>> Please tell me where all these seniors are coming from, because we certainly couldn't find a single qualified one during twelve+ months of interviewing.
I'm not sure what the company's situation is but when I see these challenges, there are usually one of several issues:
1. Companies are expecting senior devs but not willing to give Senior pay
2. Companies are giving senior pay, perhaps on a national scale, but the pay is not sufficient for the region (e.g., 200k for a senior dev in the Bay Area is barely enough)
3. Companies are in an area w/o talent and are expecting relocations without sufficient risk permium given the cyclical nature of the tech job market
4. Expecting long hours but unwilling to pay sufficiently for employees to afford 24-hr childcare.
I was naive 20yrs ago. This may be obvious, but it wasnt obvious to me 20yrs ago, so let me address the three above common causes
1. There is a strong correlation between senior dev and mature lives -- senior devs often have children, mortgages, dental payments, college tuition. This means you cant give them ramen-pay. The typical response on HN is "well if you marry another person at FAANG..." -- ok let me stop you there. My wife doesnt work at FAANG. She's not an engineer. Most devs dont have spouses at a FAANG, so you cant rely on some mysterious FAANG spouse who's subsidizes your company's poor pay.
2. A to-remain-unnamed Series A company in the Bay cold-reached out to me offering 120k/yr cash for a Staff engr role. That works for three dudes in bunk beds eating ramen. Except I cant bunk with three dudes if I have two kids. Nor can our family of four stay in a studio apartment. Also, you cant pay rent with illiquid stock options in a series A firm even if the options vested already.
3. This is less obvious, because the current bull cycle has been so long. But dev jobs come and go. Companies die and new comapnies are born. This is fine in NY/SF but a major problem in some rural city. You cant easily uproot a family and move to middle-of-nowhere for a job that may only last a year. It is very disruptive to families. So you have to pay -- a lot -- to make up for this. Otherwise, few are willing to take the risk. If someone does take the risk, they may be commuting and maintaining two residences, so you have to overpay for that.
4. Senior devs often have children. School drop-offs, pick-ups, etc. If you want senior devs to work long hours, you need to pay sufficiently for them to afford 24hr child care. Or you give them flexibility, or you give them remote.
I dont think there is any mysterious job shortage or worker shortage. A lot of it is economics and the struggle of raising children, paying for school districts, death-by-a-thousand-cuts of medical copays/coinsurance, paying for childrens' braces, etc.