Entrepreneurs: Struggling to Recruit Software Engineers

This has been my problem with all of these articles of late. Companies need to face the fact that, regardless of relocation package, people don't want to relocate. The only option is to either deal with job hoppers in your inbred local talent pool, hire from overseas or start looking at ways to make telecommuting work.

On the overseas part, I know some seriously talented ruby developers who would love to come work in the states. My h1b experience is fairly ancient (2001) but I can think of one guy right now who has serious chops and has the code to back it up.

I agree, and a lot of companies, even high-tech are still not comfortable with telecommuting. IBM is probably one of the better ones I have seen for encouraging a telecommuting workforce, but anyways I am getting off on a tangent with who does what.

As a freelancer in Florida and soon the be based in the Florida Keys (which has no tech whatsoever), telecommuting is my lifeblood. I have a strategy that I employ extensively when I really need a gig, my network comes up dry and I cannot find any postings for telecommute freelancing.

What I do is try to get a meeting with the decision maker and sell them on telecommute, this generally revolves around things like a money back guarantee if they try me for 2 weeks and do not like me. They get to walk, no pay no questions asked. the only stipulation I place on it is that they have to give me feedback on what I could have done better should they decide to walk.

I have landed quite a few gigs this way and as of yet have never had to eat 2 weeks. I only do this for 3-6 mo+ gigs that way I don't risk providing 60-70% of the work for them to take and have someone else wrap up. I also try to get them on a Skype teleconference ASAP in which I do a screen share and run them through a presentation, so that they can see for themselves, rather early on, that the technology is there to easily collaborate.

For a few of them, I have changed the entire dynamic of their organization. I remember a call with a hiring manager (now a good friend of mine) in which he said "You have really opened my eyes, I am no longer constrained to the best available in my market, but can find the best available in many markets".

This is only my case, so take it for what it is worth and I caution that while I do take a lot of generalist contracts I also have a specialization that I am know for. That specilization is web Accessibility development for persons with disabilities as well as Javascript / REST based web applications. There are not a lot of people who do Accessibility for JS based web apps, so the phone rings a lot from people looking for me. But I do still have to get out and pound the pavement now and then.

Anyways, some people don't know that an alternative exists and somethings it just takes some confidence for people to give you a chance. It has worked for me.

Right, if you are using a salary site, it has been my observation that they are not correct whether it is a vast corporate conspiracy or just an anomaly ever time I check them they seem to under represent the reality of the market from 15-20%. Which is weird because you would think that the reporting person would inflate their earning to try to inflate the market. Maybe they are telling the truth and the sites have logic to try to account for an inflation that is not being falsely represented. Anyway, point is check you data source and ensure that it is reliable you may not be as far above the market as you assume you are.

Right the operative word being good here, Almost all developers consider themselves good. Reality diverges from that point.

I always considered myself to be slightly above average developer. I have worked with a lot of smart guys some MIT alumni some self taught and among them I was average. It was not until, I ventured out into larger organizations that I got smacked with the reality of the passionless developer, that somehow learned enough to get a job but has no interest in technology other than it provides a fairly decent paycheck. I was stunned by this reality, up until this point I had worked in simulation, start-ups and small shops with really passionate guys who took pride in their code. When I first encountered the passionless developer I was appalled by their absolute disinterest in quality of code. Further many of them considered themselves to be senior and on par with the best of the best because their entire development existence has been in a sea of mediocrity.

True story, I remember when the shift started taking place for web apps. When the cool kids where starting to write the front-end in JavaScript and shooting off XHR request to the back end to get info and update the page dynamically, when they started dumping the bulky server side frameworks for more nimble and rapid client side toolkits.

I was at a fairly sizable organization and this stuff was by no means cutting edge anymore and I said you know, we should start doing some prototypes with this app architecture and see if it is advantageous. We already know that it produces a superior product in terms of usability so lets see if we can come up with a development process that is more efficient than we use now and give it a try. The response was well it's not Java and we are Java developers from a good deal of the team, the idea of not using a Java framework, to do web development, was hericy in their eyes.

I was floored, I had never identified myself as a (X) developer and the reality that people do smacked me in the face pretty hard. So the point is if someone is an (X) developer, chances are they are not as good as they think they are. Development is about applying technology to problems not applying technology (X) to problems. If a developer has already constructed that box around themselves it lends evidence to the fact that they might not posses the though process or creative thinking required to be a great developer.