My experience is that companies are "desperate" in the sense that they're willing to invite you to lavish parties and fill you with free alcohol to get you to work there. But as soon as you start talking contracting, telecommute, or anything other than "sit at this desk for 60-hour weeks trying to get permission to fix an awful codebase with terrible equipment," suddenly they're not interested.
Story time: one of the best, most experienced local developers I know interviewed at a name-brand tech firm who is covered once a week on HN. Twelve separate times, they told him "We'll let you know today" as to whether or not he was hired. Several weeks later he found out third-hand he was the fall-back guy for some other non-qualified person they ended up hiring instead. He's told me horror stories about their code base that would make your hair stand up. This company keeps inviting me to parties about once a month.
There is a developer shortage in Austin, but the article blows it out of proportion. In reality the reason these few companies are "desperate" has to do with developers who want respect as human beings, autonomy to get things done, reasonable hours, a company that understands the need for technical excellence and not "put out fires" mentality, etc. If you do those things it's not that difficult to hire...
I'd agree that in tech in general you have to be very very careful in terms of understanding what you are really stepping into. There are jobs that are great but there are more jobs that are not so great (meaning the pay may be good but... 60-80 hours, boring CRUD stuff, unmaintained code bases, tyrannical managers, etc. etc.) This is probably true with most occupations but my guess is that it is a lot more extreme for software engineers (especially in SV). I've specifically taken somewhat significant lower offers based on my intuition about a job being "good" or not - I'd highly recommend it (I used to jump around for just higher salaries and to no surprise ended up miserable)
Bias: I'm a co-founder of BuildASign.com, an ecommerce company in Austin, and we're hiring. (Extra bias: we're a great company to work for, if Austin interests you.)
I agree that this article blows the issue out of proportion, but then again, any intelligent internet company realizes that its future success and future value is determined, more than anything else, by the quality of its software people. That being the case, any company where the higher-ups don't think finding the best software folks is the #1 problem (or at least one of the critical issues) at the moment is probably not a company you'd want to work for anyway. I think this is the #1 problem we face as a company, and yet I agree this article blows the "problem" out of proportion in the way the article presents the issue.
Just wanted to share my experience as a junior software engineer straight out of college (May 2011, UT Austin) with experience at 3 different startups now.
There's been a discussion lately about the city of Austin being unable to retain engineering graduates, most of whom leave the city unable to find entry level work here (refer to http://blog.infochimps.com/2011/11/30/keeping-tech-talent-in... to get what I'm talking about). Many of my college friends want to stay in the city that they've grown to love, but many don't and end up moving back home to find work. The growing exodus has become a problem over time, but prospects seem to be on the rise again with initiatives by the City of Austin and other organizations (campus2careers is a great one) to keep graduates in the area. HireStarter, the recruiting agency that was mentioned in the article, was excellent in placing me at my current startup even though I had little experience. There's hope out there for junior guys, but it's still going to be tough.
I don't expect things to get better tomorrow as this movement is still early stage, but if this momentum keeps up, suddenly Austin will have a new supply of junior and (formerly junior) senior devs.
Again, I still consider myself very fresh to the local industry so my observations may be a bit myopic :).
Not wanting to take entry level software engineers is possibly the most bone-headed move a big company can make. Someone needs to send a memo to management.
Big companies with no technical culture are not generally fun places for engineers. Experienced engineers can probably sniff out the really bad ones from a mile away. If they don't take new grads then essentially they're staffing up with the desperate and the downtrodden.
Telling the HR guys to hire new grads would, just by youthful ignorance and the law of averages yield a much better team over time. Granted retention would be the next problem, but at least they'd be somewhere.
From my limited experience hunting from a job in Austin, I think one of the reasons is that there literally aren't that many firms (small or large) doing software engineering.
The other vibe that I get is that culturally most of the older companies are from a different era which kind of doesn't make them too attractive a destination for a new graduate. Surprisingly enough the situation for EE grads is much more rosier: Anecdotal evidence over the past three years suggests that most of them get hired and stay in Austin.
"Austin's supply crunch for software developers was bad enough by September to prompt 25 Central Texas tech executives to fly to California in search of new talent."
Awesome idea - cause there's certainly not a dev shortage in California, is there?
They'd probably have more luck doing a whistlestop tour of the midwest and north atlantic states, hitting up the more rural areas. Many techies in those areas have few options, or may be stuck with remote-only options, and may not enjoy the weather as much. The Austin companies have an automatic 'better lifestyle' story against more of those areas (weather alone) rather than trying to compete with California (where most of the devs are there probably because of the Valley and the software dev culture already).
In short, I'd guess it's an uphill battle to get people to move from SF to Austin, probably much harder than getting people from, say, St Joseph, Michigan to uproot for Austin.
"After resumes were shared, business cards exchanged and several follow-up phone interviews completed, not a single one of those California candidates has made the move to Texas, according to the Austin Technology Council, which organized the trip."
Oh wow, and look at that, it didn't work. Wh not?
"It's even tighter there than it is here," said participant Rod Favaron , CEO of Austin startup Spredfast . "The challenge is there just aren't enough good software developers to go around."
They didn't think of that before? Or just can't think outside the bubble?
May I submit that if companies collectively hired some junior/entry level employees, they might eventually have some mid and senior level developers in the market? Just looking at Startuply for example, there is maybe one junior position out of 53 positions listed in Austin.
Perhaps hire one senior level and a two or three junior level developers to work closely together, and try and raise the productivity of the new devs.
If there are NO senior level programmers available, maybe they should get creative.
Spot on. I've seen this again and again: everyone is hurting for senior people, and everyone wants rock stars/ninjas. Hardly any companies that I see are willing to hire a junior dev or admin and contribute anything at all to his/her personal development, skill accumulation, and experience. They just wanna plug the hole and fill the position as fast as they can, and that's usually bad for both employer and employee long term.
In general companies seem unwilling to "train". Everyone has to start somewhere. I honestly consider software development to be a trade skill.
For startups, it makes sense to desire a senior level developer. Midsize and large companies really should explore internal training programs. Everyone a generation older than me talk about a world where the "entered through the mail room" and worked their way up. Does this world even exist today? From my point of view, it seems like we only expect top talent everywhere.
The only thing harder to hire than an experienced developer is a manager experienced at turning junior or early-career developers into senior ones.
Seriously, few things can sink the ship faster than taking on inexperienced people and hoping they'll learn. From that point of view, I can see why many startups, particularly those whose CTO/VP-E doesn't have management depth in addition to their technical depth.
I'm going to drop a small plug for my former employer, MyEdu (an Austin startup) -- they frequently hire people into junior roles, and I feel fortunate to have had such an opportunity myself. I'm not saying that everything is sunshine and roses there, but they definitely have a company culture that values the professional growth of junior employees.
I'm a developer in Dallas and many of the same things are affecting our market, although we're mostly big companies and less startups.
I personally work with a geographically distributed team and as long as we meet face to face on occasion, we're highly effective and we can hire when ever we find good talent no matter where they live.
I know companies like GitHub, LivingSocial, and 37 Signals all embrace this remote team model and utilize it well to find the talent they need without taking desperate measures.
That begs the question, why aren't most of these startups doing the same thing? I understand big companies are often too paralyzed in bureaucracy to hire remote workers, but shouldn't startups be a little more flexible in this regard?
It seems like most hip startups want you in their office, drinking coffee/beer/coolaid with the rest of the team. I don't know more companies don't give a distributed team a chance, but from my observations it seems like they're all inherently against the idea.
The distributed model imposes a cost that most startups would rather not pay. There's a lot of communication latency that occurs once a company becomes distributed. It takes a high level of aggregate professional maturity and attentiveness to communication to work.
Some teams, usually small ones, can make distributed work work, but it doesn't work for everyone and it doesn't form the sort of culture startups generally want.
That said, the distance metric isn't linear. Across a parking lot is almost as far as 1000 miles away. Once a company is scaling to this point, remote-work arrangements make a lot of sense.
Okay HN – (forgive the personal bent to this, please) what's the best way for me to find a decent paying, but fun job?
I've got ~8 years of python experience, ~2 years of experience with Javascript/JQuery/etc. and will be finishing up my masters in design (and an MBA) in the spring and, while I'm actually really proud of a lot of the work I've done, I'm irrationally terrified that I won't find a fun job that pays halfway decently... so, without becoming a plumb for a recruiter with their own best interests at heart, do y'all have any tips for finding a job worth having?
(Backstory -- I haven't been out of a job since I got out of college, so I'm feeling totally out of practice with regards to the job search)
In my experience, finding a great job starts with not selling yourself short. Don't send out blanket resumes to anyone who is hiring with the hope that something will stick. Don't waste time with recruiters who have no idea about the tech industry and/or work out of some call center in New Jersey. Spend time searching for jobs that appeal to you, particularly stuff from personal contacts, HN or StackOverflow careers before wading into Monster or Dice. Also, spend the time to check out any companies in your area(s) that you are interested in. Many times companies only post jobs on their own site, and sometimes jobs aren't posted at all. If you know of a company you want to work for, send in a resume even if they don't have open positions. Then, put as much effort as possible into nailing one or two job possibilities a week. That means researching the company and their competition (Twitter/Glassdoor/LinkedIn/etc), refreshing yourself on any software topics related to their niche, and playing with any of their products you can get your hands on. Also, be ready with some real questions for them during the interview, and remember that you are interviewing them as much as they are interviewing you. Good luck!
Don't sweat it too much. You can do things to adjust your odds, but there's a lot of luck involved, so part of it is out of your control. Who's hiring, what they're looking for, how your resume matches what they want, and how you interview that day can all turn good candidates and good employers into non-matches.
Mind your ethics and personal preferences, but don't over-emphasize the fun part of a fun job. Your attitude can control your opinions to some extent, and this plays in your favor here. Employers generally trip over themselves to try to convince candidates that they're a fun and exciting place to work. They're not trying as hard to pour money on you (generally). Geeks are generally bad at negotiating, and bad early steps can have a long-term, sometimes nearly permanent, effect on your salary level. It's also common to feel bitter if you ever realize you're being screwed over financially.
Don't sweat recruiters too much. As a candidate your interests don't directly align with theirs. That doesn't mean that you're necessarily always at odds. If you care about a fun work environment you will probably find that they don't have much to offer you. It doesn't hurt to talk to them, but don't expect much.
Probably the single biggest attack point for hitting your stated goals is during the job interview. Make sure that you realize the interview is, and treat it as, a mutual process. Are your future teammates boring, stupid, or difficult? What's the manager looking for, explicitly and implicitly? Why did the last person on the team leave (even/especially if the team is growing)? How does the hiring manager (or the higher-up "fit" interviewer, usually a Director or executive) think about the company culture, and what do they do about it?
You will probably not benefit by bringing up salary or benefits before the interviewer does, so don't. Once that topic has been broached don't be afraid to dig. If you're feeling brash, ask how the company makes salary decisions. There are services out there that offer salary ranges for employee positions. Maybe they use that data. If so, how?
Eventually you'll get an offer. Congratulations! It's very common for employers to set a tight expiration on one. If your offer expires sooner than you're comfortable making a decision, push back gently but firmly. Commit to a response deadline, but give yourself the time you need to decide.
It is pretty depressing to realize how under-paid we are in the bay area when you factor in cost of living. A lead systems administrator in SF tops out at about $150k, but more likely is about $120k, which is the same my friends in Wisconsin and New Jersey make, where the cost of living is 60% and 30% lower, respectively.
But you get to live in San Francisco rather than Wisconsin or New Jersey. It might not matter to some people, but I have almost zero desire to live long-term anywhere other than San Diego, LA, or San Francisco. There are enough people who feel the same way that I do, and so employees can pay a bit less.
Wow, all of the hate on San Francisco, this place is my home and I love it. New York is the only other city in the US I could cope with. I just wish we had saner policies around our housing (like a rent-control system which didn't create so much illiquidity in inventory) and fewer dot-commie 2.0s ruining our culture by taking everything they can and offering nothing back in return, essentially treating the city like a long-term tourist engagement. Every time a large startup has an exit rents go up. My income bracket makes me "lower upper-middle class" and now that I'm in my early '30s I can no longer afford to live here. Analysts preduct that when Facebook and Zynga IPO the average price of a 2 bedroom 2 bath in the city will get close to $5k/month, which is insane. The only way start-ups can manage to operate out of San Francisco is ridiculous valuations, and hiring young kids who are happy to live 3 or 4 to an apartment, since market-rate salaries don't allow you to live alone unless you want to live in a poorly maintained studio in the 'loin.
Your friends in NJ probably work in NYC (or one of the close in northern NJ cities). Run a cost of living calculator, we're just as bad off (:
If they're out in the middle of the state they're probably not making $120, and you could be living in Sacramento for a lower cost of living (and salary) too.
There's a lot of discussion in this thread around "junior" vs. "senior". This misses the point, which is to hire good programmers and avoid bad ones. It's as if the industry has finally burned itself out of the "programmers as replaceable cogs" model and has replaced it with the next-laziest model, "hire senior, not junior". That is an improvement, but it's still so off-base that the words "junior" and "senior" applied to programming make me cringe.
Here are two factors the junior/senior model does not take into account. First, a good but inexperienced programmer will learn so quickly that they will run rings around mediocre experienced programmers in no time. Second, experience isn't only a good thing. Once people have repeated something a certain way enough times (and surprisingly few repetitions are required), they become locked-in and unable to see alternatives. This loss of flexibility is toxic to effective programming.
Of course that happens less to good programmers than bad ones, but that only puts us back at the real question - how do you tell a good one apart from a bad one? - something we have no satisfactory way of answering that is compatible with current hiring practices.
What we need is a healthy culture of interaction between "junior" and "senior". Our industry lacks this. What is our path to learning? We have the sink-or-swim model in which people once hired are installed in a silo and told to work on their tasks. Everyone recapitulates all the classic mistakes and has to figure everything out for themselves. I know I did. It cost me at least 5 years developmentally, and I'm only putting the number that low to save face. This way is so inefficient that it must eventually yield to something better. Hopefully when that happens there will also be less of the prickly auto-didact about most of us - but that's another story.
Ok, so startups have limited funds, fair enough. But way too many of them offer way too little in the way of equity to make up for a below-market salary and the risk and opportunity cost of taking the job.
I have zero sympathy for larger firms. When they talk of raising H1-B limits and how tight the market is, what they really mean is that they can't find developers for what they're willing to pay. the work these developers do is critical to the bottom line of the company. Why should a CEO make out like a bandit through compensation or stock prices while the teams that enabled it toil away for a pittance, comparatively speaking? Wages across all industries have been mostly flat for years—its only in the last few years that the IT/development industry is starting to show some movement.
(And before someone points out that everyone in a software company contributes to success, even non-developers, I totally agree—everyone ought to share in success.)
One of the companies mentioned in the article was advertising internships and failed to even call me in for an interview. And it took them 5 weeks to respond saying that they did not have a position that matched my qualifications. It's possible that I suck, but I have a 4.0 GPA advertised on my resume and offered a pretty compelling cover letter.
It's possible that many of these companies have a hard time recruiting talent because their recruitment process is broken.
1-companies want to pay a pittance compared to what the person is actually worth. Face it, if you offer $90K, and your competitor offers $120K, the person has to be insane to take an offer that differs so much.
2-companies have really high requirements when they don't actually need them. If you are doing something simple, you don't need a Google level engineer...especially if you are not willing to pay a proper salary for one.
I moved from CA (Palo Alto and San Diego) to Austin in August to start my PhD at UT. Austin is pretty good in the sense that it's probably the best possible city you could live in that's in middle America.
That said, it's not California. The people in Texas are generally just plain rude and self-centered. There is a lot of "get out of my way" attitude, both metaphorically in how people interact in conversation, and literally on the roadways. It's also landlocked, and I miss the ocean terribly.
I'm here purely because the CS department at UT Austin is the best in the world for my area of research (Evolutionary Algorithms and Neural Networks). However, in a couple of years when my class requirements are done, I'm planning on finishing my dissertation research remotely from a coastal city.
There really is nothing at all I can imagine Austin has to offer me that is worth staying here over SF, SD, or even the east coast like NYC or DC. Maybe I just don't get it.
"That said, it's not California. The people in Texas are generally just plain rude and self-centered."
No offense, but that might be the most backward thing I've ever heard. Have you seen LA or SF? I feel like you might live in a one or two person bubble. Honestly, where are you hanging out in Austin?
I'm a consultant from NJ and just got back from Austin a couple days ago, meeting with all my clients who live there and pay me to live and work from here. Anyway, the Texan version of rude and self-centered is pretty quaint by my personal standards...
Edit: If I were a Rails dev, I'd imagine I could be making $200/hr down there. The circles I move through are like desert-island desperate for Rails devs. (Started working through Rails 3 in Action on the plane home).
So I've been toying with the idea of relocating to Austin, because New York is f*ing expensive.
I even sent a couple of job applications some time ago before I got my new job in NYC. I'm not a rockstar, but I'm good and my resume shows it. I get a LOT of bites in New York metro area.
However, these Austin companies didn't even bother to respond, except one. The interesting thing about the one that responded was that the job was tailor made for me. It was uncanny...it's almost as if they read my resume and produced the job listing to match. Which is why I sent in the application in the first place.
The response was that they found me unqualified for the job. What a load of horse manure. If you're sending form letters to rejected candidates, please take some time to actually use the right template. I believe this one should've been the "no_relocation" or the "ceos_son-in-law_was_more_qualified" template.
I keep hearing of this huge shortage of developers, but the situation I have encountered while looking for a job seems to be saying something else.
Is there really a lack of good talent, or is the recruiting process so horribly broken that good developers don't make it through the first levels of filtering by non-technical people?
I think you have a point. We are trying to hire at a large company and we don't see many resumes that make it through the HR filter. I still haven't figured out how this process works.
[+] [-] drewcrawford|14 years ago|reply
My experience is that companies are "desperate" in the sense that they're willing to invite you to lavish parties and fill you with free alcohol to get you to work there. But as soon as you start talking contracting, telecommute, or anything other than "sit at this desk for 60-hour weeks trying to get permission to fix an awful codebase with terrible equipment," suddenly they're not interested.
Story time: one of the best, most experienced local developers I know interviewed at a name-brand tech firm who is covered once a week on HN. Twelve separate times, they told him "We'll let you know today" as to whether or not he was hired. Several weeks later he found out third-hand he was the fall-back guy for some other non-qualified person they ended up hiring instead. He's told me horror stories about their code base that would make your hair stand up. This company keeps inviting me to parties about once a month.
There is a developer shortage in Austin, but the article blows it out of proportion. In reality the reason these few companies are "desperate" has to do with developers who want respect as human beings, autonomy to get things done, reasonable hours, a company that understands the need for technical excellence and not "put out fires" mentality, etc. If you do those things it's not that difficult to hire...
[+] [-] moocow01|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blakeweb|14 years ago|reply
I agree that this article blows the issue out of proportion, but then again, any intelligent internet company realizes that its future success and future value is determined, more than anything else, by the quality of its software people. That being the case, any company where the higher-ups don't think finding the best software folks is the #1 problem (or at least one of the critical issues) at the moment is probably not a company you'd want to work for anyway. I think this is the #1 problem we face as a company, and yet I agree this article blows the "problem" out of proportion in the way the article presents the issue.
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[+] [-] oacgnol|14 years ago|reply
There's been a discussion lately about the city of Austin being unable to retain engineering graduates, most of whom leave the city unable to find entry level work here (refer to http://blog.infochimps.com/2011/11/30/keeping-tech-talent-in... to get what I'm talking about). Many of my college friends want to stay in the city that they've grown to love, but many don't and end up moving back home to find work. The growing exodus has become a problem over time, but prospects seem to be on the rise again with initiatives by the City of Austin and other organizations (campus2careers is a great one) to keep graduates in the area. HireStarter, the recruiting agency that was mentioned in the article, was excellent in placing me at my current startup even though I had little experience. There's hope out there for junior guys, but it's still going to be tough.
I don't expect things to get better tomorrow as this movement is still early stage, but if this momentum keeps up, suddenly Austin will have a new supply of junior and (formerly junior) senior devs.
Again, I still consider myself very fresh to the local industry so my observations may be a bit myopic :).
[+] [-] dasil003|14 years ago|reply
Big companies with no technical culture are not generally fun places for engineers. Experienced engineers can probably sniff out the really bad ones from a mile away. If they don't take new grads then essentially they're staffing up with the desperate and the downtrodden.
Telling the HR guys to hire new grads would, just by youthful ignorance and the law of averages yield a much better team over time. Granted retention would be the next problem, but at least they'd be somewhere.
[+] [-] eshvk|14 years ago|reply
The other vibe that I get is that culturally most of the older companies are from a different era which kind of doesn't make them too attractive a destination for a new graduate. Surprisingly enough the situation for EE grads is much more rosier: Anecdotal evidence over the past three years suggests that most of them get hired and stay in Austin.
[+] [-] mgkimsal|14 years ago|reply
Awesome idea - cause there's certainly not a dev shortage in California, is there?
They'd probably have more luck doing a whistlestop tour of the midwest and north atlantic states, hitting up the more rural areas. Many techies in those areas have few options, or may be stuck with remote-only options, and may not enjoy the weather as much. The Austin companies have an automatic 'better lifestyle' story against more of those areas (weather alone) rather than trying to compete with California (where most of the devs are there probably because of the Valley and the software dev culture already).
In short, I'd guess it's an uphill battle to get people to move from SF to Austin, probably much harder than getting people from, say, St Joseph, Michigan to uproot for Austin.
"After resumes were shared, business cards exchanged and several follow-up phone interviews completed, not a single one of those California candidates has made the move to Texas, according to the Austin Technology Council, which organized the trip."
Oh wow, and look at that, it didn't work. Wh not?
"It's even tighter there than it is here," said participant Rod Favaron , CEO of Austin startup Spredfast . "The challenge is there just aren't enough good software developers to go around."
They didn't think of that before? Or just can't think outside the bubble?
[+] [-] veverkap|14 years ago|reply
However, as a developer in the mid-Atlantic, I think the lifestyle here is just as good :)
I'd love to find a remote opportunity with any of those firms, but it seems that is difficult to find these days.
[+] [-] mspaint|14 years ago|reply
Perhaps hire one senior level and a two or three junior level developers to work closely together, and try and raise the productivity of the new devs.
If there are NO senior level programmers available, maybe they should get creative.
[+] [-] wyclif|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bbwharris|14 years ago|reply
For startups, it makes sense to desire a senior level developer. Midsize and large companies really should explore internal training programs. Everyone a generation older than me talk about a world where the "entered through the mail room" and worked their way up. Does this world even exist today? From my point of view, it seems like we only expect top talent everywhere.
[+] [-] larsberg|14 years ago|reply
Seriously, few things can sink the ship faster than taking on inexperienced people and hoping they'll learn. From that point of view, I can see why many startups, particularly those whose CTO/VP-E doesn't have management depth in addition to their technical depth.
[+] [-] Cyranix|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hkarthik|14 years ago|reply
I personally work with a geographically distributed team and as long as we meet face to face on occasion, we're highly effective and we can hire when ever we find good talent no matter where they live.
I know companies like GitHub, LivingSocial, and 37 Signals all embrace this remote team model and utilize it well to find the talent they need without taking desperate measures.
That begs the question, why aren't most of these startups doing the same thing? I understand big companies are often too paralyzed in bureaucracy to hire remote workers, but shouldn't startups be a little more flexible in this regard?
[+] [-] megamark16|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] michaelochurch|14 years ago|reply
Some teams, usually small ones, can make distributed work work, but it doesn't work for everyone and it doesn't form the sort of culture startups generally want.
That said, the distance metric isn't linear. Across a parking lot is almost as far as 1000 miles away. Once a company is scaling to this point, remote-work arrangements make a lot of sense.
[+] [-] boxaustin|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] incongruity|14 years ago|reply
I've got ~8 years of python experience, ~2 years of experience with Javascript/JQuery/etc. and will be finishing up my masters in design (and an MBA) in the spring and, while I'm actually really proud of a lot of the work I've done, I'm irrationally terrified that I won't find a fun job that pays halfway decently... so, without becoming a plumb for a recruiter with their own best interests at heart, do y'all have any tips for finding a job worth having?
(Backstory -- I haven't been out of a job since I got out of college, so I'm feeling totally out of practice with regards to the job search)
[+] [-] keypusher|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iigs|14 years ago|reply
Don't sweat it too much. You can do things to adjust your odds, but there's a lot of luck involved, so part of it is out of your control. Who's hiring, what they're looking for, how your resume matches what they want, and how you interview that day can all turn good candidates and good employers into non-matches.
Mind your ethics and personal preferences, but don't over-emphasize the fun part of a fun job. Your attitude can control your opinions to some extent, and this plays in your favor here. Employers generally trip over themselves to try to convince candidates that they're a fun and exciting place to work. They're not trying as hard to pour money on you (generally). Geeks are generally bad at negotiating, and bad early steps can have a long-term, sometimes nearly permanent, effect on your salary level. It's also common to feel bitter if you ever realize you're being screwed over financially.
Don't sweat recruiters too much. As a candidate your interests don't directly align with theirs. That doesn't mean that you're necessarily always at odds. If you care about a fun work environment you will probably find that they don't have much to offer you. It doesn't hurt to talk to them, but don't expect much.
Probably the single biggest attack point for hitting your stated goals is during the job interview. Make sure that you realize the interview is, and treat it as, a mutual process. Are your future teammates boring, stupid, or difficult? What's the manager looking for, explicitly and implicitly? Why did the last person on the team leave (even/especially if the team is growing)? How does the hiring manager (or the higher-up "fit" interviewer, usually a Director or executive) think about the company culture, and what do they do about it?
You will probably not benefit by bringing up salary or benefits before the interviewer does, so don't. Once that topic has been broached don't be afraid to dig. If you're feeling brash, ask how the company makes salary decisions. There are services out there that offer salary ranges for employee positions. Maybe they use that data. If so, how?
Eventually you'll get an offer. Congratulations! It's very common for employers to set a tight expiration on one. If your offer expires sooner than you're comfortable making a decision, push back gently but firmly. Commit to a response deadline, but give yourself the time you need to decide.
[+] [-] llimllib|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pm|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] goodweeds|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] boredguy8|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] goodweeds|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hyperation|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scottm01|14 years ago|reply
Your friends in NJ probably work in NYC (or one of the close in northern NJ cities). Run a cost of living calculator, we're just as bad off (:
If they're out in the middle of the state they're probably not making $120, and you could be living in Sacramento for a lower cost of living (and salary) too.
[+] [-] chairface|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fooooobar|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gruseom|14 years ago|reply
Here are two factors the junior/senior model does not take into account. First, a good but inexperienced programmer will learn so quickly that they will run rings around mediocre experienced programmers in no time. Second, experience isn't only a good thing. Once people have repeated something a certain way enough times (and surprisingly few repetitions are required), they become locked-in and unable to see alternatives. This loss of flexibility is toxic to effective programming.
Of course that happens less to good programmers than bad ones, but that only puts us back at the real question - how do you tell a good one apart from a bad one? - something we have no satisfactory way of answering that is compatible with current hiring practices.
What we need is a healthy culture of interaction between "junior" and "senior". Our industry lacks this. What is our path to learning? We have the sink-or-swim model in which people once hired are installed in a silo and told to work on their tasks. Everyone recapitulates all the classic mistakes and has to figure everything out for themselves. I know I did. It cost me at least 5 years developmentally, and I'm only putting the number that low to save face. This way is so inefficient that it must eventually yield to something better. Hopefully when that happens there will also be less of the prickly auto-didact about most of us - but that's another story.
[+] [-] yxhuvud|14 years ago|reply
Everyone? No, it does not hurt the employees.
[+] [-] karmajunkie|14 years ago|reply
Ok, so startups have limited funds, fair enough. But way too many of them offer way too little in the way of equity to make up for a below-market salary and the risk and opportunity cost of taking the job.
I have zero sympathy for larger firms. When they talk of raising H1-B limits and how tight the market is, what they really mean is that they can't find developers for what they're willing to pay. the work these developers do is critical to the bottom line of the company. Why should a CEO make out like a bandit through compensation or stock prices while the teams that enabled it toil away for a pittance, comparatively speaking? Wages across all industries have been mostly flat for years—its only in the last few years that the IT/development industry is starting to show some movement.
(And before someone points out that everyone in a software company contributes to success, even non-developers, I totally agree—everyone ought to share in success.)
[+] [-] prophetjohn|14 years ago|reply
It's possible that many of these companies have a hard time recruiting talent because their recruitment process is broken.
[+] [-] Kilimanjaro|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vaksel|14 years ago|reply
1-companies want to pay a pittance compared to what the person is actually worth. Face it, if you offer $90K, and your competitor offers $120K, the person has to be insane to take an offer that differs so much.
2-companies have really high requirements when they don't actually need them. If you are doing something simple, you don't need a Google level engineer...especially if you are not willing to pay a proper salary for one.
[+] [-] tansey|14 years ago|reply
That said, it's not California. The people in Texas are generally just plain rude and self-centered. There is a lot of "get out of my way" attitude, both metaphorically in how people interact in conversation, and literally on the roadways. It's also landlocked, and I miss the ocean terribly.
I'm here purely because the CS department at UT Austin is the best in the world for my area of research (Evolutionary Algorithms and Neural Networks). However, in a couple of years when my class requirements are done, I'm planning on finishing my dissertation research remotely from a coastal city.
There really is nothing at all I can imagine Austin has to offer me that is worth staying here over SF, SD, or even the east coast like NYC or DC. Maybe I just don't get it.
[+] [-] oldstrangers|14 years ago|reply
No offense, but that might be the most backward thing I've ever heard. Have you seen LA or SF? I feel like you might live in a one or two person bubble. Honestly, where are you hanging out in Austin?
[+] [-] Jgrubb|14 years ago|reply
Edit: If I were a Rails dev, I'd imagine I could be making $200/hr down there. The circles I move through are like desert-island desperate for Rails devs. (Started working through Rails 3 in Action on the plane home).
[+] [-] gorbachev|14 years ago|reply
I even sent a couple of job applications some time ago before I got my new job in NYC. I'm not a rockstar, but I'm good and my resume shows it. I get a LOT of bites in New York metro area.
However, these Austin companies didn't even bother to respond, except one. The interesting thing about the one that responded was that the job was tailor made for me. It was uncanny...it's almost as if they read my resume and produced the job listing to match. Which is why I sent in the application in the first place.
The response was that they found me unqualified for the job. What a load of horse manure. If you're sending form letters to rejected candidates, please take some time to actually use the right template. I believe this one should've been the "no_relocation" or the "ceos_son-in-law_was_more_qualified" template.
[+] [-] Aqua_Geek|14 years ago|reply
Is there really a lack of good talent, or is the recruiting process so horribly broken that good developers don't make it through the first levels of filtering by non-technical people?
[+] [-] mattmiller|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] coconutrandom|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] keyston|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anamax|14 years ago|reply
If they've made an agreement to not recruit from each other, they're in violation of anti-trust law.
Google, Apple, and at least one other company got busted for this in SV about three years ago.
[+] [-] rudiger|14 years ago|reply