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Comment by ryandrake | Hacker News Reader

Instead of hiring a developer that would drag you down, did you consider offering more money? When people say there's a shortage of developers, or that they find it really hard to find developers, my guess is that they have to add "at the salary I'm offering" to the end of the statement.

I was car shopping a few months ago, and I found there's a dire shortage of brand new $10K BMWs.

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Seriously. Virtually all people complaining about hiring are way off base on compensation. If they were to increase (sometimes they literally need to double) comp, they'd see things get a lot easier.

When people say there's a shortage of developers, or that they find it really hard to find developers, my guess is that they have to add "at the salary I'm offering" to the end of the statement.

Or they have a hiring process and that weeds out top performers. And/or they have a hiring funnel that appeals to the bottom of the barrel.

I'd agree if they were talking bout "top" developers. But, not everyone needs top developers. Lots of people are simply saying We can't find developers, period, which is baffling, until you find out what they're offering in terms of comp.

Tomato, tomahto. He said "talented" developers and he also said they make offers to 1 in 5 candidates. Based on that, it sounds like they have a steady pool of candidates, so by definition they can find "developers." They reject 80% of them for some reason. Either their hiring process weeds out good candidates, their funnel isn't attracting the right kinds of devs to begin with, or there's an X factor, like they're located in an expensive city with the highest concentration of software companies on the planet (ie: lots of competition for anyone who can even spell fizzbuzz).

Or all three, which was my experience with about a dozen different companies in SF last October. I chose to take the job where I wasn't humiliated during the interview.

> I chose to take the job where I wasn't humiliated during the interview.

It's funny how this is a legitimate filter, from the job-seeker's point of view. And, by "funny" I mean "a sad testament to SV tech interviews".

Is $150k for a strong full-stack midcareer developer really like trying to get a $10k BMW? What compensation range would you shoot for?

We're shopping in that compensation range and my experience has been exactly like cairo140's above: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9964934

Keep going up until the candidate pool improves? Just a personal anecdote: Even though I loved writing software, I moved up and away from development (after 12+ years) mostly because of the salary ceiling we all inevitably eventually hit. But I keep my skills sharp and would always go back for the right price. $150K would definitely not be the right price, at least not in the Bay Area. My guess is there are tons of guys like this out there.

Thanks for the willingness to discuss actual numbers. Using the BLS stats tool that falsestprophet linked below [1] I dug up some numbers. This is for the the "Software Developers, Applications" occupation:

    Area                               median      75%ile      90%ile
    Chicago, IL Metropolitan           $88,630     $109,640    $126,370
    Los Angeles, CA Metropolitan       $102,310    $126,340    $150,320
    San Francisco, CA Metropolitan     $112,570    $143,390    $174,120
    San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara CA  $137,710    $166,280    >$187,000

I'm from the midwest so my frame of reference is where $150k will get you well into in the 90s percentile-wise. I'm conducting my hunt in the LA area. And just so we're on the same page I included Bay Area numbers. Is $180-200k (on the 190 to 200 side) closer to the right number, with the Bay Area as a frame of reference?

[1] http://data.bls.gov/oes/search.jsp?data_tool=OES

Ahh, midwest changes the equation for sure. Maybe try disclosing a salary _range_ in the description? Without knowing the details of the job, it's hard to tell if there's something in the description driving interest away. If it's exactly like cairo140's job, it may be simply too much for a single person. Here's what he/she was asking for, and I'll take a stab at breaking it down into the fewest mere-mortal-sized job reqs that I can:

Role 1: top to bottom web app security, server ops, zero downtime rollouts, performance and architecture (shared)

Role 2: metrics/instrumentation, fully-independent backend, HTML/CSS/JS skills, integrating third-party modules, performance and architecture (shared)

Role 3: managing technical vendor relationships, work the indirectly technical parts, technical hiring, capacity planning, expectations management, performance and architecture (shared)

These are still three pretty loaded-up people! Even if there was one person capable of and willing to do this all, their current job title is likely "founder of their own startup".

> Even if there was one person capable of and willing to do this all, their current job title is likely "founder of their own startup".

I'm doing a decent chunk of that, aware of the parts I'm doing shitty, and that is my job title. :)

I was talking recruiting with a mentor. He said some of his best hires were founders he met at startup events looking to regroup and earn a paycheck after the failure of their own startup. Dark—but insightful.

Probably solid advice. Best of luck to you :)

Also, my guess would be that the median numbers reported by BLS include many people who have had the same job for 5-10 years and are being paid 2005-level salaries and not 2015 levels. In an upward-trending market, averages/medians over the entire employment base will under-estimate the current market rate.

I've seen those numbers as well, as part of a regional roundup on US News Best Jobs.

One very interesting realization I had looking through the data is that software development, at the median, isn't an especially well paid field. Dental Hygenists in SF earn almost as much at the median, and registered nurses earn much more.

Overall, I think a big part of why this "shortage" exists is that the work is very difficult for the pay, and that career stability and age related employment issues may actually be considerably worse.

I know this is hard for employers to accept, but salaries may have to rise dramatically before people with citizenship or residency status that allows for career choice are willing to commit to software development. For now, I really do think one reason we are able to staff these positions at "market rate" is that we have created a visa program that essentially prevents a large number of tech workers from changing fields (i.e.., there are serious obstacles to coming to the US on an H1B as a software developer and deciding to retrain as a dental hygienist, this kind of personal and professional freedom is not permitted under this visa).

Yes, it is. You can't just say "I should be able to get x for y". You are in dreamland, pure and simple.

Help me out of dreamland. I've got some money. I want good help, but I'm a dev and this is my first time hiring. What compensation range would you expect for the type of developer in cairo140's description?

I'm in the midwest for reference, but hiring remotely in the bay area is legit too.

As someone else replied, cairo140 needs to break his job description into 4 separate job reqs. My guess is that he or she will probably not find a single person capable of or willing to wear all of those hats simultaneously, for any salary. The job description is totally unreasonable.

Try 250k and see the responses.

Cool, thank you for the concrete number.

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