If that's a competitive salary for your area (you would know better than me, but that range in the middle of the country certainly seems competitive), then have a look at your recruiting sourcing funnel.

If you're only sourcing the same 75% of active job seekers who are bombing most of their other interviews [thus leaving them available to come in and bomb yours as well], start advertising your positions elsewhere or trying to recruit passive job seekers/encourage employees to scour their own networks.

If you don't change something, you're likely going to keep getting more of the same.

You're correct. The problem is that the positions we have open are for front end developers, and for a variety of reasons (mostly that the scale of complexity on the front end has increased so rapidly that the industry still has a lot of people in it that were writing mostly HTML and CSS a few years back) the supply of competent developers is far lower than the demand, and anyone worth their salt is already happily employed. Highly skilled front end developers can basically write their own check these days, and if you manage to find one in the brief amount of time they're in-between jobs it's pure luck.

... so you're not paying enough to entice them.

Which is what was said three posts up.

Thanks. Unfortunately we can't afford to pay front end developers $300k/year. And what we are paying is more than competitive. It's not an issue of pay, it's an issue of availability and not having the resources to stalk and poach developers from other companies. We also have a generous internal referral bonus, and various recruiters sourcing candidates. Is there something else I'm missing?

Edit: I don't think you are understanding what I'm saying. We are offering higher than average pay for a job with average requirements, and we haven't been able to find average candidates. And I'm well aware of average, upper, and lower bounds to salaries here.

If you have budget for two poor front end devs, IMO you’re way better off paying 1.5x and getting one good one, if comp is the sticking point for landing a good front-end dev.

“We can’t afford that!” “But you can waste money on two crappy devs?!”

(If you only have budget for one, the cash flow doesn’t work, of course.)

> Is there something else I'm missing?

Yes, probably. Why do you need a supply of new front end developers? Is your workplace exceedingly lethal?

Have you considered that paying $2XX/year is a signal? It attracts a certain type of candidate and you can't extrapolate the talent level of the entire market just based on your experience with those that would try to land a $2XX/year job. Where I live, trading firms can pay that much and more, with potential bonuses that would make your eyes pop out of your head. Yet many extremely talented people I know would never submit a resume: "No thanks I like having a life." Many people I know that used to work in that environment think of it as an insurance policy: "at least I know that if I ever need money I can go back."

> We are offering higher than average pay for a job with average requirements

A lot of people will pass you by and assume that something is really wrong at your company to need to offer so much money for an average job.

Seems like Paul can’t catch a break here. He is simultaneously not paying enough and paying too much...

If there is both a pool of qualified candidates that don't think the pay is high enough and thus don't apply and a pool of candidates that think the pay is so high there must be some catch and don't apply, they could both be true. You have to decide which pool to target.

At least one of those two pools exists, because if not it means there are no qualified developers looking for a job, in which case perhaps the issue is with the definition of qualified.

Also, there is the possibility they are getting great applicants that are filtered out before it reaches the individual currently here. It may be possible HR or some automated system is filtering them in such a fashion that good candidates are lost. Maybe HR is demanding 7 years experience in a 3 year old technology.

What we can reasonably assume is that the hiring manager is not finding qualified talent and qualified talent does exist. The idea that qualified candidates are only applying to FAANG or unicorns seems far less likely than something about the position is the reason they aren't getting anyone qualified.

Have you considered hiring remote workers so that you are not limited to those living in, or willing to move to Austin, Texas?

Maybe hire people with the a good teamwork attitude + ability to learn, and training them up to the required standard?

Sounds like it'd be more effective than spinning wheels without traction. :/

If you're paying $2xxK/year and allow remote just post your job link here. I, and all my social circles, are fairly successful devs in a coastal city and would jump on any offer that high as long as we didn't have to move to the midwest

Edit: I mean this as in I know several people including myself who apply for 2xxk/year and remote. Post or dm me and I'll see what people I could send your way

Wow, $250k/year is quite high for Austin, Texas. It's shocking to realize that you can't find decent programmers even at that pay grade.