And how do you know if someone’s eligible for security clearance without applying for it? (Other than the obvious “be a US citizen, don’t be a spy” part.)
Given that is the case, to answer your question: yes, linear algebra is the foundation of ML. No, a lot of impactful day-to-day ML engineering can be done without touching linear algebra.
This is how assembly is the basis of compilation and programming. But you probably are going to get a whole lot of work done without ever using it.
It's generally a nice flex when applicants can code assembly, and usually a yellow-flag when the company suggests they require knowledge of assembly.
To me, my eyebrows raise when an industry person mentions linear algebra. I'm just saying the odds are really low that you actually use it.
That's either a wishful thinking or a stretch of definitions, IMHO.
It kind of bothers me that the parent and other readers here are passing off knowing linear algebra as some kind of esoteric skill. Linear algebra is a year 2 course in a undergraduate eduation. There are polished libraries to make it fast.
Unless you mean enough knowledge to be writing linear algebra libraries, there is no need to consider this skill a high hurdle.
From what I’ve seen, the year 2 course is great for graphics programming, game development, that sort of thing. It’s not enough for the tasks that require more serious linear algebra, when you’re working with systems of linear equations, large matrices, etc. These “big” linear algebra problems come up a lot in fields like physics simulation, finance, and machine learning / AI.
I’ve done some hobby work in graphics and game development, and I’ve done some professional work in physics simulation. The kind of linear algebra you use in physics simulation is a different beast.
“Intro to linear algebra.” 200-level. Vectors are (x,y,z), more or less. Class includes math, engineering, science, and business majors. 200-level makes it nominally a second-year course but lots of first-year students will take it. Required course for many different majors.
“Applied linear algebra.” 300-level. Vectors are finite. Eigenvalues, linear transformations, determinants, matrix algebra, factorization. Touches on numerical methods but doesn’t spend much time on them. Students were mostly math, with some physics and electrical engineers mixed in.
“Advanced linear algebra.” Series of two 400-level / 500-level courses. Almost exclusively math majors and math grad students. Algebraic topology, tensor spaces, exterior algebra, spectral theory, differential forms.
There were also numerical methods courses—one in the math department and one in the CS department.
That it's a year-2 undergraduate course for some people argues more for forgetting than remembering it, if you're not using it regularly.
I can easily imagine that an overly aggressive linear algebra requirement will eliminate many excellent candidates.
I took through calc 3 + discrete math, but didn’t have to take the full linear algebra course for the BS in CS. I’m sure I could refresh myself on calculus, but almost no one is regularly maintaining their more advanced math knowledge in this field.
Unless you had AP Calc in high school and managed to get the university to accept it. I think quiet a few ABET schools don't accept AP Calc as a full replacement for Calc 1 if your an engineering major.
And wow, coming in from the other end of the scale to even the bias...
Did an internship in biotech then spent the next ten years working the only 2-3 blue collar jobs I could land while applying to thousands of jobs per year and writing hundreds of cover letters per year: retail, call centers, IT, software development, comp sci, secretarial, and other random fields I have certifications in. All told, zero interviews. Spent my spare time working on open-source projects and tutoring programming and data science.
Suffered a horrible work-related injury near the end of the decade and had to quit, but just as my savings were about to expire I managed to find a government contracting job for 80K/year, which is nearly 3x my previous salary. I suffer incredible pain at work due to my injury, and spend all my spare time recuperating and exercising, and spend all my money on healthcare and moonshots to no avail. I've wound down all my hobbies. I thought I'd start socializing once I could afford it, but I'm in too much pain.
Competence in government really doesn't reflect my experience in landing a job. What a silver lining. When I can barely walk I can just not show up and nobody would even notice. So career-wise I don't think I'm going anywhere. Life-wise I'm limping on, I guess.
Interestingly in serious university mathematics when looking at the foundations of mathematics, Linear Algebra is a functional prerequisite of multivariate calculus and anything higher dimensional as LA provides a literal basis for abstract spaces and local approximations to continuous functions, etc.
(Often the two are formally taught in parallel)
If you don’t take the AP class to test out of it, you’d have to take it first in college though.
I imagine many people strong enough in math to pursue sciences will go the AP route and test out of it, but not everybody takes the same path.
I dunno. The vibe in high school’s hardest math class and college’s easiest math class is kinda different. Might be worth doing both, haha. Easy A, too.
Also to clarify wrt calculus, it is very common for university-track students to take AP calculus in high school, which allows them to take an examination that most universities accept to prove mastery of the equivalent to calc 1 or calc 1+2 depending on the examination.
It's unclear what "linear algebra" means to GP, though. I agree writing linear algebra libraries is next level, since that involves numerical code and knowing FP math well.
Umm, not in Pennsylvania government high schools, not typically. Not by a long shot.
Linear algebra wasn't a requirement. I took it as an elective just for my own curiosity. I have a feeling loads of programmers really don't know anything about linear algebra, and probably a large number are like me and learned it due to interest in game development.
You can assume they're interested in esoterics like those who can grasp the spherical harmonic equations used to model the daily magnetic flux epoch models to control sats via mag torque, those who can do a multivariate 512 dimensional SVD reduction against pipelined multi spectral data to create sharpened images, create fuel optimal paths in constrained resource starved environments while dodging projected debris paths, .. you know, all that jazz.
But most people that have any exposure to it can pick it back up fairly rapidly. And most people that have a reasonable exposure to math in general could probably come up to speed (a little less) rapidly.
The short answer is "You can't, not with 100% certainty.".
Based on my experience from decades ago, the long answer is "Anyone who's a US citizen and doesn't lie about their drug use and debts can get a Secret clearance.". Things MIGHT have significantly changed since my clearance lapsed way back when, but I doubt it.
That is, eligibility concerns whether or not the State Department will consider your application, not whether or not they will grant the clearance after performing their background and lifestyle investigation.
Your company is incompetent. I've applied to hundreds of companies like yours within Huntsville, AL in the past year, rejected or ghosted all the time.
Defense morons will talk about how hard their work is and how they can't find anyone to do it. Completely skip over how prevalent affirmative action is in their hiring process; who were you guys interviewing in 2020? Why is the defense small business base completely dominated by veterans who stack 10% disability ratings and minorities with a preferred SBA sticker on their website?
Complete joke of an industry.
its just as likely that their process is auto-rejecting candidates and nobody has looked yet
"After his HR department hadn't found a single candidate for a job, the manager submitted his own resume. It was auto-rejected."
syndicated here
https://www.yourtango.com/self/manager-proves-hr-system-auto...
and the associated reddit comment that the articles are based off here
https://www.reddit.com/r/csMajors/comments/1f8x5ma/comment/l...
this is likely the more common practice
even candidates that might fit a poorly implemented affirmative action program are likely getting auto-rejected
nobody knows if its helpful to mention their race or disability, or whether its hurtful
Hush, don't tell people of our sacred text.
“assumption” doesn’t imply a lack of truth, it points out your inability to know that out of all possibilities, which possibility applies
it means there is no point in doubling down on your data point of 1 in 1 niche industry when there is this other industry wide practice occurring as well
an industry wide practice that would affect minorities applying as well as existing employees alike
it could just as easily be any other reason, like the one I identified
its an assumption to know what's being applied to you.
its obvious that the frustrated guy just wants to be heard, it is still an assumption. that doesn't mean its not happening. it means its an assumption about what exactly applied to you.
unless they specifically said that and you won an employment discrimination case then you literally dont know.
I had a team of 14 with 2 women and 1 non-white male. I had a team of 10 with 0 women and 0 non-white male. I had a team of 20 with 1 women and 0 non-white male.
Looking at it another way, thats 40 successful white male hires, and 4 successful non-white male hires.
if only having access to 91% of jobs instead of 100% is the reason you can't get hired....
edit: To clarify, as a software developer of 10+ years both in defense and faang, I have never once had a team where there was less than 50% white men.
If you really need everyone in Role X to have a PhD in Psychoergonomics, then what's up with Jane over there and her MD?
It makes sense to sort candidates with the more niche requirement to the top of the pile, but to require it? When you need to fill this role?
There's also hiring because "wow, this candidate is great, we should find a place to fit them", and there it makes sense to become more selective going forwards... but when a company is saying "we need people and can't find them", that doesn't seem like the time to be more selective.
humans think we're the most intelligent because we built New York while the dolphins have just been hanging around having a good time. the dolphins think they're the most intelligent for the same reason.
It doesn’t necessarily speak to the parent’s attitude before becoming bitter. Hard to draw such a direct conclusion for me.
However if you read what I wrote:
1) Current attitude is not necessarily prior attitude
2) A histrionic tirade is not indicative of an outwardly perceptible attitude, in fact, its more common that these kinds of outburts are from a person who is not outwardly bitter enough day-to-day and is forced to be positive. (thus it boils inside them and becomes venomous)
3) Bitterness is usually the combination of a (often still) motivated person who feels let down. Your companies most negative voices are very often the ones who are passionate but sad about things. Its the “checked-outs” who you really don’t want if you’re building something you want to be good.
You're applying the circular reasoning of "of course I treat you like crap because you have a bad attitude (because I treat you like crap)", while ignoring the part in the bracket.
This individual was a great contributor and long outlasted my tenure at the company (so it's not just my bias), only to eventually move on to even better roles.
Frankly, if you work in tech and haven't been bitter about some nonsense in this field, I suspect you must not be particularly engaged or passionate about the area you work in.
I'm not going to let industry off the hook by blaming the victim.
It's not the defense industry, but I know a very qualified person who's been having a lot of trouble being hired for what must be stupid, industry-dysfunction reasons.
Both of my dads (father and FIL) got cancer this year. My mom almost did.
You don’t have to become deeply bitter, no matter what your situation. Many people do anyway, and that is by no means a moral failing of any kind, but it has very little to do with the individual events that precipitated it.
I will try anyway.
Let's take something that we have more information about: burnout. Since burnout is a hot button topic, we're all somewhat aware about it.
Many people misconstrue burnout to mean "overworked" - which it's not, it's a type of depression where your emotional investment is not getting adequate emotional returns: and that's what's happening with your depiction of "bitter".
You had objectively worse situations happening to you, yes! However- the conditions in which they happened were:
* Not artificial. There was no concerted effort by the universe to conspire to give your fathers cancer.
* You were given sympathy
* You were given the opportunity to actually air grievances about it before it boiled up- likely you were told that it's healthy to feel bad or to express yourself.
Likewise, bitterness is the culmination of being treated in a way you perceive as unfair, and it starts small. It gets worse when not treated. Treatment is as easy as letting people be a little angry sometimes or to let them talk about their issues and be met with something other than condescension.
You had a worse situation, yes, but you're talking about people getting moody as a moral failing.
It would be like me telling a woman not to be moody on her period because some men have their arms blown off on oil rigs. They're not comparable at all.
It is completely reasonable to be bitter. But long-term, it is still a choice.
I don’t disagree that being bitter, at the onset, is not a choice. And often requires treatment.
Burnout is a great example because I agree with everything you said about it. Becoming bitter when burnt out isn’t a choice. Staying bitter is.
For short periods, it is almost always even necessary; treatment requires feeling.
But too many people get stuck in it, do not seek treatment (or are afraid to / taught not to, even amongst friends), and do not move forward. Even that is still not a moral failing; but it does make me sad.
No it isn't. Most people only become bitter when they feel they have been treated unfairly and badly for a very long period of time.
I am not implying bitterness is bad. But you can absolutely be bitter for almost any reason.
And thanks, but I am quite aware of my mental faculties, and have seen psychiatrists and therapists plenty; I have ADHD, after all, and recurring depressive episodes (though not true clinical depression).
Perhaps don’t assume that people who are different from you are… mentally ill? Seems a bit of an arrogant stretch. :/
Meaning people who can unravel all the crap they have to maintain but with no agency to enact any sort of long term fix.
Plenty of this kind of work going around, the older the codebase is the less willing people are to work on it. Soon good engineers don't want to anymore and mid engineers are not good enough to even tweak it. Leaving the only lever these companies can pull being salary and they can't compete with FAANG on that.
Reminds me of those anecdotes you hear from Oracle and ASML engineers. The difference there is that they can still use the salary lever.
What I think you're saying is, if a developer is forced to be in an office/at a desk when/where no "real work" can be accomplished (that's to management gates/bottlenecks) then they will be miserable. Is that correct?
All of these hundreds of rejections were due to affirmative action huh? In Huntsville? Ok.
You pay well, but not so much.
You search for qualified applicants but can hire a student.
You require linear algebra but ok with technical writer.
Looks like your managers don't know who they need to hire or don't want to really hire.
It's prevalent in government-adjacent companies. It's all a completely opaque byzantine system to mask the nepotism and the fact that a lot of those people just siphon money from the government like it's a jobs programs.
Not to mention that their application systems are usually complete garbage like Workday or Taleo.
On the other hand, when in Rome...
Alabama, ditto. There is no amount of money that would compel me to live there. But for the right person, it’s paradise.
I'm not specifically trying to change your mind about Alabama (since as you said, everyone has a different lifestyle), but I would wager that perhaps some of what you think about these Deep South states are contrary to reality.
Meaning around one time per month she has to devote a whole day for a doctor trip. I am afraid when she grows older and can't do that by herself anymore. Most of her doctors are still local though, but specialists are hard to find.
When my dad had cancer he had to take similar trips for his treatment. Except it was weekly with occasional multiple times per week. It was brutal for him and my mother.
It's not just the specialists either. My pcp at a local health clinic is a MD/PhD from a top 5 med school. Most of the best in any field don't want to live in Podunk either.
The redneck stuff is fine with me, I lived in a small town and it has a certain charm. Good place to raise kids, etc. But I like winter… I live in a small northeast city and enjoy it.
Or, you know, any tech worker with a remote job. The point is if you have technical skills and want to live in Rome, NY you can do that and still have a better job.
> They are also stable gigs with good benefits.
Maybe 30 years ago. Today the benefits don't compare to what you get in a large tech company and I think everyone one I know with a career in a DAPRA/Defense contractor job has eventually been laid off and struggled to find new work since it's generally challenging to transition out of that industry involuntarily.
This is pretty different from somebody who wants to go in as an engineer but doesn’t remember their intro classes.
It's totally possible. There's an defense contractor in my area where all the work at the local office is on non-defense government projects.
It's currently the only thing preventing a liberal democracy from being overrun and genocided because a tinpot dictator with nuclear weapons woke up on the wrong side of the bed back in 2022 and said "I want, I take."
Don't really see much of a contradiction. A good salary is not necessarily the highest salary.
> You require linear algebra but ok with technical writer.
I'm a tech writer but went to engineering school. While I assume it's not a fairly common situation, it's also not unheard of. The original comment seems to imply that they'll frown upon a candidate that will expect to be taught linear algebra at the workplace but will be ok with one that has only a basic grasp and it's willing to attend engineering school to improve.
I applied to a similar position locally this year. I far exceed their requirements and experience and I got rejected at the application stage. And the same goes for nearly all of other places I applied to. Hiring has most definitely changed over the years. They are not just looking for "qualified applicants". There is something else going on.
Could be "This one is overqualified, we can't pay that much" or "He doesn't have experience in the exact thing we need." Or just that they want a qualified applicant but they've got lots of options.
> No, we don’t pay as much as Meta.
So, essentially, you are seeking special treatment from US citizens. I’m not saying this is always unreasonable, but you’re in the territory of a centrally planned economic decision, and in the US philosophy that is supposed to be done minimally.
Maybe the right thing is for your company to shut down or change their line of business, freeing up the labor for Meta.
By this reasoning no charities should exist (they pay less than commercial orgs) and even people who are willing to work for less in order to feel good about their contribution should not be allowed to.
It’s a very cynical, even nihilistic view.
As a country we have decided to let the market decide what to prioritize. Who are we to judge "creepy VR avatars" are less important if people are willing to fair and square pay for them? If they are creepy, don't pay for them.
> No charities should exist.
No that is not the appropriate conclusion. People are of course free to work for less and balance their circumstances. If they want to volunteer for a charity by choice, more power to them. But no, using taxpayer money to fund "charities" is by-and-large corruption in my book.
> It’s a very cynical, even nihilistic view.
If we are doing labels, yours is a very communistic, statist, view.
--
P.S. regardless of your PoV, I like that you acknowledge my core point: that the OP is seeking special treatment in the form of cheap labor from the US. You are simply arguing for that special treatment being justified, not denying that's the core demand.
It’s the engineer who picks the climate change job instead.
Essentially what you’re saying is that due to society not being willing to pay competitively, engineers should take the kick to the nuts and be paid peanuts to make up for societies bad decisions.
Sounds like a pretty stupid decision, frankly.
ARPANET was not the only network in existence, even then. Networks existed in various forms. Later, BBSes existed. My guess is sooner or later there would have been something (probably more than one, even) our current internet, but we would never know. Would it look worse or balkanized or proprietary, my guess would be yes, I give you that, but we'll never know that either.
(I originally noted in my topmost post minimal, surgical, involvement is the aspiration, not necessarily zero, but I digress.)
Working for a company that launches satellites that examine climate change is far less impactful. It's not worth a big pay cut even when you're focusing on altruistic motives.
How many people honestly think it's a good idea to donate to a for-profit company?
> It's not worth a big pay cut even when you're focusing on altruistic motives. [Citation unavailable as its purely subjective]
I'm talking about level of benefit, which is not subjective.
Edit: Also I just reread the original comment and realized the climate change measurement was listed as a negative, so for the two citation neededs I point back at the original post about the company. Donating a single dollar beats a negative.
For the broader analysis, the people that can easily get huge salaries should prioritize donation, and the people that can't should prioritize actually working at a charity.
Instead of going to levels.fyi go to salary.com and choose any major city in the US that is not on the west coast.
No most developers don’t get RSUs or anything else aside from their salaries and maybe a bonus.
And before someone replies that I’m “bitter”. No I’m good, I’m 50. I did my stint at BigTech and I don’t have the shit tolerance level to deal with the politics of any large company.
It's simple: the more picky you are the more you will have to pay. The GP admitted the upper bound of Meta, which is a company that is sustainably operating in the same country. If you cannot compete in a labor market, either raise your product pricing or be more efficient. If not, you will make less profit and/or go out of business, which is an appropriate outcome most of the time.
No one is entitled to their business model.
There are numerous reasons why AL sucks.
To be clear, I’m not saying all conservatives are evil. I have nothing against the Kemp’s (GA’s governor) and traditional conservatives.
But compared to a lot of the rest of Alabama and other stereotypes of the South, it's really a decent place. Definitely not the anti-science, anti-intellectual backwater many might assume. There's a lot of bright people there with interest in aerospace and engineering at all levels. And it's also a college town.
Offer things that we care about like free health insurance, “unlimited PTO”, a generous 401K match with immediate vesting, etc.
I personally wouldn’t move to Alabama. But many would.
At 50, I need to work. But I don’t need to chase after FAANG salaries. I optimize for my other priorities. As I said in my previous post, I’m not “disdaining what I can’t have”. I’ve been there done that.
Or google? In 2023 they had a net elimination of 6576 US jobs, but added 5479 H1B.
This isn't a simple market issue, these companies are abusing worker visas to replace Americans from their own companies.
Senior: https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/remote-senior-software-en...
> $178K - $262K/yr
Principal: https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/remote-principal-software...
> $269K - $415K/yr
> The estimated total pay for a Principal Software Engineer is $329,957 per year in the Remote area, with an average salary of $196,928 per year. These numbers represent the median, which is the midpoint of the ranges from our proprietary Total Pay Estimate model and based on salaries collected from our users. The estimated additional pay is $133,029 per year. Additional pay could include cash bonus, commission, tips, and profit sharing.
Sounds like the right ballpark. If you're in a location that doesn't pay as well, remote can pay much better.
Look at salary.com where you can see by cities.
None of the BigTech companies have many remote jobs. Google is even requiring their customer facing professional services department to be in certain cities. That was a bridge too far even for AWS.
There are far more people who need code, than just the people at FAANG companies.
Are you saying that these firms are economically uncompetitive, with META, and should shut shop?
A company with same requirements but not the funding? Absolutely
>There are far more people who need code, than just the people at FAANG companies.
With different requirements you can find way more people.
Ideally, the industry would relocate outside of the US, to a place where they can be competitive.
However, since this defense, they can’t, and will never be competitive.
So defense will languish.
I guess that’s all I have. I can’t see a way out of the situation if we accept your premise.
Defense margins aren’t going to beat social media margins, that too of something like meta.
Requirements are requirements. If you need a hammer, scalpels won’t help.
Really? It's the first time I am hearing US is procuring defense for cheap!
If there is a margin issue, that's an efficiency problem, i.e. the company is being an idiot or deliberately wasteful/stealing (perhaps due to structural problems like overreliance on cost-plus contracts).
That is a misrepresentation of what was said, and an unkindness to the conversation being had.
Tech scales, in a way that manufacturing and physical products dont. I would assume that on HN, this is common knowledge, and that you also are aware of it.
The US defence budget is ~20x Meta revenues. They can be competitive, but they don't choose to allocate their resources that way.
In my experience this is often and at least in part a self-inflicted wound. As you describe your side of the business, it should not restricted, but it is. Maybe? Not enough detail to be certain.
What I see time and time again is business not willing to implement proper DLP, labeling and isolation of restricted things. Instead, they just throw everything into a single bucket, because it is quicker, faster, some of the risk and compliance is shifted to third party, and initially cheaper.
In short, a US, UK, Aus company that does government contracts will just force everyone into NOFORN, on-prem requirements (because DFARS, CMMC, CE+, Essential 8, or whatever). It is way quicker to do this for entire company than actually label data, isolate environment and resources, and so on.
I'm an older worker in management. Willing to be hands on. Not looking to get paid as much as Meta (I've worked there too) but also don't want something that pays peanuts. Willing to relocate to many places.
Genuinely curious where I can find such jobs.
"Must have a currently active $TYPE clearance." and "Must be eligible for a $TYPE clearance; position contingent on acquiring a $TYPE clearance." are the sorts of phrases to look for.
Results would probably come out empty anyway.
This is illegal under IRCA unless another law or government contract mandates it. [1] If every single role at your company requires a Secret clearance, then I question how separate “your part of the company” really is from the part that makes weapons.
I believe there is some protection against discriminating against greencards, but not visas
Some state or local laws offer additional protections beyond federal law, including NYC for all immigration statuses, except as required or allowed by other applicable laws. (So, for example, NYC doesn’t pretend that companies have to hire people who don’t already have employment authorization.)
Some places like NYC offer legal protections in this area to all categories of immigration status, of course within what applicable federal and state law requires and allows. Federal law allows preferring citizens over equally equalities noncitizens, requiring employment authorization to already exist, and complying with any specific legal requirements for restricting certain jobs to citizens. NYC law respects all of this. But overall NYC is totally allowed to, and does, add protections beyond federal law.
I’m guessing the contracts that make paper clips don’t need those stringent requirements, but the ones that make sensitive comms equipment do.
Probably just lawyers being lawyers, but still pretty funny.
"Secret" classification is really mild, about 5 million people have one.
>The law prohibits employers from hiring only U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents unless required to do so by law, regulation or government contract.
At these workplaces it will be a combination of all 3 of law, regulation, and government contract.
Edit: Ah I see you are not disagreeing with what I said at all. Apologies, I cannot count the number of times I have seen in reddit and here, where people confuse ITAR with clearance.
How well do you pay? If I were at Meta, my total comp would be 500-600k. I make half that at a small startup. Can you afford me?
I fall almost exactly on the low end of this range: https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/senior-aerospace-engineer...
With 15 years of experience.
I'm at the low end of my peers.
Like I said, auctioning off access to your users to advertisers pays better than the European space agency.
Tried again with a U.S. VPN and I'm gob-smacked by how different that range is.
For anyone curious, the Canadian pay range is:
Base pay $66K - $95K/yr
$79K/yr Average base pay
The low end of that base pay ($66k CAD) converts to $45k USD.
While the U.S. pay range is:
Total pay range: $266K - $463K/yr
$346K/yr Median total pay
Pay breakdown $137K - $223K/yr Base pay $129K - $240K/yr Additional pay
The take-home on that is £35k. The median rent in London is £26k. I suppose the person making £45k doesn't likely live in London, but still pretty grim.
https://www.economist.com/special-report/2024/10/14/the-amer...
Most Americans get employer-provided health insurance, which costs money (the amount specified in the DD section of the W2), and its often in the $1500/month range. That DD amount isn’t part of your income or the salary Glassdoor mentions. It’s an added benefit of top of that.
In the UK and elsewhere, around $500/month/person in taxes pays for your healthcare. That’s essentially subtracted from your income. So the uk income is even lower when you subtract the taxes the NHS costs.
Nope, but NHS + no/less student loans + no car dependency + cheaper childcare + time off + a ton of other things shave quite a bit off that $200k. Not equal, and not in every personal case, but a lot.
Americans are often blown away and kind of ignorant of how, relative to the rest of the world, they are really wealthy and well paid. Like, people have way less disposable incomes in other parts of the world, even developed countries. The purchase power of the USD and the power of the US economy is absolutely insane.
Couldn't this largely be explained by their importing huge amounts of low-income people?
It does in Canada, I think that’s what he meant
https://tradingeconomics.com/canada/gdp-per-capita#:~:text=T...
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/gdp-per-capita
(Click the button to check the 25 year view.)
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/36-28-0001/2024004/artic...
"another respected data journalist, John Burn-Murdoch, calculated that without London, the UK would be poorer, in terms of GDP per capita, than even the poorest US state, Mississippi."
None of this changes the fact that US software engineering salaries are a poor comparison to use to illustrate wealth disparities between the US and other countries, as they are an outlier.
Quite! A top 10% earner in Finland, a supposedly very developed country, by saving all of their net-income spending zero on food and letting their SO pay the bills, could in 2-3 years afford a new Skoda.
The US is not a developed country, rather it is a particularly rich third world country.
You're basically comparing "super specialised job in the middle of nowhere with very low cost of living" vs a "super specialised but much more needed job in multiple high cost of living locations" (Seattle metro area, LA metro area to name a few).
I realize this story sounds absurd to anyone who hasn’t experienced it, but my understanding is that this form of firing (“managing out”) is basically the norm for low performers at top-tier tech companies.
To get actually fired, you usually have to fuck up big time, like sexually harassing a coworker, stealing trade secrets, or trying to start a union. (That last one is a joke, sort of)
Totally different markets. You wouldn't be interested in that job, and they wouldn't want to hire you even if you were interested. Even the tone of your post makes that obvious.
We should be discussing early to mid career folks from somewhere other than silicon valley startup or big web tech land. Aka "meat and potatoes" tech jobs. That is what's being discussed.
I don't know what their problem is with hiring either and I agree with you that it could be partially compensation related. But not being able to compete with Silicon Valley on compensation is not where I would be going with that argument....I think it's more likely to be related to environment and interview style and notions of what "experience" means. In other words...bad hiring practices...not necessarily raw compensation issues. The compensation for non "big tech" firms can sometimes be quite good in comparison to other career paths especially when located outside of the valley, so being unable to hire talent makes me suspicious of hiring practices more than compensation (assuming they are reasonably large and hit market rate for the area and are in a reasonably large metro).
Just my two cents.
And almost certainly a higher employable value too unless they have catastrophically bad social skills…
They can develop it while lying in bed and daydreaming for all the difference it makes.
Plus any 29 year old who can actually land a genuine 500k-600k USD compensation job at a big company is a literal genius, at the very least.
>… been working hard 15 hours 7 days a week in a niche, 50 weeks a year, from age 15 to age 29…
Developed the same level of social skills as the average individual who lived a more normal schedule?
I have to ask before you even answer that. Do you believe that social skills are something to be practiced and built upon, are they some waste of time they only hormones bother with, or some other option I haven’t considered?
And develop to a comparable level given a much shorter period of time.
That’s pretty much by definition for literal geniuses.
Because this reply doesn’t make sense in relation to the previous comment.
They are very much outliers, so they are by definition a very small fraction of society.
Secondly you started off this chain with talking about how someone working hard for 15 hours a day for decades is going to be more valuable and they’ll just be able to pick up every skill a human could have or need because they’re “geniuses”.
If they’re really geniuses why do they need to grind?
If you’re implying that they are only part of the set of geniuses that grind that long and there is another set of geniuses that didn’t, then how does that track with geniuses being a very small fraction of society?
Clearly some fraction do have critically bad social skills which do materially affect their prospects to a significant degree.
But the majority of them do exceed that very low bar, so it’s simply not that critical of a hinderance most of the time.
You appear to be reading absolute implications into my comments, and/or inserting your own conjectures which aren’t there on a plain reading.
Describing not having catastrophically bad social skills as a “very low” bar is not a valid take when it comes to the world of computer science. I remember when visiting Carnegie Mellon as a senior in high school and evaluating their comp sci program, how the guides suddenly got very serious when they informed our parents(not the prospective students) that a course on hygiene was required freshman year and could not be waived. I’ve also worked with near limitless number of engineers who think they have the social skills down and then don’t understand why no one wants to work with them when they will do shit like call someone else’s project they’ve worked on for months pointless or useless in a group setting without even trying to approach said coworker with even a modicum of social awareness.
Those kinds of behaviors don’t show up in a population where having non catastrophically bad social skills is a “very low bar”
> You appear to be reading absolute implications into my comments, and/or inserting your own conjectures which aren’t there on a plain reading.
I think we’re coming at this with different axioms. You seem to believe that social skills are trivial and don’t matter next to the hard sciences that people grind away on. I am coming from one where I have to constantly make excuses or apologies for various people in software engineering or comp sci because they appear to be literally incapable of empathy or understanding that other people might have a different viewpoint than theirs.
Given my axiom I think your are handwaving away a lot, and that’s where you see my statements as inserted conjectures.
Someone who works for 15 out of 18 of their waking hours, leaving 3 hours to eat, exercise, and have any semblance of social interactions or secondary interests, for FOURTEEN YEARS is not a genius. They are actually an idiot, wasting their life.
Normally that kind of requirement leads to _higher_ compensation
I'd rather spend my time focusing on applying at other positions that will pay just as much if not more without being required to spend nights and weekends relearning a skill that is just not used very much elsewhere and not requiring security clearances, and why would I waste my time applying there when other jobs that do require these skills compensate more for the effort.
On the other hand if this company did pay closer to Meta salaries (the comparison they used) then it gives all candidates, including US citizens who fit more of their eligibility criteria, that much more incentive to actually relearn these skills and makes the expected return on investment potentially worth it.
What part of the country are you in?
Granted, it is still a red state.
Never too late to learn etc. etc.
The people that have it can write their own ticket and do very little work apparently.
And you think they're asking the kind of question you asked? lol
You're building satellite components, which I'm quite certain are dual use.
Maybe try admitting what you're building and justify it as necessary instead.
Insulting people's ability to reason is a certain way to repel anybody with a brain.
Now I design radar panel assemblies for weather satellites.
They're both a good living.
I'm more turned off by the ones that have infinite euphemisms like "analyze risk matrix for counteractions" instead of "find all the ways that the brown people are going to try to escape getting killed by our drone targeting system"
Only someone who has never seen war first-hand can make a statement like that. You've never been in the kill zone.
I used the GI Bill and Army College Fund to pay for my bachelors.
I deployed to "tHe KiLl ZoNe" twice with C Co 1/503rd infantry and A Co 1/23rd infantry.
Your company has never offered me a phone screening. Seeing claims that Northrop is in sort of qualified candidate crisis when myself and many applicants I know of similar profiles are lucky to get so much as a rejection email is borderline infuriating.
Not enough, apparently.
> No, you can't work remotely.
You'll have to pay even more for this.
> No, we don't pay as much as Meta.
So again, not enough.
Nope. Not doing it. Not going to argue politics, but this is a huge RED FLAG for a lot of people. And I feel I don't need to submit to mandatory drug testing as well.
>The most harmful thing the products I build do is quantify in precise detail how climate change is dooming us all
Then why is it classified? How separate is your branch from the weapons branch, that you acknowledge exists?
There's a lot of dual-use stuff that's not used for military applications but could be by another actor. Dual-use means that it could be used for civilian and military applications, not that it actually is.
So if I build a revolutionary weather radar that could be used for military reconnaissance by Iran if the technology came out, but the US military isn't interested because they already have something better, it would be completely civilian but classified.
This brings forward some cognitive dissonance in me. I love the open source ethics, especially the "ANYONE CAN USE THIS FOR ANY PURPOSE" tagline. But, personally, I do not want any military (especially the US military) to find any usefulness out of my projects. I'm not sure on the legal aspects of it, but if there was an SPDX-License-Identifier for GPL-3.0-NO-MILITARY (or something similar, you get the point), I'd use it on everything.
It's funny, and it's nice, but it's not quite the ironclad level of "NO MILITARIES" as I'd like. Plus, enforceability becomes a question with classified military stuff, not even going into the actual legal discovery process. A common license would suffice for me, as I'm not going to modify the GPL as they did.
Thanks for sharing though, it made me laugh.
Defense contractor jobs are the only ones I've seen that haven't been outsourced overseas yet, but good luck getting a CJO for one that will sponsor a clearance and actually getting cleared.
A top tier three letter agency sponsored me for TS SCI FSP and it took 9 months after the conditional job offer (CJO) after 10+ offers of personal interviews with me not counting my old jobs, college and friends/acquaintances just for them to cancel my app for "other traits, conduct or behaviour" and to reapply after a year.
I heard other applicants on the free bus ride that it was their 3rd or 4th try at the polygraph or that the agency forgot about them so they had to a Congressional inquiry after 2 attempts prior etc.
It's a lot of BS and I've tried for a few years now to work for the federal government and military, but they just don't want me. I've given way more effort than normal folks, so honestly screw them.
I'm fine with working for a defense contractor or the feds. I'm fine with taking a pay haircut relative to FAANG to do something meaningful. I'm even fine with commuting, and the agencies poking into my life to assess a clearance. But I need to move from one job to another without a gap.
Private sector employers won't touch me without a clearance, and in my part of the world there are lots of people who already have one, so I'm not worth their time.
The US government would put me through a clearance, but their hiring practices are so slow and arcane that they're just not viable for someone who needs to find a job starting say in the next 30 days.
I wish it wasn't that way, but it is. So, I stay in the uncleared commercial sector.
50% pay cut for a DevOps/SRE role requiring a Q clearance (DoE version of Top Secret I think)
You can't find employees because the job isn't exciting (you're probably not NASA) and the pay is bad. Maybe your recruiters are bad too.
Just to clarify, being a dual U.S. citizen (e.g., U.S.-Canadian, U.S.-Irish) doesn't necessarily prevent a person from obtaining a U.S. "SECRET" security clearance.
Yes, you need to drug test for clearance. But I'm saying that's a job I'm not applying to unless I have no other choice. It goes straight to the bottom of the pile for me.
Same reason for homosexuality in the past when it was illegal/scandalous.
"We'll fire you if you smoke pot"
"But why?"
"Someone might blackmail you, by threatening to reveal that you smoke pot"
"How is that a threat?"
"Because we'll fire you if you smoke pot."
This makes a lot more sense to me than blackmail.
I'd quibble though that this overlooks that quite a lot (possibly even most) drug users are able to lead productive lives without having to resort to illegal activity to fund their drug use.
The other thing this doesn't cover is that there are many alcoholics that fall into the same trap. Though there again, most alcoholics are able to lead productive lives despite their addiction.
And through personal experience, I unfortunately know quite a few alcoholics that work in defense with various levels of clearance.
> You have to be eligible for a Secret security clearance. You don't have to get one if you don't want to as there is usually plenty of uncleared work to go around, but you have to be eligible in case that goes away and we need to put you in for a clearance.
I think they should clarify whether they want somebody that has passed a linear algebra class with high marks based on something like strangs' entry level book before...or are on the cutting edge of graduate level linear algebra research. It's not clear from the post and I suspect that might be an issue.
Give me a couple months and I could recite strangs entry level textbook. I passed that class with an A+. But I could not become a PhD level maths student with a linear algebra research focus in that amount of time.
There are multiple very different ways to interpret a requirement for being competent in linear algebra.
Knowing everything covered in strangs introduction to linear algebra is actually quite low on the potential list of requirements and could be self studied.
When I last read Strang's, my course included a lot of spectral theory that was decidedly not introductory regardless of what the title says. Either way, the point is that most non-specialist practitioners don't need that. How often have you truly run into determinants mod N or stochastic matrices in real life?
It sounds like our linear algebra classes were somewhat different though. No one received an A in mine. I had one of 3-4 B's.
Yes, most people had LA classes during college. But would you take a couple of months to relearn something that would be used only to interview for one job that you have no idea you'll get? That's certainly a reason why few people want to interview there.
If an SWE job posting has a narrow set of requirements, none of which require particularly high-level education, that means the ideal candidate is a “regular” SWE with experience or knowledge in the field being hired for. It’s not like this aerospace company wants someone who is an expert at linear algebra while also being a full stack dev with intimate understanding of a few major cloud platforms’ offerings and knows how to write windows drivers and does silicon design in their spare time. They’re just looking for a particular type of developer for which there simply may not be any candidates. Yeah, technically you could triple the salary and steal employees from other companies who weren’t looking for jobs, but the economics of that aren’t feasible. If there are n positions and n-a total eligible developers (for some positive a), it doesn’t matter how much you increase pay, there still aren’t going to be enough people to fill the roles. And you’re eventually going to run out of money, because you usually can’t just triple the price of your products.
Y'all should probably make that clear. Usually, the moment I see something like that as a job requirement, I move on. Not because I may or may not qualify, but because I honestly don't remember a lot of the information required and because it's not clear that I can work in a non-weapon-building role. Probably should offer refresher courses in linear algebra - I've been a developer for 25+ years and have never knowingly used it.
Your paragraph at the end sounds like maybe your company culture is also a problem.
Sorry, this is bullshit. Your applicants are qualified you just don’t like them. If someone learned linear algebra as part of their degree, and you don’t take them because they haven’t used it recently, that’s on you.
> No, we don't make weapons for the military. Well, we do but not my part of the company.
You make weapons that kill innocents and don’t want to pay more, so you want indentured servants who’ll do whatever you want. It’s one thing to participate in what many people consider evil, but it’s extra rich to whine about it.
If they have a good candidate and the only problem is debt, they should offer to pay it off. They have no qualms printing billions to save some broken banks.
Plenty of people get into debt just doing normal shit at their homes
That’s the only way you’re going to get people with self control and willing to live the life of ascetic monks for the duration of time to both learn how to build these systems and then actually build them
Pot is still illegal at the federal level where a clearance would be taking place.
Even if both of those were false in the past, you could still pass.
And I highly doubt linear algebra is a day to day requirement for a typical worker. Sounds like a case of expecting chauffeurs to know how to build a drive train from scratch.
Let's hear some numbers for junior, mid and senior. I bet they are not great.
The clearance I won't comment on, as I have no clue what it involves. Presumably though, this means randomized drug tests which is IMO a complete violation of privacy. Also, I'm probably wrong but it gives me the impression that despite your reassurance that you aren't building weapons systems, ya kinda are.
And as you said, a part of your company makes weapons. That will automatically cause many people to be disinterested, for better or worse.
> Ghost positions
In my experience, gov't jobs are the worst when it comes to fake job postings that only exist as a cover for internal promos. Might be different in the states, but I doubt it.
> Yes, we are willing to train someone who is motivated. We won't re-teach linear algebra...
Wait, so will you train them or not? You won't refresh someone on linear algebra which most people haven't touched since their uni days, but you'll put a technical writer through university to become an engineer? Which one is it? Then later on you say the algebra thing is a hard requirement. How do these statements make sense together?
> Can't work remotely
This is an automatic disqualifier for many people, for many reasons. I get that you're working with space hardware in clean rooms, but if this means people have to move to the middle of nowhere (or just move, period) and commute for 2 hours each way, then you're disqualifying tons of people, when their alternative is a job where they can work remotely with all the benefits that entails. I'd personally rather be dead than be forced to commute ever again.
> We pay well
Define well? Especially with everything else I commented on, is it really "well", if they can join a much less frustrating job and get paid more? Also you sound quite snarky about working at Meta. I'm no fan of FAANG, but if we're talking compensation, I think the snark is unwarranted given the situation.
> We expect programmers to remember linear algebra and have more than the ability to shovel frameworks on top of each other...
Again, snarkiness and derision. A bit of a dumb position to take when you're admitting that the easier job not only pays (dramatically) more, but has better conditions (remote work, no clearance-related BS) as well.
No wonder you can't find qualified individuals, your comment alone makes it sound like a miserable job where you're working for bean counters that want to inspect the cloudiness of your piss while forcing you to waste half your life driving to the office and back without extra compensation, while they get to see other, less skilled engineers "glue frameworks together" for double the pay and quadruple the happiness. And I find it rich to comment on advertisers when your company makes weapons that literally kill people. Something about reaper missiles and glass houses comes to mind here.
Prove it. What city are you in, and what is total comp for software engineer & hardware engineer with 20 years of experience?
I worked in national defense. It was a pain in the ass: shit pay, worst politics, massive tolerance for incompetence & mediocrity, meeting hell, and secrecy (necessary, but "need to know" gatekeeping wasnt at times).
Here's the trick these mission-oriented employers don't want you to know: you can use the freedom that money affords in order to build meaningful and fulfilling aspects into your life outside of work.
Nothing as meaningful as maintenance programming at Google, of course. At least the paychecks wouldn't be as meaningful.
Why should employees of that industry give the employer a discount?
This is a fairytale in DoD work and while I think there's room for us to improve our compensation I'm not sure this is a reasonable number at the moment. Please don't flame me for this, just sharing my opinion. I work on a critical DoD new-work project.
The only way to achieve that number in this sector would be private consulting with a very strong network. I will say that it's a very easy world to network in, at least in my experience. I also find the work and location I'm in very meaningful and interesting compared to most of the private sector work accessible to me at this point in my career.
I don't think as many people love remote work as HN suggests. We have an extremely flexible hybrid and PTO policy here, and we're in a great midsize city that people love living in.
This is just a random jumble of thoughts in response. Cheers
$400k is base + bonus
It's also fintech, so there is no room for error.
What do you mean "no room for error"? Every networked application has errors. Do you mean that the application should never throw an error? Or that errors should always be retried an infinite number of times? Or that requests should not get dropped and should be guaranteed to me handled? And how do you guarantee that? It is quite impossible to have an application that serves 100M requests a day from real users and have 0 errors or dropped packets.
What kind of understanding is needed? A basic understanding? It's a vast and unending subject.
And there are well known software apps that do linear algebra these days. Do you folks use a particular software to do it?
Engineering Technician: what does an hour in the life of such work look like?
Thanks.
I knew it was too good to be true.
Why not? Isn’t this just part of your ramp-up if it’s a niche qualification? We re-teach networking to developers who probably forgot it—that’s a semester course, easily. If you’re not willing to invest in candidates that are 90% of the way there, then you’re perpetually going to have difficulty hiring.
It's not just that you're restricted to US Citizens.
You point out all the issues in your post:
> You have to be eligible for a Secret security clearance
So, even though I'm adult and it's legal in my state, I can't smoke weed now and then? Oh and depending on the project may be subject to a polygraph... sounds fun!
> No, we don't make weapons for the military.
Every.. government... defense... contractor has this speech. Why even pretend that you're not in the war business, which ultimately means killing people? Honestly I would be more comfortable working for an org that wasn't afraid to admit what they do. Making moral compromises is not uncommon in tech, and I don't judge people that choose to do so, but I do judge those that pretend that they're not.
> No, you can't work remotely.
I've worked remotely virtually my entire career, including for the Federal government. You may have a good reason for this requirement, but it absolutely shrinks your pool. You don't even mention location, but I'm guessing it's not in a top city like NYC or SF.
> Yes, we pay well.
And yet you never give a range. Last time I worked for a DARPA contractor, Google (this was the earlier days) basically hired every elite member of the R&D team in a weekend (exaggerating here, but not much) since both the pay and work was drastically better.
> One issue is that we expect programmers to remember linear algebra
Ah great, unjustified ego to boot! I'm sold!
I'm a US Citizen, work in a remote small company doing opensource work largely for the good of the world, likely paid roughly the same, it's nobody's business if I want to smoke weed, and most of the team has a quantitative PhDs (but would blush to mention it) and those that don't could easily teach a course on linear algebra.
I'm just one engineer, but I can't imagine applying at company like you describe. You might have better success hiring qualified applicants if you at least admitted how unattractive such a place is to the many engineers I've work ed with who use linear algebra everyday and tried to find some compromise.
> No, we don't pay as much as Meta.
Are you saying you pay well as comparing to the local McDonalds? That being said, my guess you can't find "qualified applicants" is because you are putting too many restrictions and paying too little. So you end up with students who will take anything and then you come here to complain about the lack of talent.
>> Are you saying you pay well as comparing to the local McDonalds?
That's just disgusting.
By chance has your employer posted on HN who’s hiring?
Ah, well. Nevertheless...
What’s the name of your employer?
Why? Linear Algebra is certainly something that can be learned faster than a degree in engineering. I expect the average software developer (someone that can understand algorithms) can achieve competency in less than a semester's worth of time. If someone is a good developer, learning specific skills sets for the domain is pretty normal.
Having had to go through one of those: yeah no shit. Not everyone enjoys a colonoscopy without anesthesia.
>You (even programmers!) have to touch the things we build in order to build them and nobody has an ISO certified clean room in their house.
I do, a keg at any rate, but given that I can't get a security clearance because of the people I hung out to build one - yeah.
If you're willing to sponsor me for a green card and wait five years, and you're located in a city I'd actually like to live, I might come work for you :)
Programmers who know linear algebra probably also know basic calculus & stats, so now you’re competing with companies hiring ML engineers.
I once applied to work a government project for a subcontractor and they were adding “headcount” simply because the terms of the subcontract required a specific number of people regardless of the amount of work required. They were essentially hiring people to do almost nothing. I spent over 3 months waiting for a response. Apparently their critical shortage wasn’t that critical because the hiring process was so long and convoluted and subject to “contract renewals,” that I simply gave up and went to work for someone else.
I could go on for days about the extreme waste and oftentimes outright fraud that happens in government contracting, subcontracting, and sub-sub contracting. And despite formerly having a TS/SCI clearance, any job in the “McLean Area,” pays less than most startups. And jobs in places like Huntsville pay even less. Even overseas work in “austere” environments pays less than a junior developer at Stripe. And you don’t get potentially shot at at Stripe — And I don’t have to work 100 levels deep for contractors or contractors of contractors on site using often circa 1996 development practices and lowest-bidder equipment managed by IT departments that seem to be led by dinosaurs and it can take weeks or months to simply requisition a dev server even within an unclassified cloud environment.
Why to do that for salaries/benefits that are lower than I could get as a janitor at Netflix?
Make the workplace/work environment and benefits compelling and you’ll get more applicants. Small startups literally have better benefits. You also don’t have to endure a Tier 5 investigation — the outcome of which entitles you to a job that pays so little comparatively.
FYI, a "US person" means a US citizen or a Permanent Resident.
You’ve repeatedly mentioned being unwilling to train linear algebra skills, but will train other things, so go recruit math nerds.
I have experienced applying for dozens, including those posted to HN: most won’t respond at all. Maybe months later you’ll get an auto-reject message. Or you’ll go through several interviews not to be selected, even while passing technical assessments. My colleagues and friends have similar experiences.
Well it's not ISO certified, and its more of a box than a room. But yes I do actually have access to a sterile (not sanitised) environment at home.
I can't work for you on account of my SA citizenship though. It looks like my only option to get that kind of clearance is to start my own company.
The simple answer is always they simply don't pay enough to attract the people with this skillset. If they paid as much as Meta (who they used as an example) they would certainly have way less issues with hiring.
The shortage on $5000 ferarris continues as well.
It takes forever and you're subjected to very intrusive scrutiny as well as potentially psychological tomfoolery like polygraphs.
Why would a qualified individual subject themselves to that unless they have no other option.
There's a reason clearance jobs have a reputation as make-work for ex service members.
I find this hard to believe. I'd totally get a security clearance, but no company seemingly offers it, they only want people who have a pre-existing clearance.
I don't understand what point you're trying to make. You're saying that a security clearance is a big problem or inconvenience that makes hiring more difficult so salary alone is not comparable... right, but the organization with that big problem is paying less. That's the problem.
> You (even programmers!) have to touch the things we build in order to build them
This sounds like an excuse. You think it's completely impossible to write code for some embedded device, robot, whatever remotely? Hire some cheaper remote hands, set up some telework equipment, voila now you can hire from all over the country.
I did development for a scanning optical microscope, was only once even in the same room with one, and even then never got to touch it.
Of course once that issue is eliminated, the security theater one will be raised next. People might be working from their bed next to a Russian honeypot or whatever. National security types tend to have vivid imaginations in that respect, and have to justify all their rules to themselves. The end result? "We can't find qualified applicants."
Btw I'm technically qualified, and in no way a security risk to the US, but you wouldn't be allowed to hire me. Perhaps the feds should figure out a way of doing security screening for foreign nationals. "Must be a citizen" seems like lazy bureaucratic BS. As if citizens can't be security risks?!
This is below COL in many areas. If you increase this to 125k like Bucees then you should be able to draw in more candidates.
If your pay is anywhere below minimum 75th but more realistically 90th percent market rate in your area your answer is obvious and you are just BSing or your employer is gaslighting you to keep pay down.
All the criteria (required security clearance, no opportunities for remote work, knowledge of skills not used very much outside of schooling without allowances for relearning on the job, only US citizens, etc) you listed automatically creates a hurdle to entry that isn't made up for without significantly higher pay than market rate.
You are not a US person as a visa holder. You are however a US person if you have permanent residency (green card).
This is just plain wrong. I'm wrapping up on a project where I wrote significant chunks of the flight software for a moon rover while being 99% remote. If you're requiring software engineers to be onsite regularly for non-cleared work, your process sucks, no exceptions.
ETA: By the way, I personally only went fully remote due to covid (although I moved away from the office and have no plans to return), but some of my coworkers have been remote for well over a decade, and this is a government agency. I've seen way better setups in private industry.
It's impossible to say for sure from the outside but a few factors that might be making it difficult for you to hire:
- A lot of tech workers value remote work these days.
- You aren't based in a location with a large enough talent pool for the work you do.
- Your company doesn't pay as well as you think, or has other details that turn off some potential applicants.
- It could be variance. There's a lot of randomness in the job market.
Do you consider developer applicants who learned linear algebra on their own or through a product like Math Academy?
Google, MS and other large tech companies do.
I get that this is a legitimate requirement here, but in many companies it just isn't. And this is a huge limiting factor. The way housing is nowdays, no way I'm moving for a job without a relo package.
This isn't necessarily "we can't find qualified applicants", but rather "...that we will pay enough to make this switch"
I don’t know why Brits, Canadians, kiwis and Aussies can’t get cleared for you guys. They are getting cleared at every level all the time. NSA, CIA, etc.
You must be a US citizen to work for my company. No "US Persons" (visa holders) or foreigners allowed.
You have to be eligible for a Secret security clearance. You don't have to get one if you don't want to as there is usually plenty of uncleared work to go around, but you have to be eligible in case that goes away and we need to put you in for a clearance.
We cannot find qualified applicants.
I've had this conversation many times on HN so here are some preemptive responses:
No, we don't make weapons for the military. Well, we do but not my part of the company. The most harmful thing the products I build do is quantify in precise detail how climate change is dooming us all.
No, our positions aren't ghost positions.
Yes, we are willing to train someone who is motivated. We won't re-teach linear algebra to a developer applicant but we will pay a tech writer to go to school nights/weekends to get a degree in engineering (me, I did that).
Yes, we have extensive high school and college work-study/internships and participants make $72k/yr. with full benefits for the duration of the program. That pipeline is actually successful.
No, you can't work remotely. You (even programmers!) have to touch the things we build in order to build them and nobody has an ISO certified clean room in their house.
Yes, we pay well.
No, we don't pay as much as Meta. We build components for satellites that have been sold to space agencies and purchased by various departments/ministries of the environment, not your personal information to advertisers-- one party has more money to spend than the other.
We have shortages in mech/EE/Aero, shortages in software, and critical shortages in engineering technicians.
One issue is that we expect programmers to remember linear algebra and have more than the ability to shovel frameworks on top of each other until a phone app comes out the other side.