
There is no shortage of software developers - SQL2219
There are only ridiculous job descriptions that are not rooted in reality, and pay ranges that are not competitive.  example: Must have 3-5 years experience with a technology that has only been around for 2 years. Must know every language under the sun etc. HR people who screen resumes who have no clue about technology.<p>I don&#x27;t write this out of frustration looking for employment, I am writing this out of frustration of being on the inside trying to hire people from within an organization.
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mattbillenstein
I think you're wrong, it's definitely hard to find competent software
engineers. The existence of Hack Reactor and friends are evidence of this --
entire businesses predicated on a supply of dev talent that doesn't meet
demand.

But, I think these businesses typically fail to turn out competent software
engineers and are really just making a buck off of otherwise smart people who
are too focused on the allure of a six-figure software engineering salary. And
thus, they don't really help close the talent gap anyway since they are
turning out people with just enough software development knowledge to get past
a recruiter and into an interview.

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CyberFonic
Finding competent software engineers is like trying to find a needle in a
haystack - simple because anybody can claim to be a programmer. Just imagine
if anybody could claim to be a dentist!

Formal training and certification bodies is not the answer. Just look at the
vendor sponsored certification programs. Instead we need some sort of peer
review and rating process. Pushing back against clueless managers is a good
start.

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zerr
There is a shortage of software developers willing to work for cheap.

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gbarnes
As there should always be.

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harkyns_castle
I've done a fair bit of contracting, and most interview processes are
ridiculous imo. You can't glean anything much of value from a face-to-face
interview with a software developer; at least, it can range from the fact they
either can't answer questions, or they can answer them perfectly with all the
right idioms and (language)-speak. Doesn't really help to determine whether
they'd be a valuable asset I don't think (well, the former you can dismiss,
but the latter you can't rely on solely). Of course, there's a lot more you'll
get from the interview related to interpersonal skills etc.

I think a coding test is vital... that's the first step in filtering out the
ones that can talk the talk versus people that can write nice code. I had to
conduct interviews for a team in another country at one stage, and I had
(supposed) PhD students that couldn't write a Hello World in the language of
choice. Had they have been selected just on their resumes, they would've got
in easily.

Then beyond that, there are fast learners that can pick up anything given a
bit of time and become the leaders in the group, then there are people that
can't. Interviews I don't think will find the former.

Then at times these people will get thrown together on teams and you wonder
why there's friction... because you've hired some people that aren't helpful,
and the others in the team know they'll have to carry them. For expensive
jobs, I think its worth taking the time to do a few rounds, provide some good
coding challenges, and not to be _too_ pedantic about things if you think the
candidate has the experience to pick things up despite not having learnt the
latest * framework (of which we seem to get new ones every day).

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JSeymourATL
> I am writing this out of frustration of being on the inside trying to hire
> people...

First Rule of Hiring: Never ever entrust recruitment to human resources,
except for fundamental and rudimentary tasks.

If you're the Hiring Manager; you alone must take lead on this mission and
carve out the time required. Incidentally, candidates are always impressed
with managers who take the hands-on approach.

Suggest reading the brilliant Alan Weiss on this subject>
[http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6545252-the-talent-
advant...](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6545252-the-talent-advantage)

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ratfacemcgee
the best job add i ever saw was someone asking the applicants to respond with
a .m (objective-c) file which prints out their resume to the console.

just do things like that, and you'll only get "programmers" applying. or
people who are good at googling.

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olegdulin
There is no shortage of qualified developers. There is a shortage of employers
willing to pay for scarce talent. I am confident that if suddenly developers
started earning brain-surgeon salaries within a short 3-5 years the supply of
qualified candidates will rise to the occasion.

Until that happens, the supply of software engineers is precisely balanced
with the demand.

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CyberFonic
I'm confused by your post.

If you are on the inside, then why can't you write job descriptions that are
"real"?

The problem of ridiculous job descriptions can only be addressed if team
leaders, technical leads, etc make a stand and demand that job descriptions be
kept real. Pushing back against clueless PHBs needs to become ever more
widespread.

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mcv
Maybe. I suspect often HR writes them. I just heard from my co-workers that,
because they were looking for a senior Angular guy, HR wanted to ask for 5
years of Angular experience. Fortunately the team managed to stop them, but I
suspect that in a lot of companies they wouldn't have that opportunity.

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sharemywin
I'd rather have one good QA lead than 5 great programmers.

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scdoshi
If you are on the inside and you think the issue is pay scales and job
descriptions, surely you've tried to fix these issues and have some data
instead of a rant?

Not trying to be sarcastic here, but actually interested th the results

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MichaelCrawford
A common problem is that the use of staffing firms - recruiters - has led to
the common requirement that new hires "hit the ground running" because
employers don't want to train someone after paying a recruiter $30,000.00 to
find them.

No one seems to believe that I have skills that I've learned from a book, and
by writing code on my own, so it doesn't help to invest in my own training.

There are many reasons for the perceived - and yes it is only perceived -
shortage of software developers. When I was starting out it was easy to find
all the employers, just look up "computer programming" in the yellow pages.

I'm working to index all the world's computer employers at
[http://www.warplife.com/jobs/computer/](http://www.warplife.com/jobs/computer/)
It is just barely started but there are substantial listings for New York
City, Seattle, Portland and San Francisco. I have many more written down that
I have yet to post; I'm also working on some automated tools.

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S4M
> A common problem is that the use of staffing firms - recruiters - has led to
> the common requirement that new hires "hit the ground running" because
> employers don't want to train someone after paying a recruiter $30,000.00 to
> find them.

It's also due to the fact that people tend to stay less time at their jobs.
Companies don't want to wait 3 months for the new hires to pick up their tech
stacks if they are going to leave after 2 years. Why people are less loyal is
another story, and I am not sure the employees are the ones who are the most
guilty there.

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MichaelCrawford
here we have a chicken and egg problem.

It's not that people tend to stay less in general, but that I personally
regard the entire industry as fundamentally corrupt, so I don't really feel
the need to stay at any particular company any longer than I really have to to
fulfill my own personal requirement.

However among my personal requirements is that despite being quite shy and
quiet I enjoy the company of others. That's why when I am self-employed - as I
am now - I commonly work at wifi spots rather than from home.

Working Software of Santa Cruz, California paid me less than half of what I
could readily have commanded anywhere else but even so I stayed with them
longer than any other employer because those people were like family to me.

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codeonfire
There is a guy suing Godaddy because they called him an "obese christian" and
would mess up their "image" if they hired him. That is the environment right
now in software dev hiring. That is the standard, sadly. Maybe you can hire
that guy.

