I think it is important to avoid using the term STEM and specifically dissect it in the discussions about shortage. Computer Science is a very peculiar part of STEM and not all of the STEM fields face the same challenges. As Hadi Partovi of Code.org put out eloquently in his testimony before Congress[1], there is a difference between enrollments in Computer Science and STEM in general. For instance, in US high schools, it seems like there is no shortage of students in biology or math, but CS is underenrolled.
I think it is important to avoid using the term STEM and specifically dissect it in the discussions about shortage. Computer Science is a very peculiar part of STEM and not all of the STEM fields face the same challenges.
I think there's a bit of a rhetorical issue with this, though. The dominant narrative is that we have too many people doing soft, fuzzy, weird, useless liberal-arts degrees. Studying things like literature, history, philosophy, political science. What we need is more people doing hard, rigorous, mathematical, technical STEM degrees. Studying things like physics, biology, mathematics, computer science, chemistry.
If you admit that there is no shortage of mathematicians, though, you undermine the whole strategy of "we need more STEM, less liberal arts", because mathematicians are the rhetorical core of STEM: rigorous, technical, mathematical, non-fuzzy. If it turns out mathematicians are about as useful as historians (useful in principle, not directly in a major applied shortage), the whole narrative fails.
To a certain extent I think the whole STEM construction is based fundamentally on trying to hand-wave across this gap: math and physics are prestigious and perceived as hard/rigorous, while computer programming is in demand. The union (not intersection) of these two fields is STEM, which perceives itself as rigorous + hard + in-demand.
CS in high school doesn't exist in most schhool you can't compare it with bio or math. Students may change their major more then once. What matters is the college graduation rates, companies looking for college grads in stem no a high school diploma.
It's also possible for there to be a shortage of qualified workers and a surplus of qualified workers...this is a point that people often miss.
Qualified US workers have this annoying tendency to be unwilling to uproot their life and move to where the jobs are. Foreign workers coming from other countries don't have this issue...they're moving anyways, so they move where the jobs are. And hi-tech jobs cluster in certain areas, usually around one or more universities to supply talent. So you end up with areas that have lots of jobs and not enough qualified applicants and areas with qualified applicants and no jobs.
That's what makes this issue so obnoxious...both sides are right. And that makes it difficult to find a middle ground.
The Silicon Valley cartel conspirators helped to depress wages and increase unemployment. Universities have relied on cheap student and postdoc labor. Their game-theoretic strategy is cheap talking their serfs into the belief that they too may become masters.
ADDENDUM: downvoters can take a warm piss on a power line.
I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.
Related quote by Yo-Yo Ma: It takes three generations to make a musician; the first to leave poverty, the second to go to school, and the third to master the instrument.
What world is this article living in? I got a job making $100k as a software engineer, right out of college (top-tier I guess). And then I realized that I was worth more than that, and 8 months later I'm now switching over to a job making $150k in total compensation. And TBH, I was middle of the road compared to my classmates.
Software engineering is an exception in the science and engineering camp.
FTA: "Because labor markets in science and engineering differ greatly across fields, industries, and time periods, it is easy to cherry-pick specific specialties that really are in short supply, at least in specific years and locations. But generalizing from these cases to the whole of U.S. science and engineering is perilous."
But, surprise surprise, still higher unemployment than the guild-protected professions.
FTA: "unemployment among scientists and engineers is higher than in other professions such as physicians, dentists, lawyers, and registered nurses"
Why do you think all these silicon valley CEOs are throwing their weight behind schemes to get kids and adults learning how to code? It isn't because they really believe there's some social or personal value in being able to program, it's because they want to flood the job market with developers and so crash wages. What's sad is that many programmers are actually buying it, and volunteering their time to help support and evangelize these schemes.
You're in a hot market in a hot locale. You probably pay an arm and a leg for housing.
I'm in a second tier city with more limited options. I know folks who successfully start CS grads in the $50-60k range, mostly from state schools. Someone with a good track record is anywhere from $80-105. Sounds awful, but a 2000 ft^2 house can be found around $200k in a nice area. McMansions are $400-500k.
I ended up moving back here from NYC, taking a big salary haircut in the process. My overall standard of living got a little better right off the bat, mostly due to reduced housing and commuting expenses.
First of all your, viewpoint is restricted to EE/CS. Any of the other pure sciences: biology, chemistry, physics, etc. do not enjoy the same luxuries.
Another important distinction to make is that there are almost no science (i.e. research) jobs any more. Most technology jobs are just run of the mill programming, not actually investing in research.
Good for you. I graduated from a college that was not top tier over a year ago, as a below-average student, and have yet to find any kind of development work that pays as much as I made delivering pizza while working my way through college.
Not everyone has the same experience as you. Furthermore, this article is talking about the entire STEM domain.
You said you went to a top-tier college. Most of them charge over $40k a year. So that $150k pays for less than your tuition costs. You are worth $150k a year (which means your boss is making $160k, $165k etc. off of you, they hire you to be profitable). So your four years of study were in a sense $600k down the drain in that.
So it will be at least five years before you start to break even. Minus the housing and living costs over that five years.
You spent over $150k and four years ($600k) worth of your time training for this job.
Also remember the market is hot. In 2000/2001 air went out of the bubble. Also in 2008/2009. Right now is the peak of a go-go time like 1998/1999 was. It is not the norm.
I like this article, but it does not delve very deep into why the current perceived shortage exists. On the public policy side, there is probably a belief that more STEM professionals will increase the economic competitiveness of the nation, even if there is a surplus. From technology businesses' standpoint, it is in their interests to have a surplus of STEM graduates in order to maintain or reduce wages.
>On the public policy side, there is probably a belief that more STEM professionals will increase the economic competitiveness of the nation, even if there is a surplus.
Except that it doesn't work, and it should be obvious why. There's no reason to bust your ass in college to enter a field the government floods with foreigners. The more people the government imports the less attractive the field looks to domestic students choosing a major.
I can't complain about my treatment as an EE and later a software developer, but knowing what I know now I doubt I would go into anything technical if I were graduating from high school today.
Time to demonstrate once and for all the fraud that the H1B visa has always been. All it does is push older engineers out of the field so they can be replaced very cheaply.
That needs to stop but having the best congress money can buy pretty much assures that it won't.
There is no shortage of bad programmers, there are plenty of medium programmers, it's also not that hard to find decent programmers. It's harder to find good programmers, but much harder to find great ones. The thing is that a great programmer can do 5X more than a good programmer, that can do 2X more than a decent one, that can do 2X more than a medium one. It's not just the number of features they can write in a given time or the fact they have less bugs or test their code better, or simply can do things no one else can. It's not even their ability to design better. It's their ability to do all that and influence the others to follow.
I think there is a shortage in that kind of developers, and there is no school that teaches these soft skills.
1 - virtually no supposed 5x or 10x programmer makes even 2x more. If people are really 5x, why on earth don't I see $300-$500k salaries? Particularly given the fall in communication costs ala Brooks, it would be an enormous win for employers
2 - at least in the bay area, there would be tons and tons of highly qualified candidates if moving to the bay area wasn't a financial nightmare (cost of living is horrific and the pay doesn't come anywhere close to making up for it); and if buying a decent 3 bedroom home and having kids didn't nearly require winning a startup lottery -- or at least enough for a good downpayment to get to a conforming mortgage.
3 - I'm in my 30s, and in my cohort of developers I know a number (all of them very skilled and in high demand in the bay area) who have moved to the midwest or austin because financially they're so much better off
4 - the majority of complaints about unavailability of developers, particularly in the bay area, are after the fact justifications to (1) cover employers not paying salaries commensurate with the cost of living, and (2) the ability to import (cheaper, more easily controlled) h1b labor
4a - with a side of companies ducking their responsibilities to america, the state they are in, and their communities to help create the employees they need. Now obviously I don't think 1-4 person startups have any such responsibilities, but somewhere between that and google/fb/hp companies have responsibilities to their communities and countries that bay area companies in particular almost completely duck. For example, why isn't facebook or google, in lieu of whinging about difficulty hiring (while illegally restraining wages, ain't that beautiful) running hacker schools themselves? It couldn't be because they'd rather let someone else pay for it and cherry pick the winners (saving money two ways)?
I would describe that as simply "being professionals". No magic n-time programmers, just mature pros.
What you're describing as a great programmer is the equivalent of a chef in the kitchen, what you're describing as good programmer is a talented amateur cook, and your medium programmers are ordinary people that can cook an edible meal.
We have a shortage of professional developers, and a huge number of people who wouldn't get hired if they had the same skill level in a profession where there wasn't a shortage.
We've put lots of meat in seats to compensate for the shortage of mature, professional developers. Meat that can get away with incredibly immature, irresponsible and unprofessional behavior because, hey, who else are they going to get?
Fuck me, the ones that manage to build only slightly more shit than they break already get labelled "decent" programmers.
And it's self perpetuating, because if you combine the amateur playgrounds of most software departments with the systematic wage suppression you create a career perspective anybody with any sense would steer clear of.
With all those clowns calling themselves programmers, and the rest of us being tarred with the same brush, who the fuck wants to be a programmer when they grow up?
I don't disagree that there is a shortage of great programmers, but another problem is that people are generally not willing to pay 100x (or anything close to that) for a 100x programmer. Often they don't even realize whether a person is a great programmer or not.
Fundamentally, I don't accept that there is, in general, a shortage of "good people" in the USA. I responded earlier [1] to someone who thinks there is.
Instead of continuing to follow up with just that one person, I'd like to propose an interesting "experiment" for hiring managers:
Do an Ask HN, linking to a recent representative
job posting you haven't been able to fill
I'd like to see all the relevant details, such as:
1) the job posting, of course
2) company name, location, salary range
3) are the usual requested perks applicable, e.g. flex time, work from home, etc?
4) what kind of resumes are you seeing? How many? What, in general, has been wrong with those people?
Then I'd like to see HN posters dissect the information. Let's find out if the requirements are realistic. Let's find out if the company's reputation is toxic.
Are wages purely determined by supply and demand though? There is a tale I remember about an economics professor who dumbfounds his class by pointing out that there is a huge surplus of economics students across the country who all want to work for Goldman Sachs. But the wages/bonuses don't fall to reflect the oversupply.
I think the same is true for doctors and dentists. Do very few people want to be company executives or politicians? Is there a scarcity? I don't think so.
Sometimes people are well paid because they are setting their own salaries (many believe bankers have hijacked banks from the shareholders), others are setting the rules within society (politicians), or interpreting those rules (lawyers), or just getting close to those who do (lobbyists, bureaucrats, special interests).
In short the wages of workers are dependent partly on their position of power within society .. of which supply and demand is just one element.
the set of econ students who want to work at Goldman is not the supply: the set of econ students that Goldman thinks will make them money is the supply, and I bet very few of them are unemployed.
similar: set of waiters who want to be actors is huge, set of known actors that a studio can say 'his face on the poster will bring in an extra 50 million cinema tickets' is miniscule. That's why all the waiters are acting for free in film student projects and Tom Cruise is a millionaire.
Out of all those graduates, the number of which we are told is 2-3x the number of open positions, are really qualified to fill in those positions? Passionate about their field of study? Intended to get a job in that field in the first place, as opposed to getting a degree in something they can (afford)?
Our own experience is that even internships do not always yield good results. And the level of most applicants, many of whom are recent graduates, makes me sad. They manage to find work at some other company in the end, but only because we are in IT and IT is big at our place...
All I know is from my own experience, and that experience is that I have recruiters calling up at least once a week and a few more via email looking for software engineers. I never got that kind of attention when I was working a cash register in retail, and my friends with liberal arts degrees certainly aren't getting it either.
I do not work in IT. Family and friends think I should be a millionair because I am "so good with computers."
Worked in IT in the 90s for 18 months as IT Manager and well I went bald at 22. Did programing when I was 17 and well I woke up with ideas on how to do to fix my issue. To much stress and to little pay for the jobs.
Don't see the change for a "good" IT job for most people. When students start asking about the industry from people that work it they usually get a negative response and told to do something else.
I thought the whole shortage for demand argument was to do with the lack of talent that was being produced, rather than simply the number of people who had a bachelors degree.
I don't know how many jobs I've seen out there where they have an incredibly high bar to hire someone, and then it is 99% CRUD work.
Some of the AI jobs at Google, yes, they need good people. Amazon needs some good engineers at the top guiding the creation of EC2 architecture. But most jobs ask for a much higher caliber of people than they actually need.
There is a misunderstanding on how jobs are made. Consider what these look like for history of English majors? STEM is in demand if you look at the areas with predicted job growth.
Well, there is a shortage of competent software engineers willing to sacrifice as much as corporate executives think they should, for what corporate executives think such people should be paid.
In the same vein, there's a shortage of supermodels who want to fuck obese, unemployed men with halitosis and general poor hygiene.
mehrdada|12 years ago
[1]: http://www.c-span.org/video/?317093-1/house-subcmte-hearing-...
mjn|12 years ago
I think there's a bit of a rhetorical issue with this, though. The dominant narrative is that we have too many people doing soft, fuzzy, weird, useless liberal-arts degrees. Studying things like literature, history, philosophy, political science. What we need is more people doing hard, rigorous, mathematical, technical STEM degrees. Studying things like physics, biology, mathematics, computer science, chemistry.
If you admit that there is no shortage of mathematicians, though, you undermine the whole strategy of "we need more STEM, less liberal arts", because mathematicians are the rhetorical core of STEM: rigorous, technical, mathematical, non-fuzzy. If it turns out mathematicians are about as useful as historians (useful in principle, not directly in a major applied shortage), the whole narrative fails.
To a certain extent I think the whole STEM construction is based fundamentally on trying to hand-wave across this gap: math and physics are prestigious and perceived as hard/rigorous, while computer programming is in demand. The union (not intersection) of these two fields is STEM, which perceives itself as rigorous + hard + in-demand.
wil421|12 years ago
curun1r|12 years ago
Qualified US workers have this annoying tendency to be unwilling to uproot their life and move to where the jobs are. Foreign workers coming from other countries don't have this issue...they're moving anyways, so they move where the jobs are. And hi-tech jobs cluster in certain areas, usually around one or more universities to supply talent. So you end up with areas that have lots of jobs and not enough qualified applicants and areas with qualified applicants and no jobs.
That's what makes this issue so obnoxious...both sides are right. And that makes it difficult to find a middle ground.
ChristianMarks|12 years ago
ADDENDUM: downvoters can take a warm piss on a power line.
mmorett|12 years ago
kenrikm|12 years ago
jedanbik|12 years ago
John Adams US diplomat & politician (1735 - 1826)
jmeister|12 years ago
lifeisstillgood|12 years ago
stale2001|12 years ago
acchow|12 years ago
FTA: "Because labor markets in science and engineering differ greatly across fields, industries, and time periods, it is easy to cherry-pick specific specialties that really are in short supply, at least in specific years and locations. But generalizing from these cases to the whole of U.S. science and engineering is perilous."
But, surprise surprise, still higher unemployment than the guild-protected professions.
FTA: "unemployment among scientists and engineers is higher than in other professions such as physicians, dentists, lawyers, and registered nurses"
On a related note, a good read about guilds: http://nplusonemag.com/death-by-degrees
jonrimmer|12 years ago
Spooky23|12 years ago
I'm in a second tier city with more limited options. I know folks who successfully start CS grads in the $50-60k range, mostly from state schools. Someone with a good track record is anywhere from $80-105. Sounds awful, but a 2000 ft^2 house can be found around $200k in a nice area. McMansions are $400-500k.
I ended up moving back here from NYC, taking a big salary haircut in the process. My overall standard of living got a little better right off the bat, mostly due to reduced housing and commuting expenses.
enewc|12 years ago
Another important distinction to make is that there are almost no science (i.e. research) jobs any more. Most technology jobs are just run of the mill programming, not actually investing in research.
hmsimha|12 years ago
Not everyone has the same experience as you. Furthermore, this article is talking about the entire STEM domain.
firstOrder|12 years ago
So it will be at least five years before you start to break even. Minus the housing and living costs over that five years.
You spent over $150k and four years ($600k) worth of your time training for this job.
Also remember the market is hot. In 2000/2001 air went out of the bubble. Also in 2008/2009. Right now is the peak of a go-go time like 1998/1999 was. It is not the norm.
duochrome|12 years ago
_Robbie|12 years ago
tsotha|12 years ago
Except that it doesn't work, and it should be obvious why. There's no reason to bust your ass in college to enter a field the government floods with foreigners. The more people the government imports the less attractive the field looks to domestic students choosing a major.
I can't complain about my treatment as an EE and later a software developer, but knowing what I know now I doubt I would go into anything technical if I were graduating from high school today.
DonGateley|12 years ago
That needs to stop but having the best congress money can buy pretty much assures that it won't.
eranation|12 years ago
x0x0|12 years ago
1 - virtually no supposed 5x or 10x programmer makes even 2x more. If people are really 5x, why on earth don't I see $300-$500k salaries? Particularly given the fall in communication costs ala Brooks, it would be an enormous win for employers
2 - at least in the bay area, there would be tons and tons of highly qualified candidates if moving to the bay area wasn't a financial nightmare (cost of living is horrific and the pay doesn't come anywhere close to making up for it); and if buying a decent 3 bedroom home and having kids didn't nearly require winning a startup lottery -- or at least enough for a good downpayment to get to a conforming mortgage.
3 - I'm in my 30s, and in my cohort of developers I know a number (all of them very skilled and in high demand in the bay area) who have moved to the midwest or austin because financially they're so much better off
4 - the majority of complaints about unavailability of developers, particularly in the bay area, are after the fact justifications to (1) cover employers not paying salaries commensurate with the cost of living, and (2) the ability to import (cheaper, more easily controlled) h1b labor
4a - with a side of companies ducking their responsibilities to america, the state they are in, and their communities to help create the employees they need. Now obviously I don't think 1-4 person startups have any such responsibilities, but somewhere between that and google/fb/hp companies have responsibilities to their communities and countries that bay area companies in particular almost completely duck. For example, why isn't facebook or google, in lieu of whinging about difficulty hiring (while illegally restraining wages, ain't that beautiful) running hacker schools themselves? It couldn't be because they'd rather let someone else pay for it and cherry pick the winners (saving money two ways)?
bowlofpetunias|12 years ago
What you're describing as a great programmer is the equivalent of a chef in the kitchen, what you're describing as good programmer is a talented amateur cook, and your medium programmers are ordinary people that can cook an edible meal.
We have a shortage of professional developers, and a huge number of people who wouldn't get hired if they had the same skill level in a profession where there wasn't a shortage.
We've put lots of meat in seats to compensate for the shortage of mature, professional developers. Meat that can get away with incredibly immature, irresponsible and unprofessional behavior because, hey, who else are they going to get?
Fuck me, the ones that manage to build only slightly more shit than they break already get labelled "decent" programmers.
And it's self perpetuating, because if you combine the amateur playgrounds of most software departments with the systematic wage suppression you create a career perspective anybody with any sense would steer clear of.
With all those clowns calling themselves programmers, and the rest of us being tarred with the same brush, who the fuck wants to be a programmer when they grow up?
mehrdada|12 years ago
PhantomGremlin|12 years ago
Instead of continuing to follow up with just that one person, I'd like to propose an interesting "experiment" for hiring managers:
I'd like to see all the relevant details, such as:1) the job posting, of course
2) company name, location, salary range
3) are the usual requested perks applicable, e.g. flex time, work from home, etc?
4) what kind of resumes are you seeing? How many? What, in general, has been wrong with those people?
Then I'd like to see HN posters dissect the information. Let's find out if the requirements are realistic. Let's find out if the company's reputation is toxic.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7452376
Malarkey73|12 years ago
I think the same is true for doctors and dentists. Do very few people want to be company executives or politicians? Is there a scarcity? I don't think so.
Sometimes people are well paid because they are setting their own salaries (many believe bankers have hijacked banks from the shareholders), others are setting the rules within society (politicians), or interpreting those rules (lawyers), or just getting close to those who do (lobbyists, bureaucrats, special interests).
In short the wages of workers are dependent partly on their position of power within society .. of which supply and demand is just one element.
jacalata|12 years ago
similar: set of waiters who want to be actors is huge, set of known actors that a studio can say 'his face on the poster will bring in an extra 50 million cinema tickets' is miniscule. That's why all the waiters are acting for free in film student projects and Tom Cruise is a millionaire.
dleskov|12 years ago
Our own experience is that even internships do not always yield good results. And the level of most applicants, many of whom are recent graduates, makes me sad. They manage to find work at some other company in the end, but only because we are in IT and IT is big at our place...
keypusher|12 years ago
unknown|12 years ago
[deleted]
baldfat|12 years ago
Worked in IT in the 90s for 18 months as IT Manager and well I went bald at 22. Did programing when I was 17 and well I woke up with ideas on how to do to fix my issue. To much stress and to little pay for the jobs.
Don't see the change for a "good" IT job for most people. When students start asking about the industry from people that work it they usually get a negative response and told to do something else.
dblacc|12 years ago
firstOrder|12 years ago
Some of the AI jobs at Google, yes, they need good people. Amazon needs some good engineers at the top guiding the creation of EC2 architecture. But most jobs ask for a much higher caliber of people than they actually need.
frozenport|12 years ago
There is a misunderstanding on how jobs are made. Consider what these look like for history of English majors? STEM is in demand if you look at the areas with predicted job growth.
michaelochurch|12 years ago
In the same vein, there's a shortage of supermodels who want to fuck obese, unemployed men with halitosis and general poor hygiene.
jshen|12 years ago
Can we make this more concrete? What sacrifices do you think is being asked of competent developers? What pay do you think they are offered?