Comment by geebee | Hacker News Reader

Comment by geebee | Hacker News Reader

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Would you be willing to post the salary you are offering, along with some information about what you consider to be a qualified candidate? Absolutely fine if you want to keep it general, I'm just curious about what people mean when they say they can't find a qualified candidate.

One big problem I have with the H1B visa is that it was created in response to an alleged "shortage". I'm very enthusiastic about creating a general skilled immigration under a points program (like Australia or Canada), but I'm far less enthusiastic about specific visa programs designed to remedy shortages in a particular and narrow segment of the economy. As you can probably tell, I'm one of those people who doesn't really believe that "shortages" of workers exist in a properly functioning market. I wouldn't rule it out completely, as we don't have a true free market and there are externalities to consider, but in general, I think most companies talking about shortages are really just having trouble hiring at the rate they want to pay.

Double or triple that salary, and you'll get your engineers. If that's too expensive, then maybe the talent you seek has just found higher value things to work on. One extremely regrettable aspect of the H1B is that it restricts mobility. Yes, changing jobs in related fields is possible and common, but an H1B holder can't stay on that visa to go to med or law school, start a new company, or respond rationally to all kinds of market signals they way free people in a free economy would be able to... and the ugly truth is that this is part of the appeal of this visa to some companies - a captive engineering workforce with all the market distortions that brings.

FYI, we could not hire anyone. Finally, we lost those open reqs because management decided so. Most smart engineer we interviewed, ended up having multiple offers from more cool companies.

it would have been 85k-95k for an entry level. In short, it was up to the standards in bay area for skills and experience.

What kind of salary were you offering for the more senior position?

Do you think you would have been more successful hiring a Jr dev at a much higher salary? Say, 120K? That would still low for a graduate of a top law school.

I know this will cause sticker shock, but that may be what it takes.

Honestly, I do not have salary data. However, for sure, the salaries were in average or above range. You should check some salary stats. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3141716

It seems to me that there is a disconnect here. You mentioned that you were losing out on "smart engineers" with "multiple offers from cool companies". Then you discuss how your company is offering salaries in the "average or above range." It sounds to me like your company is experiencing exactly the outcome you'd expect.

There is no disconnect. I am just saying that how much harder it is to hire when your company is not Google, Facebook, Dropbox etc..

The part where I see a disconnect is when you mentioned "Though there could be a huge number of american engineers, it simply doesn't match the demand at present."

I see this as a function of supply and demand. I haven't studied economics formally (beyond the examples in my math classes), but I understand that economists talk of a demand curve and supply curve. At lower prices, consumers tends to demand more of a product or service but producers supply less. At higher prices, produces have an incentive to supply more but consumers tend to demand less. The point where the supply and demand curves meet is considered the market equilibrium.

Right now, it sounds like prices (salaries) for engineers haven't hit equilibrium. 80-90k may sound like a lot, but clearly the economy is demanding more engineers at this level than the market will supply. I don't know where that equilibrium point will be, but considering the number of very lucrative career paths smart people have available to them, I suspect it's going to be quite a bit higher.

"but clearly the economy is demanding more engineers at this level than the market will supply"

Exactly, that was my original point.

Well, this debate is getting a little stale over a few days. The disconnect is in the phrase "at this level".

You can always find a salary point at which any good or service will appear to be in "shortage". And you can always find a salary at which there will appear to be a glut. Sounds like there's a big shortage of 80k/yr engineers, but absolutely no shortage of 160k/yr engineers.

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