
Why you're having trouble hiring - ihsoj
http://blairreeves.me/2018/08/30/why-youre-having-trouble-hiring/
======
austincheney
The article actually mentions _kids_. When talking about working in the bay
area with technology people from the bay area I really get the impression that
nobody there ever has children and everybody is sterilized. I don't think I
have ever heard anybody talk about the bay area being great unless they were
childless.

Outside of the bay area I can actually afford to have children and a house
without being a millionaire. Yeah, I know, its weird. I have enough money left
over (even though I have kids and a large house) that my wife isn't forced
into labor to prevent immediate financial ruin.

I simply cannot imagine (I mean those words very literally) the horrid state
of affairs of making six figures and still being on the verge of poverty.

~~~
tibbon
This.

I'm living in Boston, which admittedly also has a pretty terrible cost of
living, although not yet quite NYC or SF. Somerville is trying really hard to
catch up though.

It's hard enough here to be able to have space for a partner and/or kids, and
maybe 100 sq ft of grass in a yard - but it's at least imaginable, and
possible to have a semi-decent commute.

I don't know what Facebook or someone would have to pay me to move to SF and
be able to imagine similar. $400-500k? Like, the concept of owning property in
SF with any amount of space is mind boggling. Same with NYC. I don't want a
90-minute commute daily.

Priorities for me right now are:

\- Space for at least a 1 car garage (in which to keep tools, projects, and a
few motorcycles) \- At least 100 sq ft of grass/yard \- 3 bedrooms for myself,
my partner, music and potentially family expansion \- A decent commute (under
an hour, preferably 30 minutes or less) \- A decent kitchen and space to
entertain a dozen or so friends for dinner \- A down payment that isn't going
to be $200k

This isn't going to happen in SF or NYC. Maybe if I live in NJ or San Mateo?

I'll stay with my already-higher than this article mentions salary, and have
some prospect of space and such.

~~~
matchbok
Have a lot of friends moving to NJ - still relatively affordable and very
close to Manhattan. Jersey City is quite nice and very kid friendly!

~~~
sys_64738
But it's New Jersey. Do you know anybody who doesn't get embarrassed telling
others they live in NJ?

~~~
astura
Only people who live in South Jersey.

(and they are quick to follow it up with "South Jersey is different.")

------
funfunfun
Having just moved from SF to a smaller market with a 'lower cost of living' I
can tell you DO NOT DO IT

The value you lose from your current and future network alone is so
devastating that any NerdWallet estimate of your costs is total BS. Lookup how
much networks are worth to lifetime earnings

Now your job sucks? Good luck getting a new one you like. Either move back or
find something that 'works'

Lastly, your coworkers will be from a smaller pond and instead of learning
with the most experienced, you'll atropying your progress as you argue for
basic things with people who've never worked in a big pond.

There's a reason people go to hollywood for movies and SF for tech. A bunch of
them actually.

~~~
austincheney
I live outside the Bay Area and I get interview offers for good real jobs
about 3-4 times a month even though I am not looking. If I were looking for a
new job it would be 12-15 recruiters contacting me per month.

What I have observed from listening to recruiters and hiring managers in the
bay area is that they are desperate for any talent they can get, which is
great if you are a junior or if you simply suck. As a senior developer the
work looks for you (like the zombies in World War Z) regardless of the metro.

The problem with being a senior though is whether your teammates operate on
your level or whether they are juniors. The problem with being a senior on a
newb team is like being a 50 year old man marrying an 18 year old girl. Beauty
and first impressions diminish quickly and you are left chasing busy work for
immature bullshit.

~~~
funfunfun
You can also become very 'senior' in level without exposure or experience that
would be comparable to somebody in SF. Its a bummer when you live there, but
the whole city lives and breathes tech. You can't get that elsewhere.

~~~
wonderwonder
I am sure this is probably true. I just got my first Sr. Dev job which
resulted in a 50% pay raise and I dont live any where close to a tech hub. Now
I have no doubt that I am not as good as most of the people in the SF scene.
But I have kids, make a great salary and can afford to live very comfortably
and send my kids to private schools.

I think SF is great for people who live and die for the technology. For
everyone else just trying to live a good life they can get not quite to SF Sr.
level salaries in affordable regions and come out very far ahead. But if I do
agree if you are looking for the bleeding edge, SF and NY is where its at.

------
electrograv
_> Hypothetical scenario: a reputable tech firm in SF or NYC offers $125,000
in salary to a mid-level_

That’s not even what a fresh college grad would make in _total compensation_
at Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, etc, let alone “mid level”.

A senior engineer at one of those companies would make several times that in
_total compensation_.

P.S. The biggest common mistake I see in salary comparisons is the omission of
scheduled stock grants, which sometimes can comprise even the majority of
one’s compensation.

~~~
ptd
What percent of engineers in SF or NYC are working for FANG companies? Most
people aren’t working for companies that pay like Facebook.

~~~
sjroot
Obligatory "^ this." Perpetuating the idea that _everyone_ who comes out of
school with a CS degree will end up with such a comfy gig is a disservice to
software engineers everywhere, particularly for those outside the United
States.

As a mid-level engineer currently job hunting in NYC, the salary range for
most non-FAANG companies (including most start-ups) seems to be $90-150k.

From my experience, the idea of "mid-level" and "senior-level" employees in
our industry seems to be skewed to the left. Mid-level employees are generally
2-5 years into their careers, and senior-level can be anywhere beyond that.
When you think of senior-level employees in other industries, you generally
assume they have 10-20+ years of experience under their belt.

~~~
ptd
From my anecdotal experience the breakpoints in engineering experience seem to
be:

0-3 years-Junior:You don’t know what you’re doing.

3-8 years-Mid-level: You think you know what you’re doing.

8+ years-Senior:You know that you don’t know what you’re doing.

~~~
ghostly_s
At large companies, sure. The proliferation of startups _really_ skew this on
average. I know of many people who were "Senior Devs" at startups within the
1-5 years range.

------
hapless
First off, $125k is the _entry level_ wage in NYC and SF. That's what you pay
fresh grads out of college. The author _massively_ understates the wage gap
between the core job areas and peripheral cities. Any recruiter offering a
senior hire $125k to relocate is working on the behalf of complete idiots.

Secondly, distributed teams are nonsense, from an economic point of view.

Why on earth would I pay someone in a "flyover state" $80k when I can get very
similar talent for half as much in Argentina? If I'm willing to compromise on
time zones, I can pay even less in Eastern Europe or South Asia.

The _only_ reason that your bloated American wage is justified is
_communication_. Good English skills can be purchased in any market in the
world, for much less than what Americans demand. Being on site, in the damn
office, is how you earn that money.

~~~
eropple
_> Good English skills can be purchased in any market in the world, for much
less than what Americans demand._

Is this true? My experience differs; even hiring semi-technical roles where
the most important factor was "high-level English competency" I've had really
disappointing results. It gets better if you're willing to deal with less than
that, but that's a pretty rough compromise for a lot of highly collaborative
roles.

Strong technical skills are easier to source, but strong technical skills
without good communication is tough to square.

~~~
wasdfff
Are you allowed to require a TOEFL score? I work in academia and find it’s
pretty indicative of good English comprehension, and universally done by
international students.

~~~
opwieurposiu
It is legal (at least based on the guidelines provided by the US Department of
Labor:
[http://www.onetcenter.org/dl_files/empTestAsse.pdf](http://www.onetcenter.org/dl_files/empTestAsse.pdf))
to give people all kinds of tests as long as (a) they do not select against
certain protected traditionally disadvantaged classes more than it does for
the average applicant or (b) if it does, there is a demonstrable link between
the test and ability to perform job functions (so, for instance, a test of
strength in a job that involves lots of lifting may select against women, but
if strength is highly correlated with job performance, that is OK).

------
d357r0y3r
A reality that doesn't seem to get discussed much is that non-FAANG companies
in Bay Area _don 't actually pay that much_. If your option is Austin post-IPO
or Google, then okay. If your option is Austin post-IPO or Series A Startup in
SF, then it's not that straightforward of an equation. It seems pretty common
for funded startups in SF to pay something like 140-160k for mid-level
engineers. You can easily find 120k salaries in Austin and Raleigh and it goes
a hell of a lot further.

------
kcorbitt
I was talking to someone who builds a product for recruiters recently.
Apparently, common knowledge among recruiters these days is that you can't get
anyone with experience to move to SF anymore (they are still able to attract
young talent right out of university).

It breaks my heart the way this city is squandering its potential with
backwards-looking policies that make it impractically expensive for basically
everyone, tech employee or no.

~~~
knightofmars
Anecdotally, I would need to be paid 3 times as much as I currently make to
even consider moving to SF. And that 3 times is almost always outside (by 30%)
the salary range for a parallel position in SF. I have more than 10 years of
experience developing software. Every time I get pinged by a recruiter I do
some snooping about the salary for the position (Glassdoor, LinkedIn, etc).
99% of the time, the salary range for the position would be a pay-cut (even
with stock options). And no, I'm not overpaid based on my current position and
where I live. I could easily leave and find another company that was willing
to pay me the same salary within a 5 mile radius. Here are some additional
metrics, my mortgage (owning a house in one of the most desirable areas in the
city) is 1/6 of my monthly paycheck. My taxes are 10% of my monthly paycheck.
I'm not saying any of this as a way to brag or show off. I'm pointing out that
the quality of life I have would only drop off if I moved to a place like SF.

~~~
souprock
Glassdoor is nonsense. Somehow, they think we pay experienced specialists
roughly the going rate for flipping burgers or mopping restrooms.

------
base698
Like a mass media news story, these anecdotes are written to appeal to the
demo in question, namely engineers not in the Bay Area or NY, to make them
feel better about their choices.

This blog post also has the side effect of being framed in a naive way that
also has people who do live in NY or the Bay Area discuss the sheer
ridiculousness of it, which is why it's already got 51 comments in less than
hour.

People move to the Bay Area because of the idea of opportunity. Maybe a
friend's startup makes a billion dollars and you get to do your own after, or
maybe it goes bust and there are 100s of other jobs that are more interesting
and make more than you would in NC, Austin or other small metros. I'm not a
billionaire, but I have found MUCH better work and opportunities, and if I
choose I can move to a lower cost of living area and buy a house in cash and
start my family there.

Put another way, would you rather spend the first 5 years with your kid at
home, or would you rather worry about slaving away to a bank for $100K hoping
you aren't laid off in a downturn? Being smart with your money even with
expensive housing can go a long way.

------
esotericn
It's fundamentally _odd_ to me that people are looking at rental costs.

The working class worry about making rent.

A senior professional (in any field) cares about building a secure life,
buying property, raising a family, saving for retirement.

For a whole bunch of people it's the entire reason they put all of that effort
into their craft in the first place (otherwise they'd move out into the
country and work on OSS all day).

You're going to struggle to hire competent, rested, mature, well rounded
individuals if you expect them to rent tiny flats downtown and have that be
their life.

I don't have a visa anyway, but that's part of the reason I haven't bothered
looking in to moving to SF.

It seems to be built around the idea that you spend your youth grinding in a
rented flat, with rental furniture, using rental cars, buying every meal
outside, so that in your 40's you might be able to move out and live a decent
life with some modicum of security.

Baffling. Like, what are you going to do socially? You think you'll just "be
rich" somewhere else and live in your house with all the other SF migrants?

~~~
tsunamifury
I think you misunderstand that several workers out here rent because they can
amass capital with their jobs in a more liquid format than buying a house. A
house is a middle class investment opportunity, several people out here are
making enough to focus more on flexibility and liquidity.

~~~
esotericn
I've had prolonged discussions about this elsewhere on HN, but I think if
you're considering a house (or an apartment) to be an "investment
opportunity", you've missed the point entirely.

It's a home first and foremost, and a monetary asset second.

If your model is 'grind your 20s-40s away living in a box and then move out'
then I implore you to read my comment again.

~~~
timerol
If a house is a home, I'd rather be homeless. I personally view a house as
more of a shackle than a benefit. I enjoy moving every 2-5 years. I value
novelty over routine. My first 12 years of life were in the same home, but
other than that I've been moving around regularly.

I am in my late 20s currently, and I'm open to a change in perspective. Maybe
there's value in consistency that I will appreciate more at some point. But
being told that I won't count as a senior professional until I care about
buying property irks me.

~~~
Izkata
I don't see why any of that would have to change. You sell your home at the
same time you buy the new one, and what you get from the sell goes towards the
cost of the new home.

Money-wise, you're no longer throwing it away on rent, but paying down a
mortgage that eventually is paid off entirely.

On top of that, you're also no longer racing against the end of the rent
contract, and can wait a bit - or move earlier - to find a new place you
really like.

The turning point for me was, here in Chicago, when I was renting and my dad
sent me some properties with the costs laid out: These places were
significantly nicer, and the mortgage cost per month was ~60% what I was
paying in rent.

~~~
bwc150
I'm also in Chicago and have done a similar analysis. But I'd argue there are
two main reasons for the per-month costs for owning are cheaper than for
renting:

\- Illinois is broke and is going to increase real estate taxes every year for
the foreseeable future. So while you can also sell to escape the tax bill, the
value will just drop to compensate. \- There are many fixed costs to buying a
place that aren't reflected in the monthly bills. Such as closing costs on
both the purchase and sale (including chicago's lovely transfer stamp tax,
realtor commissions, etc).

Also keep in mind how many high-rise condo buildings are going up right now.
This can only be bad for prices of "old" condos around the city.

------
patagonia
No vehicle = massive reduction in options for impromptu leisure activities
(unless you factor in costs for rentals or trains / planes, which in my
experience was non-negligible). Unless all you plan to do is reachable by
public transit. Which gets old after a few years. (Plus let’s be honest,
anyone on that kind of salary takes a good deal of cabs / Lyft rides.)

That and, factor in a yard large enough for me to have BBQs and store my
sailboat and then we’ll talk.

~~~
Balgair
No Vehicle = No Kids, as well.

It's not that you can't take a bus with kiddos, it's the emergencies,
especially in a place like SF with less than 'efficient' mass transit.

Your kid puked in class today? Gonna need a car to come pick them up.

Your kid broke an arm at the park? Gonna need a car to go to Urgent Care.

Your kid has a science fair project due tomorrow that they just told you
about? Gonna need a car to go pick up supplies.

------
tsunamifury
I feel like the author here is a bit naive of the salaries out here. They seem
to think directors and VPs make 125k when a large firm would be offering 1-2m
total comp in the Bay Area for those positions. More than enough to live very
well even I’m SF. A junior engineer is offered the 125k quoted for comparison
in the article.

~~~
sct202
It seems like he switches between the intro talking about VP/directors to mid-
level for the actual comp portion. Like a mid-level SE in Columbus earning
$80k sounds reasonable (but still low), and would be ridiculously low for a
VP/director even in a low cost of living metro.

------
sargun
I don't understand why people don't just pay _more_ , and hire _fewer_ people.
It's easy to see a senior engineer that outputs 2-3x as much as a junior
engineer, but you don't see them being comped like that.

If you're a company without a great culture, or other issues, it may still
impede your hiring, but just comp people fairly to start with -- plenty of
medium sized companies are doing this, and are thriving.

------
fecak
The amount of recruiter spam being sent to people in fly-over country (or
anywhere outside the handful of major hubs by companies within those hubs) is
based on the fact that there is almost no cost to sending those messages, and
if one in 10,000 pays off the ROI is still probably fantastic for the
recruiting firm.

This article is mostly about COL differences and why people may not choose to
move, but the premise about the reasons for the volume of recruiting spam is
flawed. It's not because "recruiting is hard" (though it is) so much as it can
be explained by "sending spam is easy and free".

------
kylestlb
One thing the author didn't even mention was the disparity of purchasable real
estate between places like Austin and SF. Having a middle class salary in
Austin will likely enable you to purchase a decent home near the city. A
middle class salary in the Bay Area will maybe get you enough or a downpayment
on a condo in 8 years.

------
oldboyFX
Moving to SF/NY makes sense if you're an ambitious, hard-working extrovert who
knows how to sell and take advantage of those networks.

For ambitious introverts like myself, remote consulting/contracting feels like
the best option.

A childhood buddy of mine moved to SF last year and got a job at a big corp
downtown. He manages to save around $3,000/month as a senior developer with a
~$200k salary. No children, living with a partner who works as a teacher, and
they're both quite frugal.

I work as a remote contractor from a small European town and am able to
consistently save way more than that. I was saving more than that even in the
past while working as a sub-contractor through platforms like Toptal.

How big of a salary would one need in order to save > $100k/year in SF
(Single, small rental apartment, no car, average middle-class lifestyle)?

------
gbustomtv5
The claim is that the numbers do not add up for tech workers ro make Bay Area
attractive. 125k salary is used as a mid level comp to do cost of living
calculations.

The numbers for 125k indeed do not add up. However mid-level in Bay Area is
200k+ and Senior is 300k+. Not sure where 125k comes from.

Finding people with skills expexted for Bay Area’s mid level (forget about
Director or VP) is a massive challenge.

~~~
Uberphallus
125k is entry level for FAANG, but most jobs aren't. I got offers from mid
sized companies in the BA, 140k max with +10 years of C++ experience, I guess
that qualifies as Senior? +relocation package, green card sponsorship, etc,
but still very much not worth it.

~~~
gbustomtv5
125k at FAANG is base. With bonus and RSUs that becomes 160k+.

140k is a very low offer for someone with 10 years. Offers like that are
typically made by desperate startups.

Seniority is assessed by skills and not tenure. Requirements for senior
positions are pretty stiff in Bay Area. Seniors need to deliver regarless of
circumstances.

------
jupiter90000
The article doesn't mention this, but it will be alot easier to max out a 401k
and build that retirement fund making those larger coastal salaries.
Ultimately it seems hard to argue in general that one would come out ahead
financially and career-wise living outside one of those tech hubs.

However, as 'they' say money isn't everything, so it could be worth the trade
off to a particular individual or family to make less and live elsewhere.

------
chrisBob
The problem with an analysis like this is that people have a strong preference
about the environment they live in. I know a lot of people that would never
consider moving out of a major city. I have similarly established a clear
guide for any future job moves:

Can I afford 6 acres within a 10 minute commute from work?

That narrows down my options quickly, and makes my current job, which I really
enjoy, seem extravagant.

------
ChuckMcM
From the article: _Recruiter spam is nothing new, but the idea of doing
nationwide candidate searches for non-executives strikes me as awfully weird._

Allow me to offer an alternative view, this is entirely speculative.

Director level and above people are paid quite well in the Bay Area, after
stock compensation it can get to to close to half a million dollars per year.
Folks outside the 'bubble' as it were, might still be amenable to $150K to
$200K for a salary. Thinking "wow that is double what I'm currently making,
its a huge jump for me!" and its half of what other directors make.

So maybe they are trying to get senior management "on the cheap" and cut their
payroll costs, they know that locally sourced candidates won't go for what
they want to offer so they try to entice people from lower paid locales. If it
works they get a director and still have enough left over to hire another
engineer right?

~~~
fizwhiz
There are L4 SWEs (so ~5yrs of experience) at Google that make upwards of
$400k (including mild stock appreciation ofcourse). Directors (L8s and above)
are easily clearing $1M with the right competing offers.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Makes the speculation even more compelling that this could be a scheme to hire
in at a much lower salary does it not?

~~~
fizwhiz
Agreed. I was just offering my perspective that the numbers have increased
substantially over the last few years (not that I'm mad about at all hah)

------
carapace
FWIW, I've been telling recruiters for years now that I'd be willing to knock
$20K off my salary for an office with a door that closes. Everyone always
treats it like a joke.

~~~
esoterica
$20k might be less than what it would cost them in rent to allocate you that
much space, depending on how fancy your office building is.

------
nsxwolf
Offer remote positions and quit making lame excuses about why you can't do
that.

Seriously. The companies that make remote work happen aren't stupid and they
aren't failing at it.

------
corn_dog
These numbers match my before/move-to-NYC salary numbers. He mentions the
possibility of a raise at current position but doesn't say much about post-
NYC/SF raises. It took a few years but I've roughly doubled my initial NYC
income. Also, you have to make it to save it.

------
oh_hello
I have found this to be extremely true working for a small company in CA. We
have great benefits and ok salaries for the market, but nowhere near the huge
total comp numbers seen at big companies. Decent candidates are hard to come
by and generally want more money than we can offer.

------
weliketocode
The title isn't even close to the article's content.

It reads like just another rant against sf/nyc. Some back-of-the-envelope math
with conclusions that we all knew already.

------
tschellenbach
Boulder is starting to have many of the same problems when it comes to housing
and childcare.

------
arbitrage
Is it possible that you're not paying your employees enough?

------
donretag
It is not just the cost of living, it is the homeless defecating on the
streets in San Francisco that gets to me. Enjoy your SF lifestyle! I do laugh
at the Y Combinator job postings that appears on HN.

I have actually very few emails from the Bay Area in the past few months.
Maybe recruiters have gotten together and blackballed me.

~~~
kylestlb
The bay area is more than just SF. In fact, SF is quite small. Some towns here
are actually not so defecated-upon (but expensive).

~~~
donretag
But the actual Bay Area is boring. You pay the premium in SF and NYC to be
close to arts and culture, both of which are lacking in Silicon Valley. And
good luck getting a date if you are a guy.

~~~
base698
Actual Bay Area is close to ski mountains, mountain bike, paragliding,
skydiving, climbing, and hiking. Would rather be able to run, jump, and play
than go to boring art museum.

~~~
geggam
Except everyone else is going to the same place, so your traffic to and from
these destinations is almost as bad as a morning commute.

Then you have to fight the crowds for your activities.

------
dev_by_day
its a hard problem

------
hackerpoos
\- The table with actual math contradicts the title and the point the author's
trying to make. \- The author thinks directors and VPs make 1/2 to 1/10th what
they actually do. \- Unlike the author, those of us living in the coastal
areas discussed do not play inferiority-complex games where we fantasize about
the grass on the other side.

What is this half baked clickbait doing on HN?

