High-Tech Worker Shortage Claim is a Lie

jamin wrote:

The STEM hype is cloaked in half-truths. Wall Street Journal makes it seem like we're still in the dot-com bubble days, when you could hired if you could so much as spell the word "I.T." If you're not from New Dehli and don't have 5-10 yrs experience, then you need a CS degree from MIT, 2 lucrative summer internships, a 3.9 GPA and be able to pass 3 rounds of "programming" interviews that are bizarre hazing rituals. There are plenty of STEM majors working on Bourbon Street:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXpwAOHJsxg

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For you:

Web development is now the largest part of computer science, any most jobs MAY require a degree OR equivalent experience, and this is about the easiest are to get into because you can start with friends and neighbors. If you have more than 5 for a portfolio, some company may give you a chance.

Pay for Web Developers aka scripting is not hot anymore given free Linux and low cost Unix. It's not so hot for CS/SW either anymore. Outsourcing to low wage nations has provided downward pressure on domestic rates.

It's somewhat good for embedded chip firmware developers with Electrical Engineering backgrounds but dropping fast due to low cost embedded development systems.

Devil's advocate here...in a free market economy, what is wrong with getting the cheapest (but legal) labor you can afford. This is not very different from what has been going in the manufacturing industries. Americans want to make $30 an hour assembling silly plastics parts while this can be done very cheaply in other countries for a such a low price that even shipping the assembled product back to the US still results in a significant profit margin.

coach d wrote:

For you:

http://www.techrepublic.com/article/do-programmers-still-need-a-computer-science-degree-to-land-a-great-job/?tag=nl.e099&s_cid=e099&ttag=e099&ftag=TREd8c0fa8

Web development is now the largest part of computer science, any most jobs MAY require a degree OR equivalent experience, and this is about the easiest are to get into because you can start with friends and neighbors. If you have more than 5 for a portfolio, some company may give you a chance.

Here's the truth: Out of all the job openings in tech,

* 99% of them aren't taking a second look at your resume if you don't have at least a couple years of professional experience with an alphabet soup of modern technologies.

* Of the 1% that are open to hire at what could reasonably be called a "Junior" or "Entry" level, 90% of them aren't taking a second look at your resume if you don't have a CS or related technical degree.

So yea, there's a chance. Is it worth it spending hundreds of hours applying for jobs until you get a chance??? Is it worth it spending your free time trying to self-learn and sharpen skills? From my experience, no. It's a waste of time. If you didn't major in CS and have an internship, then you missed your chance at ever getting a good tech job. Sure, if you get your foot in the door with an $11/hr web dev job, you may, after 5 years, be making something like $80,000. Big deal! I have friends who never went to college but got manufacturing jobs at Boeing and make that much when you factor in benefits.

There exist glamorous tech jobs, but you have to set yourself on the right path starting in high school and you have to go all-out. My friend, a recent college grad who works for Google, makes $125,000, plus free wifi at his apartment, plus a company card he can use every day for free lunches at any restaurant of his choice, plus a ton of other benefits, and he's doing work that is genuinely neat and exciting. But he has an impressive college resume that took tons of dedication and competitiveness to build. There are only so many good jobs to go around. For boring, run-of-the-mill tech work, companies just hire consulting firms or droves of H1B Visa guys.

HR Veep in the 94014 wrote:

The shortage of US Anglo-White STEM graduates

Quit saying "STEM." How many people with math degrees do you hire? Other than the occasional Ph.D. who can get you a lucrative patent, I expect it's nearly zero. You're looking for "STE."

As for your whine about the "few Americans" with the precious specializations you seek, the reason for it is very simple.

1) you are too lazy, cheap and spoiled to train anybody - it is up to them to train themselves,

2) College is more expensive in America than in almost all other countries,

3) There are many times more people in those other countries than there are in America, and

4) Many of them want to work in America because it is a very wealthy country.

In China, for example, college is so cheap that they don't need a student loan system. In Europe, it is usually a small fraction of annual income, and in Germany and Sweden it is free. Which grad is going to spend extra to become an expert at polymer engineering - the foreigner with money to spare or the American with $40,000 in student loan debt? Not the American, unless he gets a GTF.

There is plenty of interest in tech education in the US, but no money to make it happen. And the attitude of those who would benefit most from it - "we don't have the time" - makes matters worse. You and your company should be shipped off to Korea where you belong.

"Silicod Valley is for primo high techies who are willing to roll the dice. We have no time to coddle people."

Yet you are begging to BE CODDLED and have someone else pay and spend the time for training.

"Most companies have only enough money in the bank for two months before bankruptcy."

This is the actual problem. If you only have money in the bank for two months you should NOT BE HIRING.

Startups with VPs of HR should be shut down immediately. You haven't done anything yet and you are just trying to look good long enough to get bought out. If being bought out happens for a few great but that is not a viable business plan for half an industry.

Can't figure out why the last two posters are responding to Randy. I thought everybody had learned to ignore his transparent rantings. At least he didn't mention the Rift Valley, USC, Mongol Hordes, or any of the other crap he goes on about.

jamin wrote:

If you didn't major in CS and have an internship, then you missed your chance at ever getting a good tech job. Sure, if you get your foot in the door with an $11/hr web dev job, you may, after 5 years, be making something like $80,000. Big deal! I have friends who never went to college but got manufacturing jobs at Boeing and make that much when you factor in benefits.

I've been in IT for 15 years and only make $85k. I don't think that's a bad salary (though -- I'm in the midwest, where cost of living is far lower). My employees make between $38k and $52k. Some with 10+ years of experience.

Most people would be really happy making $80k after 5 years.....just because you have a friend at Google making $125k doesn't mean that's the norm.

Well, duh wrote:

just because you have a friend at Google making $125k doesn't mean that's the norm.

I didn't say it was.

There's so much bullshit in this thread it's comical. Jamin, you're an idiot. That is all.

jamin wrote:

If you're not from New Dehli and don't have 5-10 yrs experience, then you need a CS degree from MIT, 2 lucrative summer internships, a 3.9 GPA and be able to pass 3 rounds of "programming" interviews that are bizarre hazing rituals

jamin wrote:

* Of the 1% that are open to hire at what could reasonably be called a "Junior" or "Entry" level, 90% of them aren't taking a second look at your resume if you don't have a CS or related technical degree.

jamin wrote:

If you didn't major in CS and have an internship, then you missed your chance at ever getting a good tech job. Sure, if you get your foot in the door with an $11/hr web dev job, you may, after 5 years, be making something like $80,000.

125k in san fran is not a good deal, no matter what you are doing. cost of living probably eats up most of that. i work in the midwest, do information security for around 80k a yr, 4 yrs experience, have relatively low experience, and probably a better standard of living.

94086 wrote:

Actually I can't find enough kids with biomed, genetics, and engineering experience for my startup in Sunnyvale. Every week, we get hundreds of emails from headhunters, thumb through them, and skype some. Almost none have any interest in what we do or can disuss what it is to finish a project and prove what has been accomplished.

Let's see.

Salary range for a CEO is what-- 1-10 M$?

Salary range for an MD is what--300-500 k$?

Salary range for an JD patent atty is what--300-500 k$?

Salary range for an STEM worker is what--60-120 k$?

It looks like the true shortage is with talented CEO's, then MD's and patent attorneys.

I bet we could recruit some incredibly talented CEO's from overseas who were willing to work for 100-200 k$. Give them all visas and pass the savings on the shareholders.

CS Recruiter wrote:

Pay for Web Developers aka scripting is not hot anymore given free Linux and low cost Unix.

This statement doesn't make any sense.

I have served on the boards of many high tech companies. The problem is not a generic "high tech worker" shortage but a shortage of workers with specific skills.

Workers are not fungible. They have particular skills and every company needs a different range of skills. If you need a C++ programmer with knowledge of cryptography and an understanding of chip design, you cannot hire a Java programmer with web page composition experience.

Today China and India graduate hundreds of thousands more people with specific high tech competences than we do. It's just a fact of life. This thread suggests the problem. No one wants to hire people who believe they are entitled to high salaries despite their unwillingness even to accept equity or options in the company and despite their lack of the particular special skills the company needs.

If you want a job with a specific company, you have to find out what those skills are and master them. In effect, you have to be on track to become a "world champion" in a particular event.

Nearly all tech startups have to pay with shares and options. That's how the system works. It's like running. You don't get significant pay until you perform. Performance is everything; credentials are almost meaningless. I flunked out of college. But I mastered skills. No one ever has asked me about my college record or credentials.

Most startups have little money, but some have a huge upside. If you don't believe in the startup or are not capable of appraising its prospects, you shouldn't apply for a "job" there. Among startups, there are few high tech "jobs," but many opportunities. Credentials are irrelevant if you have the skills.

Today pursuing most of these opportunities are immigrants who take the trouble to master the necessary skills. Google, Apple, Intel, and the rest of the high tech sector that spearheads the US economy could not function without the special skills and aptitudes of immigrants. This is not a matter of cheap workers; it is a matter of indispensable competence.

High tech companies do hire American lawyers, execs, marketers, finance, accounting and sales people who collectively comprise the majority of their employees. Many of these employees later master technical skills that enable them to start new companies themselves, offering options and equity to attract people who believe in their project.

low pay/run-of-the-mill career areas are jobs in tech are for: textiles, nuclear, automobiles, web, windows, mac, iOS, android, etc.

genetics, nano-tech, clean tech is where the huge bucks is now. study that.

This was basically the only response worth reading in the whole thread. If you have truly served on the boards of these companies, thanks for your input.

As student, I take a look at your proposition and say, "No thanks!". Essentially, you're asking the worker to take on all of the risk. Not only do I have to invest time and money into learning a niche skill that may be obsolete in a few years, I also have to take on the risk of your company in terms of equity or stock options? I look at areas like medicine, finance, law, accounting or management and see similar salaries with much less risk involved.

Sure, foreigners are willing to take this risk proposition because the rewards are much larger relative to what they would make otherwise. By the way, China and India should be graduating more students with high tech competencies -- their collective population is about 2.6 billion. A per capita, or per vacancy measure is much more appropriate.

I would invite you to read this paper (http://www.epi.org/publication/bp359-guestworkers-high-skill-labor-market-analysis/) paying special attention to these two points:

"1. In computer and information science and in engineering, U.S. colleges graduate 50 percent more students than are hired into those fields each year; of the computer science graduates not entering the IT workforce, 32 percent say it is because IT jobs are unavailable, and 53 percent say they found better job opportunities outside of IT occupations. These responses suggest that the supply of graduates is substantially larger than the demand for them in industry.

2. Over the past decade IT employment has gradually increased, but it only recovered to its 2000–2001 peak level by the end of the decade. Wages have remained flat, with real wages hovering around their late 1990s levels."

With flat real wages, your sector is not sending the right signals to the labor market.

Start offering CEO-, MD-, or JD-like salaries to tech workers and you'll find plenty of people willing to master "the special skills and aptitudes of immigrants."

It is amazing how the free market works like that.

Yikes. If true, good argument NOT to enroll in such a career. Lottery mentality. Winner take all. No thanks. I'll urge my offspring to go into medicine, law, or dentistry. Guaranteed good professions proven for decades. And they don't go obsolete so fast.

vivalarepublica wrote:

This was basically the only response worth reading in the whole thread. If you have truly served on the boards of these companies, thanks for your input.

ggilder wrote:

I have served on the boards...

..snip...