Maybe it's different in the US but in Europe companies still struggle to find good job candidates. They get tons of applications of course but they aren't good/experienced enough. Basically many companies' bottleneck is hiring.
Dude. I beg of you, to stop repeating the propaganda that big tech so desperately wants you, and everyone else to believe.
There is NOT a shortage in developers. There NEVER WAS.
Big Tech simply couldn't stomach the rise in salaries that we saw between 2005 and 2017/2018. This all comes down to cost. There's plenty of talent not just in the US, but abroad. But big tech continues to see a need to drive prices down, and profits up. The best way to do that? Pay employees less.
Trust me when I say that programming is a blue collar job in 10 years. Big tech has done a phenomenal job convincing even engineers, that the pool of talent is "so small" that their job couldn't possibly be at risk if everyone and their mother gets a CS degree.
> I beg of you, to stop repeating the propaganda that big tech so desperately wants you, and everyone else to believe.
I fell for this hard. I was in high school reading blog left and right about how in demand programmers were and that you didn't even really need college because it was too much theory, not solving the problems companies want.
So I decided, why take all that time when I could make make money right out of high school. Turns out, that decision hsa kinda screwed me now.
Now I did get started before some of the hype. I guess it was there, but not as prominent or in my face. I do general enjou programming and solving problems and it's not just a money thing for me. Unfortunately, I feel my decisions will choke my career eventually.
That has nothing to do with a shortage of engineers. There are plenty of engineers, just none that are willing to work for 70k a year.
There is a salary divide between what big companies can pay, and what little companies can pay. That's drawing a significant portion of the talent away from the smaller labor market.
Either the smaller companies need to consider hiring more junior engineers (of which there are plenty). Or they need to make their offers more attractive.
Or we recognize that steering more students towards programming is good both for their career and the economy. It is only people who wants developers to stay better paid than other similar fields who thinks that it isn't a shortage.
The reason software engineering pay so much better than similar fields is since there is a lack of software engineers. Encouraging people to pick that option in order to lower wages to similar levels as other fields makes perfect sense, don't you agree?
Having a hard time finding employees does not necessarily mean there is a shortage of employees. There are two sides to this market. What are the companies doing right who are successfully finding people? How much are they offering in compensation?
The past two companies I've worked for had nearly as many interns as FTEs on some teams. My current company has about 1/8th of the building dedicated to engineering intern cubes, and they are packed in like sardines too.
When speaking with former colleagues, the topic of interns often comes up. I had drinks with some last week who mentioned her team had so many interns that some FTEs needed to double-up to manage them all.
It could be regional. When I was coming up, internships were rarely a thing. I was never one and hadn't even seen an CS intern until a few years back. Seeing companies go from 0% to 40% of engineering staff as interns over the course of four years is pretty striking.
That sounds like disaster waiting to happen. Just thinking about my skills as an intern vs. my skills now: good luck to that employer when, 3 years down the line, most of the interns and current FTE's have left and the code is unreadable.
For senior tech employees there's a big drain from Europe towards USA; if you have the experience and skills then it's feasible to get much more money across the pond, as tech salaries in Europe tend to be lower than USA even if we exclude the Silicon Valley salary peak.
