Hacker News Reader

Comment by jsprogrammer | Hacker News Reader

Simple supply and demand analysis shows that goods command higher prices when supply is lower.

And indeed the supply of good engineers is low. If Facebook insists on hiring only them, then it makes sense that they're paying more on average.

One cannot simply pay more on average. The demand for good engineers is high and Facebook must compete for them.

I believe supply and demand with market rates is a much bigger factor on the average Facebook engineer salary than the quality of the engineer. For one, we are only dealing with a discrepancy on the order of 40-50%. Is a good engineer only 40-50% better than an average engineer?

we're using made-up numbers here, but, 10% ought to be enough of a premium to recruit the best devs, all else being equal about the jobs.

Better devs should have better options than less skilled developers, so if you have a high hiring bar you will be dealing with competitors trying to get those same employees. I don't think 10% over a standard offer would cover a competitors offer.

But probably not enough to convince people to change jobs.

> Facebook insists on hiring only them

They insist only on hiring those who pass their interview.

Seems to overlap with the set of good devs, but it's definitely not the entire set.

Which hey, good for them I guess.

There is no shortage of iPhones, yet they are expensive.

Really? Because every time new iPhone hits the stores I keep seeing news about how they were sold out in one day, or how Apple online store has a shortages of this or that version.

He used the term "no shortage" not to literally say that it is possible to obtain an iPhone no matter what, but rather to mean "I see lots of them around". Indeed, a lot of people have iPhones.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com