What if we could outsource this to some magic 3rd world slave mine? What if we could hire some recent graduates or interns instead? What if we could get someone on an H1B and chain them to the desk?
It’s the natural result of being labor. Don’t like it? Be an owner.
The only alternative I can think of is for software to become a true profession with licensing and standards. This makes a lot of sense in a world fraught with security risks and ethics concerns about the usage of data.
In the meantime, I’m getting ready to hang up the keyboard. All the dynamism and potential has been ground out of this career path. What’s left is crushing demands and compensation that just doesn’t cut it anymore.
After two cycles, they started treating their local employees well. This was a big firm with much momentum. A small firm could be ruined by this. Sometimes the firm just needs to see the grass isnt necessarily greener on the other side. I got paid well and my business counterparts always know that when I said 3mo, I meant 3mo.
The longer term, better solution is to be owners. Worker owned tech companies only don't exist because they're not our currently accepted default. If people stop defaulting to the venture backed capital model we can turn this industry around.
For example, "Chart.js" makes it really easy to create beautiful charts in a web app. Because of tools like that it's much easier to learn how to build a feature rich app now than 20 years ago.
Still, the guy who can create "Chart.js" (an artist) should be getting paid a lot more than a guy who can only use it (a craftsmen).
Why? One without the other is pretty pointless. I can accept the roles are different but not that either is particularly harder.
It's one thing to code what you see in front of you, another to think about problems and solve them thoughtfully, research, debug, and etc. Troubleshooting(debugging) in particular is a hard thing to learn.
As coding difficulty drops, and supply increases, the net effect will be a much higher demand for jobs than supply. And that's exactly where big tech wants it to be.
edit: here comes the javascript developer downvotes.
I actually love it when a developer says something like this, because it tells me way more than even 2 full days of pairing or interviewing could: They know absolutely nothing about software at scale, and are probably extremely arrogant to boot.
It informs me that you're probably a JQuery developer, personally offended because you believe that your work is incredibly advanced and challenging. In reality, what you do is probably some of the easiest "coding" to have ever come to fruition. Yet, you toss out the "at scale" comment ad nauseam because you think it'll make you sound important.
Just by the fact that you denounce anyone who recognizes the simplicity of it modern development tools shows me you probably fail to recognize the simplicity yourself. Or you don't want to admit the simple fact that programming has gotten much easier. That's been intent of so many modern languages, yet we're always going to have someone like you who claims we all don't know what we're talking about because we've never built anything "at scale".
Your 10,000 hits / day blog isn't "scale" buddy.
Edit: Also, I'm not your buddy, pal.
Jokes aside - the biggest error this software developer makes is not realizing that software is not the crtitcal part of AirBNB success. It is the thousand manyears of boots in streets promoting the app and getting people onboard.
It's classic expert talk, "oh, that's easy." Perhaps to you :)
Sorry is this a joke? Because I'm missing it.
- crashes under load,
- cannot scale to even 5% the traffic,
- doesnt have all the myriad required compliance and transnational side systems
- has underinvested in accounting and all support systems
- is un-maintainable, etc. etc.
And that is when serious businesses realize you get what you pay for and that you need to pay for real experience to real systems.
Yeah, that could definitely happen. /s
1. Enzyme, the current top used React testing library 2. NVM, kind of the only game in town for managing node versions 3. qs, a tool for converting search to json objects and back 4. tc39 proposals, the committee that determines new JS features
This is all in addition to his developer work at Airbnb. I would like to see a high schooler have that kind of maturity, drive, and focus.
You've drawn attention to an Airbnb engineer with a bunch of other interests that don't seem directly related to the infrastructure behind the company. I'm sure they use these things, but they aren't going to be critical to the success or failure of the site. That suggests the technical challenges of Airbnb aren't enough to keep someone with a large amount of maturity, drive and focus busy and interested.
Anyway it's important to note that coming up with the business idea and then executing it well is kinda where the money comes from, not from the app itself per se. A business may have a website; it might even use a web app to deliver its core business value; but having a website or web app doesn't necessarily mean you have a business.
Stop blaming other people.
Start blaming other people, because they are out to get you.
God forbid we open that up to people who should be resigned to whatever you think "blue collar" means?
There's nothing wrong with trades and blue collar work. There's a reason you can't outsource plumbers, electricians, and other technicians who must be on site to practice their craft. But there's also a reason that work is so expensive: the skills required take time to acquire, and there's a limited pool of talent with those skills.
Disclaimer: My personal stance is I want the labor market as tight as possible, for as long as possible, to push wages up for as many people as possible, while using government policy to put backstops in place that are progressively ratcheted forward.
Why is it your choice to make? Shouldn't it be the new people trying to get into the computer science industry who get to make that choice?
It feels like what you're saying is "God forbid someone else tries to join your industry and tries to make a better life for themselves, and god forbid others for trying to help them."
It's not my choice. It's the technology industry's collective choice to decide how welcoming the technology industry is to newcomers. I hope you have a more compelling argument than, "It's not fair." Life ain't fair; people have mortgage payments to make, kids to feed, and aren't likely to be willing to support emotional appeals that are going to decrease their quality of life, without any benefit to them.
My argument is that getting more people into tech increases opportunities and raises the standards of living for everyone. When entire industries are disappearing due to automation I think it is rather ridiculous to try to restrict people from becoming programmers.
You are right, it is not your choice, and thankfully society is making a very different choice.
By your own logic, every time I help someone learn something to do with coding - for free - I undermine the wages of everybody else in the market whose job that person is going to be able to "steal" now.
And yet it is my choice to do so.
It’s also funny because this creates a problem where wages have been driven down to a point where skilled workers can barely afford to support a family in tech zones. So because of these depressed wages in software engineering, there are fewer skilled workers living in these regions. Make no mistake this is software engineering specific. Otherwise show me roles in tech where there are lots of H1B visa employees.
You create a website with a list of job skills that 'slave wage companies (SWC)' are claiming to need to fill.
You collect resumes from unemployed U.S.candidates with these skills and send them to the SWCs. If the candidate gets hired you keep a recruiters fee.
If the candidate is rejected your startup lawyers sue the pants of the SWC for violating U.S H1B law. You pass on the settlement money to the rejected U.S. candidate keeping a percentage for your lawyer and your retirement fund.
US H1B law is clearly explained online [0], there are searchable databases [1] and most recruiting/HR people will gladly spill the loophole secrets that they have (posting jobs in obscure local newspapers, tailoring job description to an existing known foreign candidate etc).
[0] https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary-worker... [1] https://h1bdata.info/index.php
You will be protecting American jobs and making money in the process.
Is this an easily winnable lawsuit? Can't the company just show that the candidate failed their interview process suggesting they lacked the actual job skills required?
- Set high minimum wage for H1B ($150,000+ annual salary, set to increase in response to inflation in technology salaries)
- Incorporated an automatic green card "path to citizen" into the process, which will be portable between employers (with a decent provision for unemployment or family leaves).
Seems like:
- Dramatic improvement in living conditions for higher end H1B roles (less beholden to employer, more career mobility)
- Immediately eliminates abusive lower-tier H1B roles (you could grandfather existing arrangements for the duration)
- Opens up entry level tech roles to native-born trainees
- Opens up unencumbered path to citizenship for top talent
I'm sure there's a way for politicians to screw this up... but seems like this might be a good first step towards ending the current abuses within this system...
Talent shortage, also known as cheap labour shortage.
Did you know that in Australia, overseas people are hired to deliver mail?
https://www.smh.com.au/national/post-turning-blind-eye-to-45...
Also capitalists: I refuse to raise my wages in response to a low supply labour market for my labour demands. I will instead lobby the government to let me hire wage slaves that I can abuse from overseas labour markets where living costs are much lower.
The field of software is growing. It will change. That change may be for the better or worse.
But I feel it’s unethical for those of us privileged to be in this field to act as gatekeepers and prevent others from having the same opportunities I (and I suspect many others had) when I entered it.
If you want to keep making the big bucks, continue to provide meaningful value and skills that justify it.
What would have to be true for you to agree that there is a shortage of software developers? Big tech cos have total comp of ~$600k/engineer. Would you think there is a shortage if they had to pay $6m/engineer? $60m? How do you define "shortage"?
How are you defining market rate if not by how much someone thinks they need to pay an employee to stay?
So it is currently at a 50/50 split of the value created between the employee and the company.
I would expect, in a skills shortage, that the employee would be able to demand a much greater share, something closer to -- or even temporarily above -- 100%.
The absolute number, $60,000 or $600,000 or $6,000,000 doesn't seem relevant.
It would be really interesting to compare salary/profit ratio of the tech industry to recognized labor shortages in other industries.
You are of course right that the ratio of profit per employee and salary is irrelevant.
Normally supply shortage --> higher costs.
Let's be absolutely clear the goal was simply to bring in foreign workers to reduce salary costs.
Industry today wants a solution on a silver platter but the universe doesn’t work that way.
I've been paid quite a bit for coding... but the premium was due to the projects requiring: a) statistical expertise, b) finance & pricing knowledge, c) transaction system design, d) discretion to deal with HR / restructuring information, e) quality assurance required for contentious BOD projects, and f) willingness to accept a fair amount of uncertainty, screwed up schedules, and outright abuse from senior level leaders without snapping back or ripping their heads off.
Good luck finding that at boot camp!
What is the line of reasoning than goes from 'there is a shortage of developers' to 'therefore, we need to pay less.'?
But “don’t wanna pay” (when companies and 1%ers are hoarding like never before) doesn’t equal a shortage.
If they want to pay less, they should be out saying that there is an over supply and they can get workers for whatever wage they actually want.
You haven't explained how a shortage can lead to paying less on the part of companies... I still don't understand this logic.
There is no shortage. They promote the story of the shortage to pressure government to let in more indentured foreigners, with the slower goal of encouraging more locals to pursue those careers.
You'll notice that "paying more" (the classical/rational economic solution) doesn't seem to be an option.
There is NOT a shortage of software developers. That myth was developed by big tech, and pushed all the way up the ladder, to the top of government. The goal? Reduce labor costs.
Big tech has always been 1 step ahead of the employee, just like coal, and metal working was. They saw the huge need for developers and realized their costs would increase unless they actively pursued ways to prevent that from happening.
And that's how you get organizations like code.org. That's how you get President Obama on the big screen, telling everyone to learn to code. That's how you get a GREAT job, and make it BLUE COLLAR.