STEM issue. Some non-zero amount of
prospective hires may have the cred, but the company can identify them quickly
as hacks.

I'm going to go out on a long limb here and say that _most_ grads from large
research universities cheated their way through and know squat all.

------
booleandilemma
I feel like the industry treats software development as a race to the bottom.
The goal seems to be to pump out as many STEM grads as possible so they can
pay them barista wages.

Are other industries like this? Why do I not see bootcamps for electricians
and plumbers?

~~~
hajile
Electricians and plumbers have the same kind of issues.

I have a relative who worked for a company that did the electrical contracting
for a huge amount of [huge retail company] stores. Ultimately, [huge retail
company] started bringing in large groups of cheap Mexican labor who were
mostly inexperienced in the trade. These groups would screw up the job, so
they'd bump the opening date a bit and bring in experienced crew to patch
everything up.

The end result was a much worse job, but [huge retail company] didn't care
because the overall cost was a lot lower.

The places where this does not happen are places where the electrical union is
strong and laws make sure workers are certified journeymen/masters (or in an
apprenticeship).

I've thought quite often that the world would view programmers much
differently if there were a viable programmer's union.

------
tdicola
This article is over 3 years old, is there something more recent? Not that I
discount what it's saying but what made this article relevant again?

------
grizzles
If you run a small business, it's a real thing. On wages, it's nearly
impossible to compete with the big corporations.

That leaves you with one choice - outsource your engineering to China or
India. Or they could just come here (wherever here is) and contribute to the
local economy by buying stuff, driving down the per capita crime rate
(immigrants have a far lower crime rate), etc.

~~~
whenwillitstop
This means the business isnt feasible.

~~~
TuringNYC
This is a very important point, let me expand a bit. If your business/product
requires a supply of sub-market waged talent, then you have not found true
product-market fit or your product just does not provide sufficient value to
sustain a real business (real meaning one that can operate on market wages.)

~~~
grizzles
Why do you say sub-market? When Disney or any other huge corporation
outsources their IT dept to India / China, that's the MARKET. Good Luck
putting an import tax on virtual goods / services.

~~~
TuringNYC
It is market wage in India/China. If they can export jobs to India/China and
make things work, good for them, that is a good business.

If the company is complaining of a shortage of US workers however, they are
paying sub-market US wages. There is no such thing as a shortage in economics.

------
draw_down
Well, it's a shortage in the sense that there is a shortage of brand-new
Ferraris for $15,000.

~~~
hibikir
But looking at individual salaries is just not the right idea though: to
measure shortages in an industry, we have to look at total supply.

Yes, I can get all the engineers I want if I pay a million dollars a year. But
if they are also employed as engineers somewhere else, the lack of engineering
talent just moves to those other companies.

Say there is only a car in the entire world. I could buy it for more no more
money, but ultimately there is still a shortage, in the sense that even if we
had 5 people willing to pY 5 billion for the only car I. The world, they would
all not be able to get it. In cars, this is fixed by the fact that we can
build cars easily: It doesn't take that long to make another car, and
eventually you can build thousands a day.

So if we look at the system overall, we have to consider unemployment in the
profession, and how many people just don't want to go I to stem because it
doesn't pay enough.

They say I see it, pay in CS specifically is pretty darned good, compared to
alternatives in the US. Any lack of developers we have today doesn't come from
them choosing other occupations because programming doesn't pay the bills: We
just have way too many people getting paid a lot less, or unemployed
altogether, that either can't afford the retraining to be programmers, or
just. can't do it altogether.

So it's not, IMO, as if the shortage of good pay is the problem: Remember the
dot com boom, when a lot of borderline incompetent people were getting a ton
of money and achieving very little? That,s the best we'd get if we just
multiplied all tech salaries by 10x. Our real problems are far more
complicated.

~~~
randomdata
_> But if they are also employed as engineers somewhere else, the lack of
engineering talent just moves to those other companies._

That, of course, is the entire purpose of high prices. You want some of the
demand to go away because they find it to be too expensive so that the supply
eventually matches up to the demand. There would be no purpose in having
different prices for different jobs otherwise.

A shortage happens when price cannot rise for some reason, such as the
government implementing a wage ceiling. I'm not quite sure what could be
preventing price from rising in this specific case. It seems like a pretty
wide open market.

 _> Any lack of developers we have today doesn't come from them choosing other
occupations because programming doesn't pay the bills_

Or they are simply doing better elsewhere. Paying the bills isn't necessarily
enough incentive. Even in my own situation, while I still keep my foot in the
developer door a bit, I am spending more and more time in my other careers. I
_could_ go back to programming full time, but I haven't found an offer
incentivizing enough yet.

~~~
stale2002
That is an Economists definition of a shortage. Not a normal persons
definition of a shortage.

Let's say a loaf of bread went up in price to 100$, and the majority of people
in the USA were literally starving to death.

Yes or no, is the US suffering from a food shortage?

I would argue, yes.

~~~
randomdata
It is, of course, an economist term. Although I am interested to learn more
about your perspective. How do you quantify a 'normal person' shortage?

* Does every single person need to be able to afford bread for it to not be a food shortage? Or is it okay if some still go without as long as the price goes below a certain point? What is that point?

* Is there a shortage of Ferraris because they cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, which is more than I can spend on car? Or are non-essential items not included in shortages?

* If non-essential items are excluded, what is essential about developers? We lived for hundreds of thousands of years without without software just fine.

* If developers are essential, are they always going to be in a shortage situation until they all work for free? I can imagine several developer jobs I would have done for $1/hr, but not for $10/hr, as it is no longer worth the cost to me at that point.

I may agree with you, but I'm not quite sure I understand what a 'normal
person' shortage even is. It does not seem to be clearly defined anywhere.

~~~
stale2002
Labor markets are inherently inelastic in the short term.

I'd define a shortage by comparing short and long term movements in labor.

As in, if price goes way way up for certain positions, it takes a long time
for labor to react and produce more supply. This is bad.

So in the short term, there is a shortage of developers, while labor catches
up and tries to fulfill this demand.

To put it another way, imagine if workers could see the future, 10 years ago,
and could know how high salaries for devs were going to be.

If workers were armed with this knowledge, a whole lot more of them would have
chosen to go into tech.

The Ferrari example doesn't work, because if Ferrari 10 years ago, knew
exactly how much demand was going to be, I don't think it would have changed
their supply or price at all.

I am not sure of a better word for this "shortage", but I am thinking of any
situation where expectations for the future do not match up with the reality
of the future, in short term inelastic markets.

And the solution to this market information failure is to either get better
information about the future or work towards making the market more elastic.

~~~
randomdata
So how does this apply to developers? I remember in the 90s it was already
considered the job to have if you want to make a lot of money. That's a good
20 years to prepare the workforce, at least (I start to become too young to
have really paid attention to the job market before that).

I got my first full-time programming job soon after the dot-com bust and even
at that time it paid better than the offers I'm seeing for new hires these
days. And that's without even factoring in inflation. They are making quite a
bit less than I was in real dollars.

By that definition I think it is very safe to say that there isn't any sign of
a developer shortage. It is a high paying profession, for sure, but it always
has been. It's not like it was a minimum wage job 10 years ago. It was still a
six figure job even then.

------
Animats
Useful question: how many unfilled STEM jobs could be filled by hiring an
available applicant and putting them through three months of training? If you
want narrow expertise, create it. HR organizations need to be thinking that
way.

 _" Lack of planning on your part does not constitute and emergency on my
part."_

~~~
st3v3r
I think part of it is, there doesn't appear to be any penalty for sitting and
waiting for that Unicorn candidate that checks all the boxes and works for
peanuts. Most employers already feel empowered to have their existing
employees do the work of 2 or 3 people, so not hiring someone for a couple
months doesn't affect them.

------
stale2002
If the stem crisis is a myth, then why do I get paid so much?

I'm not the top of my class. I'm just an average web developer doing easy
stuff.

~~~
Vendan
Probably cause you are in a good area? My last programming job was $38k a
year, and considered great pay.

~~~
tevyt
Well if you considered it great pay that would mean that it was a high salary
for the area, right?

~~~
Vendan
Nah, it was barely enough to cover cost of living, and I got a 136% raise by
switching to another field. I didn't think it was great pay, that was the
employer when they refused to give me a raise after 2 years...

------
capRidiculous
I can speak from my own anecdotal experience. I am an Indian immigrant with
2.5 yrs of industry experience and a masters degree from a decent school.
Please note that I do not support the H1b abuse by the outsourcing firms. They
are pure evil and I honestly hope they go bankrupt. I also believe H1b needs
to be reformed to remove the loopholes but that is a topic for another day.

I was recently in the job market and got three offers within a month. One from
a big four tech firm Amazon/Facebook/MS/Google, one from a big four consulting
firm Deloitte/E&Y/PWC/KPMG and the final one from a very promising startup in
North Carolina. The first two paid above market rate but the startup paid 105k
+ equity because they cannot afford to pay more than that. Thing is, my
specific skill set is in shortage ( Big Data and Analytics) and I am sure
there are a few other specialized fields where there is a shortage.

There may be a number of kick-ass local software engineers in the market but
it is the specific skill set the companies need. Please do not tell me that
companies can just hire local candidates and train them on the skill set they
need. There simply isn't that much time and experience trumps(yea I know its
ironic) training. When a company pays you N amount, they expect X amount of
value from you where X is a multiple of N. Also, these companies are often
competing with each other to get a product out to the market as fast as
possible. Loosing precious time in training is not very optimal as your
competitor might beat you.

To be honest, I do not think I can be considered the best in my field and a
good american developer can do my job if s/he has the necessary experience.
Right now, demand for data engineers with big data skills far outstrips the
supply. This won't be the case in say 4-5 years down the line.

STEM in itself is a very broad term, Software development has many
disciplines. Are you a Sr. Software Developer who wants to get paid that 200k
salary in your local market outside of Silicon Valley? Make sure to cultivate
a skill set that is in shortage. Simple macro economics.

For those who are curious, I took up the consulting position and am getting
paid 120k base + 10k signing bonus + 10-15% year end bonus + other benefits.
Not bad for a person with 2.5 years of industry experience who lives in North
Carolina. Is it?

~~~
TuringNYC
By the way, $120k is nice for NC, but the banks in NC pay $180k for the same
talent. There is no shortage in NC for Big Data and Analytics talent, the
company cannot find the talent because they are simply not paying as much as
Wells Fargo next door. If they pay $180k, they will find all the talent they
need. They might even convince talent from NY/NJ to move down for that sum.
AIG Investments recently convinced a dozen+ group of analytics workers to move
down to NC for that salary range. The people would not have moved down for
$120k.

Also, $120k is pretty nice, until you have some kids and loads of medical co-
pays, dental fees, school fees, and then it is simply too little. Dont believe
me? Several years ago, my medical co-pays post insurance were over $20,000 for
the year, which is more like $32,000 pre-tax.

What happens is people move into non technical roles which pay commensurate to
skillsets. There is no shortage of skillsets, there is simply a shortage of
experienced people willing to take sub-market wages for strong resumes.

~~~
capRidiculous
I know three people (2 immigrants on H1b) of the top of my head that are
getting paid 200k + inclusive of year end bonus in NC and they have 10 + years
of experience in the industry. My old company tried to find a Big Data and
Analytics lead for 6 months before giving up. They simply could not find
anyone good. This was back in 2014-15. They were willing to go upto 200k to
pay for it. To pay anything more than that would not be worth it for them as
the ROI just does not make sense at that point.

My role is of a Sr.Associate which requires 2-4 years of experience and I am a
27 year old guy. Would you really pay 200k plus for a person with my level of
experience? Hiring a person with more experience for my position and paying
200k plus does not make sense because they would be over qualified for what I
do. Also, there are not enough local developers with 2-4 years of exp with my
skill set. At my old firm, I personally mentored 2 american fresh grads
because they could not find Jr.developers with Big Data skills. I am pretty
sure that I can make more than 180k in NC by the time I turn 32-33 but I will
need to upgrade my skills at that point. I am already looking at Blockchain
instead of waiting for my company to train me. I believe that it will be in
demand 2-3 years down the line.

I support the increase in wages but you also need to consider what ROI you are
bringing to the company if you are commanding a 200k + salary in a place like
NC. Are you brining a 3-4x annual return? Then yes, command that salary by all
means. If not, you do not deserve such a hefty pay check.

~~~
TuringNYC
I'm running a startup right now, and you are absolutely correct -- I would not
pay $200k for an analytics person. Our company's unit economics cannot support
that type of wage.

 _However_ , i'll be honest and say we cannot afford the market wage, so we
make development decisions accordingly. It would be _dishonest_ for me to
claim a shortage when I'm clearly not paying market wages.

Not wanting to pay market wages is not evidence of a shortage. You get what
you pay for. I drive a Hyundai because I am not willing to pay $80,000 for a
car. I'll be honest and say I'm unwilling to purchase a Corvette. There is no
shortage of Corvettes, i'm just not willing to pay for one. If I try to pay
$27,000 for a Corvette, that is not a shortage, that is just nonsensical.

~~~
capRidiculous
Interesting perspective. But what determines market wage? If my company is
going to make 500-700k on me per annum, I think a 150k salary inclusive of
bonuses + health care + very generous PTO + 5% 401k matching is a very good
pay. Which is what I am getting right now. In the end, my company will spend
about 200k on me per annum not including my visa expenses. So would that mean
the market wage for this position is some where close to what I am getting
paid? I think yes. However, if the company is making 2-3 million on me but
only pays me my current salary, there is a lot of room for market wage
increase.

In the end, I think market wage is also based on the ROI you bring to the
company. In my case, if a local appears and commands a 200k base, why should
the company pay him/her? In the local's eyes, s/he is worth 200k + but the
company does not generate enough value of of them to pay that salary. So, I do
not think I am displacing anyone here. In fact, as I said, I helped mentor two
americans and I would gladly teach my skills to the locals if the govt had
certain programs where immigrants can teach the locals and get some sort of
benefit from it( May be a faster track for a green card? ). I don't know, just
a thought :)

~~~
TuringNYC
Dear @capRidiculous -- regarding your other question, "what determines market
wage" \-- market wages are whatever wages attract sufficient people to meet
demand. That might be $15/hr in the case of flipping burgers, or $275k in the
case of machine learning. It has nothing to do with the ROI of the company. It
is the salary that will convince someone from giving up a competing job
elsewhere and join an unfilled position.

There are some things that can reduce market wages -- you can make the job
more attractive such that people are willing to fill a spot for less salary.
It happens all the time, here are some ways to do so:

\- Federal government jobs pay much less yet attract people because of long-
term job security and tax-free earnings in many cases

\- Municipal government jobs pay much less yet attract people because of easy
hours

\- Some startups pay much less yet attract people because of exciting products
or growth opportunity

\- Hedge funds can pay much less yet attract people with the promise of a
share of investment returns

Workers are smart though. If there is a position going unfilled, it is because
it is not an attractive position. It either needs to pay market wage, or offer
some of the above attributes to help reduce market wages for the position.

~~~
capRidiculous
You make very valid points, but how do you expect someone to pay you 300k if
they are not making more money off of you?

The market is willing to pay machine learning experts 250k + because they
bring in multiple of 250k in value. If not, no one would be paying such an
amount just because machine learning is hard. If that is the case, astro
physicists should be among the highest earners in the world. Much more than
your NFL stars.

~~~
TuringNYC
By the way, our startup is a machine learning startup. We are pre-profit
because we're still in the midst of a parallel medical trial of our diagnostic
classifier. We are on venture funding so do not pay market wages. Instead I
tend to personally hire new grads and train them. I hire pricey ML experts
only as short-term consultants when we need.

Our startup economics do not support wages above ~140k/yr which is why I go
through all this trouble. But i'm honest -- it is because we cannot afford
market wages, not because there is a shortage. Just because our budget cannot
hire a market rate experienced hire.

I've enjoyed our discussion very much. I'd love to offer you a job for sub-
market wages :-)

------
pyrophane
I think another factor contributing to this is a need to answer the question
of how we can replace all of the jobs that we are losing due, primarily, to
automation.

Because our society is built on the idea that work is the means to justify
one's existence, we depend on the possibility of full employment. Therefore,
when jobs go away, we have to make them up somewhere. As manufacturing shrinks
and automation starts to chip at the large base of service jobs once thought
safe, it is necessary that there be something to replace it.

Enter STEM. Instead of assembly-line workers, customer service reps, and bank
tellers, we will soon all be the scientists and engineers designing and
servicing the grandiose machinery that now does most of the actual work.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
>Enter STEM. Instead of assembly-line workers, customer service reps, and bank
tellers, we will soon all be the scientists and engineers designing and
servicing the grandiose machinery that now does most of the actual work.

With the problem that the "automated" infrastructure has _incredibly_ high
initial capital costs and _incredibly_ specific skills requirements. Just
think how many software frameworks are used for a typical complex product that
really does something useful: call that N.

Now, where do you find 100 engineers trained and experienced in _all_ of N
different things?

------
oDot
The question is not how many engineers are there, but how many _good
engineers_ are there.

------
dclowd9901
When will the curve of demand start to drop precipitously as we replace STEM
workers with AI? (Right now, for instance, we have no QA team, as we can
machine test changes and use program flow analysis to test)

~~~
a-saleh
Bit off topic, but how did you manage that?

I currently work in QE, but our team is miniscule compared to the devs, so we
would rather just automate ourselves away and then hop over to the other side
:-)

~~~
dclowd9901
We still QA, but since we have a pretty sturdy code review process where we
check out changes and double check them, alongside requiring debts to write
test plans and then using Flowtype to limit side effecty changes.

------
leroman
These days its easy for companies to remain mediocre and stay in business,
thanks to FOSS and a competitive market lowering their tooling price. Some
time ago I realized that the only way to get the real worth out of value I
create (as a highly skilled developer) I need to be building products /
services and selling them to these mediocre corporations, I could not see a
way I could survive in these companies in the long term. (weather they
provided me with a growth path or not)

------
CJefferson
I don't buy this. In my university, we constantly have companies trying to get
our computing graduates, offer them internships, try to persuade them to come
for interview. We need to teach our students how to negotiate well.

In most other departments, staff instead have to teach students how to go out
and find jobs, put lots of work into applying, etc.

There is certainly a shortage of good graduates, compared to most degree
programs.

~~~
nsgi
What university do you go to?

~~~
CJefferson
I teach at St Andrews University, in Scotland.

------
kartan
A friend of mine studied bioengineering , but she is working out of the field.
Low salaries and temporal jobs moved here to another different field. She
doesn't repents her choice, as it was an incredible experience. And she would
like to work in her field of choice. But the market pays more her time and
capabilities elsewhere.

~~~
digler999
> But the market pays more her time and capabilities elsewhere.

or the market has somehow succeeded in depressing wages to the lowest possible
rate. I've heard you have to have a minimum of a BS degree to break into the
field of bio/chem. And then you're just a lab monkey following orders from a
superior. yet "biotech firms" generate enormous profits, whether its in
genetic engineering, healthcare, pharma, etc. It makes me sick.

------
eva1984
But it is also very difficult to hire a qualified candidate. There is also
data suggests that SDE's salary has been hiking for several years in a row and
beyond inflation rate. If there is no shortage, how so?

[https://www.fastcompany.com/3051405/the-future-of-
work/the-2...](https://www.fastcompany.com/3051405/the-future-of-
work/the-20-jobs-with-the-biggest-salary-increases-this-year)

I don't think paying 110k+ in Bay Area for a entry level is unfair, but from
what I can tell, my company has a hard time finding one candidate and often
the ones we like also get multiple offers and prefer big companies like
Google/Facebook, etc.

Yes, 'qualified' is very subjective standard, however, if you ask 5
experienced people, their opinion towards the same candidate barely changes
dramatically from one and another, it is either unanimously yes/no, very
rarely in between.

So, I think yes, there is a lot of STEM students, but how many of them
actually have actual engineering skills is question left for debate.

------
nfbush
add a (2013) ?

------
aub3bhat
All these articles start with an implicit assumption that talent in other
countries is somehow automatically inferior and that USA will always remain a
leader.

The reality could not be further from the truth. Just take a look at what
haappened to the EE / Chip-making industry. The cost difference has shifted
all but very high end (intel processors) manufacturing and along with them
jobs out of USA to Taiwan, China, Korea and Japan.

While as an employee you might think you can ignore competition from other
countries via protectionism, sooner or later the entire industry ends up
suffering the effects. This is also what happened to Detroit car makers.
Unionization & Protectionism guarantees salaries for half a decade until the
market effect trickles down.

The real existential threat to SV is not from Indians or Chinese immigrants as
much as the post-Trump Anti H-1B wave might have you believe. Its from failing
to remain competitive in an age where privacy corncerns and a hostile US
government are causing a rethink worldwide.

