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Comment by xhrpost | Hacker News Reader

Am I missing something? My employer is having a hard time filling a single developer position. We have 100 million people within a 10 hour drive and we've posted to HN and SO. We're not an elite startup paying tons of money with stock options, but if there is no work like the author says, it shouldn't be that hard. I have recruiters messaging me about jobs thousands of miles away. I talk to other developers in the area and they confirm the same problem.

I like the audio feature here by the way, I can listen while working, pretty awesome.

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Startups have a hard time hiring because they'll only hire ~28 year old white/Asian males with a carefully selected group of 20 resume buzzwords, that can code on a whiteboard with a gun to their head. Not surprisingly that niche is tapped.

And while getting a blowjob from Halle Berry?

i guess no one here saw Swordfish...

I have. Your remark is probably a little flippant for it to survive here (not necessarily a bad thing), but I enjoyed the reference. That scene always sticks in my head and makes me laugh — it’s great drama but so blatantly wrong in its portrayal of how hacking works (of course).

Yes, I did think of that scene but didn't mention it. Would argue however it wasn't great drama at all, though the movie was so bad it was good. Wasn't the guy named Torvalds, kkkkk?

Good news, someone fixed the scene:

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

Or they did, and are pointing out your mistake. It wasn't Berry in the interview scene.

Yes well I did take liberties and perform a remix.

Too old for OP. I looked at OP's posts and did some google work and if its the job in what amounts to west Toledo OH, they'll only hire new grads between the precise ages of 23 and 25. 28 would be far too old. Its weird because plenty of people between the ages of 22 and 67 would be capable of doing the job, but OP is only interested in 1/20th the age range. Perhaps that's why they get no bites. My resume would be auto-tossed for ageism reasons unless I filled it with lies, probably not the best way to start a relationship LOL. Presumably the extremely narrow acceptable age range implies you'll be fired in two years and now here you are 25 years old in western Toledo, wondering what to do for the next 50+ years.

I live six hours away and they won't remote, or pay relo. Doesn't matter if 100M people live within 10 hours... I'm not spending 20+ hrs/dy on a commute and the greater Toledo metro area is only half a million or so people.

The laundry list strategy for devops isn't going to work unless there's blind luck due to over 25M people in commute range like NYC. "can learn to do mostly anything quickly", that's me, no need to itemize down to "can lick envelopes to seal them" "can plug in AC power cords". I'm sure next month when the new flavor of the month is released I'll figure it out and use it, just like I've done for decades, and just like you'll expect your employees to master OTJ.

Wow, I don't even know how to respond to so many blatantly false statements. What did I do to tick you off? There certainly is no elitism or ageism with our hiring process, we've had few bites. Your notes on relo and remote I think are objectively valid and I have little influence to change that. It's entirely possible that our offer is not up to current market trends and that's worth objectively considering, your statements about ageism however, are not. I'm sorry if you've been burned by other companies due to age but that's simply not what we do, we hire plenty of talent across the age board.

I don't know VLM's problem, but I wrote to the startup industry in general. Picking on any particular company is somewhat unfair. It looks like you're at a slightly larger Co in OH, not really a tech hub. I suspect your hiring is a bit more inclusive there by necessity.

https://www.rootinc.com/about-us/our-people

It looks like they're doing OK, there are number of seemingly 40 year olds, a good sign, only one obvious 50+ year old though, the CEO. I see only one black person, and believe they are a higher percentage of the population out east. There's likely a lack of female programmers, but I'm too lazy to count them up from the list.

shrug, as I mentioned an industry-wide problem, don't take it personally.

P.S. I forgot about the beards! Preferred Qualifications: BEARD, hehe.

First of all sorry for my way too late apology. Based on the most reasonable way I can interpret your response, I think the situation is I (incorrectly) thought I found your unspecified job posting, and that posting which is apparently not yours, had a strict age requirement. My search result was made in good faith, certainly not an intentional error. Although ageism is in general an industry wide problem, worthy of theoretical discussion, even if it doesn't involve you, etc. Likewise my comments about someone else's devops job posting that I found, likely made no sense at all if that's not your posting. Best of luck to you in the future, etc etc.

Thanks for that. We certainly do not have an age requirement for the job. Not sure what job you found but I'm pretty sure age requirements are largely illegal in the U.S.

Oddly enough, working at a startup is pretty similar to coding on a whiteboard with a gun to your head :)

sigh you are not wrong, my friend

I'll take the gun please.

Dibs on the whiteboard!

I love it how every year the "age at which a startup will hire" increases by one year.

They must've put something in the water in 1987, because those '88 children "took our jobs" ten years in a row.

Or maybe you're just rehashing buzzwords, too. One of the two.

Sorry you'll have to be more clear.

The author means design work specifically.

Ok, we changed the title from "work has dried up" to "web design work is drying up". If someone can suggest a better (more accurate and neutral) description of the article, we can change this.

"demand for traditional web design is decreasing"? There is still plenty of demand for design work, but its moved to user interface and experience design. The change is mostly trivial but it reflects a more mature mind set when it comes to user acquisition and retention.

But I suppose scaring people into thinking they're losing their jobs will get more eyeballs.

Regarding audio, I agree and think this is an awesome way to make content more accessible/ARIA-friendly. You can't reasonably expect every page on the web to have a spoken version, but if I maintained a blog I'd be willing to narrate my posts. Screen readers can fill in the gaps elsewhere.

If you're having a hard time filling a position then you're not incentivizing people enough for it.

I'm generalizing from a personal experience here, but usually if you're asking for a certain skill-set and not getting anyone for it, then the compensation is probably off.

+1000. It’s not like developers are licensed and only so many exist. The reality is you can’t find someone with the experience and talent you would like, who is interested in your company, team, product, location, and compensation. Tough to change some of these, but upping the compensation or lowering your standards are fairly easy. Crying shortage in an unlicensed profession is getting really annoying. You either don’t have the resources to compete at the level you’d like or you are talking your book trying to drive down wages in a bid for more government subsidized training or increased immigration. While I agree with more CS/tech in schools and robust immigration policies (I feel they both work to make a country stronger), some people in SV/VC land definitely have ulterior motives and a stake in the game when talking about shortages and policies to address them.

> I like the audio feature here by the way, I can listen while working, pretty awesome.

Yeah, great idea! I might start doing this myself for my own blog.

Out of interest, were you looking for a freelancer to join the team, or to hire a permanent. The message form the article that I gather is that companies are hiring more in house, and freelancers are getting left behind.

From my own experience, I have been responsible for hiring an in house permanent team of front end web developers and back end web developers. The funny part is, I'm a freelancer on contract managing this team of in house 'web designers'.

As for the audio, I completely agree. It made the whole article feel much more personal, engaging and easy to consume.

The audio feature is great - for a low volume blog, it's a fantastic idea.

That said, I wish she would have improved and processed the recording a little further. Noise reduction, a basic compressor and gate would have gone a long way towards making it sound a little more professional. Still, very nice feature.

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