patrick.net

wthrfrk80 says

exas seems to be the last place left in America with any real industry

I don't mean to sound like a broken record but if you're a tech worker, move to TX ASAP, and work your way to a VP, Director, or Senior/Top-level Engineering job. It may be the best career decision of your life. If you delay in this, other younger kids will take this path and then, you'll also be facing more competition down the road. Right now, I get recruiters (& friends) from Houston & Dallas calling me regularly. Sorry, forgot about Austin & San Antonio, as both of those towns are also huge for IT. I knew a couple, worked hard in Boston, never had enough money for a house ... moved to Austin, bought a house in cash, and now, have nothing but savings accruing.

Rin says

The story isn't over yet; mark my words!

Yes. i do understand.. i been in Tech industry for 3 decades, going on to 4.

Rin says

It may be the best career decision of your life.

Maybe, but everyone already knows this. Following the herd is rarely a good idea.

Rin says

If you delay in this, other younger kids will take this path and then, you'll also be facing more competition down the road.

Buy now or be priced out forever! ;-)

wthrfrk80 says

Maybe, but everyone already knows this. Following the herd is rarely a good idea.

Can always move back. This is America, after all, and trying a new city (unless it's Detroit) never hurts :-)

Rin says

Can always move back. This is America, after all, and trying a new city (unless it's Detroit) never hurts :-)

and in some cases they come to you.. since we saw plenty of Texas based tech companies acquiring SV companies for some time now.. Dell and Texas Instruments come to mind. I dont know how long they will stick around. The Japanese and Europeans certainly left town after a few years of buying up the Semi companies.

The thing about Texas is that normal houses there, go from under $200K to $350K. Compared to Boston, New York, Chicago, SF, LA, etc, that's a staggeringly low price but in comparing job positions, between Boston and Dallas, I've found salary differences of only 15% for the top tier categories. So a senior systems/performance consultant, earning ~$110K in Boston, he can find a similar position for Dallas at ~$90K. In Boston, however, that house would go for $600K whereas in Dallas, it would be $220K.

Rin says

The thing about Texas is that normal houses there, go from under $200K to $350K. Compared to Boston, New York, Chicago, SF, LA, etc, that's a staggeringly low price but in comparing job positions, between Boston and Dallas, I've found salary differences of only 15% for the top tier categories.

Absolutely. That's why I have considered moving to Houston because of the ratio of good-paying engineering jobs relative to house prices. But family is in the Pittsburgh, PA area. And the scenery is nicer here. Not having winter would be nice though. Decisions decisions.

HRHMedia says

CaptainShuddup says

I actually work

CaptainShuddup says

I can't find a kid to mentor to save my life,

CaptainShuddup says

I actually work for a company that chucks Young applicants resumes in the garbag

Social Media Guru Since 1999

Cut the Crap Aladdin.

wthrfrk80 says

not having winter would be nice though

If you can handle continuous high humidity/hot temp weather, then Houston's the place. Normally for me, tropical climates take about 3+ weeks to adapt to. What you save in housing costs can easily be applied towards your AC bill :-)

Rin says

wthrfrk80 says

exas seems to be the last place left in America with any real industry

I don't mean to sound like a broken record but if you're a tech worker, move to TX ASAP, and work your way to a VP, Director, or Senior/Top-level Engineering job. It may be the best career decision of your life. If you delay in this, other younger kids will take this path and then, you'll also be facing more competition down the road. Right now, I get recruiters (& friends) from Houston & Dallas calling me regularly. Sorry, forgot about Austin & San Antonio, as both of those towns are also huge for IT. I knew a couple, worked hard in Boston, never had enough money for a house ... moved to Austin, bought a house in cash, and now, have nothing but savings accruing.

yes, please everyone move to Texas. Don't even consider the SF Bay Area -- it's terrible here. A veritable hell on earth. You'll be much better in Texas or Virginia or Atlanta or Sophia Antipoles. Run, don't walk...

I cannot stand the heat nor the humidity. Otherwise Texas would be a great place for me.

My "ideal" temperature is 59F year round. The climate of the Bay Area is quite close to that. (It is 64F outside right now.)

BTW, software cannot be reduced to equations because you still need to know what to build. You can have the best code but it will still be useless if you really wanted something else.

There is a huge cultural component to software development.

Randy H says

Don't even consider the SF Bay Area -- it's terrible here. A veritable hell on earth.

SF is even more expensive than Boston. Yes, that's CoL hell on earth & the view of the Bay isn't enough for one to get price gouged, as badly as that. Next, aside from the lack of wintery snowstorms, does SF really have more to offer than any municipality in the northeast corridor? I mean if you want liberals around here, we have our Amherst or Northampton MA. And much of the New York/New England region is quite green and pleasant, overall, and houses in upstate NY go for $100K (sometimes less) and that's within an hour from either Montreal Canada or Burlington VT.

Weather-wise, if you can only afford to live at one location, SFBA is really hard to beat.

Peter P says

Weather-wise, if you can only afford to live at one location, SFBA is really hard to beat.

It's good to have a giant thermal mass just to the west!

wthrfrk80 says

Peter P says

Weather-wise, if you can only afford to live at one location, SFBA is really hard to beat.

It's good to have a giant thermal mass just to the west!

Somehow it is slightly more effective than having a thermal mass just to the east. :-)

Anyway, with climate change and all perhaps Iqaluit will become the new haven.

Peter P says

Somehow it is slightly more effective than having a thermal mass just to the east. :-)

A lot more effective, since weather systems move from west to east! Where I live, it's either the Canadians dumping their crappy frigid air on us in the winter or the Texans sending us their overheated air in the summer.

Ruki says

Being older can actually be an advantage because the kids these days are proving to be very unreliable. The sole exception is younger H1-B foreign imports.

H1-B 'imports' are only popular because they don't come with the student loan debt and thus don't require a salary that would allow them to pay that off and eat. Employers in tech know they can't keep younger workers as the most dedicated want to start their own company and nobody wants to train tomorrow's competitor. Older workers with appropriate skills and experience have the advantage for this reason, not because of some libertarian think tank myth of the lazy American worker.

CaptainShuddup says

I can't find a kid to mentor to save my life, not even on a Bet.

I can't either. It amazes me. I wished my whole life to have a mentor, never found a willing one, so had to chart my own course...the hard way naturally. Now I want to give back, to give away what I always wished for but have been totally unsuccessful in doing so. I am rather kind, patient, smart and successful by most common objective measures and love to teach to boot....ideal traits of a good mentor. You can lead a horse to water but can't make them drink comes to mind....

Randy H says

yes, please everyone move to Texas. Don't even consider the SF Bay Area -- it's terrible here. A veritable hell on earth. You'll be much better in Texas or Virginia or Atlanta or Sophia Antipoles. Run, don't walk...

hahahahahahaha...good idea.

wthrfrk80 says

Rin says

Because age discrimination kicks in between ages 45 and 55, esp in tech fields.

I'm wondering if that's because technology changes so fast. Whereas the human body doesn't.

A lot of technical positions are ultimately skill or aptitude based not knowledge based which leaves salary and dominance as real issues.

For example, there's a lot of evidence suggesting that the abilities to understand indirection, parallelism, and recursion are inherent aptitudes for software people.

Computer science departments attempts to teach them often fail and I wouldn't hire some one (even an intern) who didn't grasp them.

While practitioners need to know certain technologies, they're generally similar enough to what you already know that you can pick them up very quickly. Microsoft hired me to write C# which I'd never done before and it wasn't a big deal.

Demarco and Lister note in _Peopleware Productive Projects and Teams_ that in their coding war games

People who had ten years of experience did not outperform those with two years of experience. There was no correlation between experience and performance except that those with less than six months' experience with the language used in the exercise did not do as well as the rest of the sample

Compensation packages for fresh computer science graduates at the big Silicon Valley companies are somewhat north of $100K. A good engineer with 15+ years of experience can gross over double that at the same sort of company.

The extra money can buy you experience that delivers higher quality products in less time with the savings more than covering the cost delta - some of it personal and some second hand via people the individual in question has worked with ( I picked up a few things on reliability from having RAID inventor Dave Patterson as a technical advisor ) although such an individual with leadership skills can also multiply the efforts of a dozen less experienced people producing very similar results to what you'd get from a dozen experienced people for half the money.

Second rate managers and individual contributors don't want to look bad in comparison and prefer the malleability of younger subordinates with less worldly experience.

drew_eckhardt says

For example, there's a lot of evidence suggesting that the abilities to understand indirection, parallelism, and recursion are inherent aptitudes for software people.

Computer science departments attempts to teach them often fail and I wouldn't attempt to hire some one (even an intern) who didn't grasp them.

I think computer science departments should not teach languages like Java and C++. Instead, they should pick a statically-typed multi-paradigm language like OCaml, F#, and Scala.

I doubt parallelism can be tackled successfully without a good understanding of functional programming. Likewise, I feel one needs to leverage meta-programming to be productive.

BTW, words cannot describe how wonderful F# is. Microsoft certainly has a winner here.

CaptainShuddup says

I can't find a kid to mentor to save my life, not even on a Bet.
1995 one could have filled a Colosseum with hopeful quick studies.

This might be a win win for all concerned

wthrfrk80 says

I think the claimed "shortage" of scientists and engineers in America is propaganda.

As an ex-engineer I can say that this is 100% true and has been the case for decades now.

Ruki says

The boomers are retiring.

They have enough money to retire???

Rin says

SF is even more expensive than Boston. Yes, that's CoL hell on earth & the view of the Bay isn't enough for one to get price gouged, as badly as that. Next, aside from the lack of wintery snowstorms, does SF really have more to offer than any municipality in the northeast corridor?

The same could be said for any city/metro enjoying a virtuous cycle economy. Like I said, move on over to Texas if you prefer a different flavor. It's entirely possible one of those Texas metros could eventually become a virtuous cycle economy too...though the smart money is short on that outcome. Same reason all the US top service industry HQs aren't in Des Moines and Kansas City now, like was predicted by the demographic pundits and other self interested smarty pants circa 1980.

Peter P says

BTW, words cannot describe how wonderful F# is. Microsoft certainly has a winner here.

I'll wait until someone discovers "B#".

Ruki says

That is changing and will drastically change in as little as five years, when massive labor shortages kick in. The boomers are retiring.

Given the current employment landscape with random layoffs at NASA, Motorola, and various other enterprises, on/off, I don't think enough boomers will have cash in the eggs nest to officially retire in mass. Instead, if there's a short term labor shortage, they'll be able to work as contractors, until the company is fully re-located to Vietnam, if it's not Texan bound.

zzyzzx says

As an ex-engineer I can say that this is 100% true and has been the case for decades now.

What are you doing these days? The mechanical engineering profession is being de-skilled, automated, and outsourced. I'm thinking of getting out.

To the original topic: Science and Engineering careers are not obsolete, but they have continued to evolve significantly. I continue to be unable to hire for open engineer roles for a few reasons (listed below in no particular order):

* Most applicants are over specialized and uninterested in generalizing their knowledge. What is valued more than anything now is flexibility; we source super-specialization when needed from contractors.

* Anyone with more than 5 years experience wants to "be a manager", even though they have all the people skills of a feral labradoodle.

* Many are offended at the notion that they have to act as Business Analyst as much as Genius Technologist in order to be successful. We can outsource/offshore/automate the purely deterministic part of your job, but the reason we need an actual person is for inductive, heuristic, and judgmental skills. Sadly, so many Engineers seem to think that those things are "someone else's job".

* Testing. I can't tell you how many applicants (in software specifically) I've binned simply based upon their reaction when they realize that I consider testing skills to be among their first and foremost fundamental skills. Somewhere along the line something went very wrong in our collective approach to SW engineering and development whereby engineers and programers think they are "too valuable" to test. Any hint of that and I stamp the candidate as 'rejected'.

* Most of the rest "want to be an architect" or any of the derivative "I don't want to code" (again in software in these cases; less of a problem in hw). I pretty much reject anyone claiming they are a "software architect" 95% of the time simply based on how they present themselves in that context. And "I don't want to code" is code itself for "someone else should do the work". There are many forms of coding, and being able to go all the way to the detailed solutions is essential to engineering, so these people are all disqualified.

Our problem is not that there are a surplus of engineers. It's that there are a surplus of people educated and experienced in some form of engineering discipline who believe they are entitled to ignore the commercial realities of what pays their salaries.

Randy H says

Like I said, move on over to Texas if you prefer a different flavor.

If I were to stick to IT, instead of hedge fund stuff, I'd move to TX, despite being a northeast person, for the sake of my career, not for the weather or barbecue. All and all, what's happened in places like Boston or NYC is that there's a landed class, those who'd made money in the past (or work in finance/surgeons/actors), vs present-day professionals who're stretched to make ends meet. Thus, the fundamentals for the NE is that labor plus CoE costs are high and thus, not worth it for anyone but the executives to stick around. Whenever a big defense project in MA wraps up, the next cycle starts in Dallas, and then, the accountants can immediately show a 15% reduction in overhead w/o showing a loss of delivery. This has been on-going now for almost a decade.

Rin says

All and all, what's happened in places like Boston or NYC is that there's a landed class, those who'd made money in the past (or work in finance/surgeons/actors), vs present-day professionals who're stretched to make ends meet. Thus, the fundamentals for the NE is that labor plus CoE costs are high and thus, not worth it for anyone but the executives to stick around.

True. See the following thread:

/?p=1214445

Randy H says

Our problem is not that there are a surplus of engineers. It's that there are a surplus of people educated and experienced in some form of engineering discipline who believe they are entitled to ignore the commercial realities of what pays their salaries

Be brutally honest (basically read 'em your essay) with those you telephone screen, and you'll find that person. The problem is that in many cases, what the job seeker observes is the sort of poor communicative or dysfunctional behavior of organizations, and thus, go back into their former shell whether it be 'Architect', 'DBA', or 'I'm too good for QA'.

Again, the same arguments I've heard 3x cycles before. There are more aspects to value than non-GAAP earnings, my friend.

Rin, I manage an organization a bit larger than you're probably imagining. In any given week we are probably doing 25-50 phone screens, so I obviously have to rely upon a recruiting staff to do that. Plus, I'm sourcing globally, so I'm hiring only about 40% in the SFBA, and also in MI, NH, Singapore, Shanghai and Europe (the latter as seldom as possible for obvious reasons).

And I far prefer Michigan to Texas as it commands a distinct advantage on the variables you cited. I still have some workforce in TX, but we're not replacing those who leave and are instead shifting those roles to MI.

Randy, here's what I've found to be difficult in terms of interviewing or making a lateral move to another company.

Questions like 'What do you want or see yourself doing?' is too basic and broad stroke to get a meaningful response. And thus, the pre-screening becomes a type of farce of HR theatrics.

A better approach is for the recruiter to state the company's or dept's requirements. Then highlight the issues of the week, quarter, or year. Afterwards, you can let the person try to sell himself. Eventually, if the person discovers that he has to 'code', then he won't even bother with the 2nd interview.

Randy H says

Most of the rest "want to be an architect" or any of the derivative "I don't want to code" (again in software in these cases; less of a problem in hw). I pretty much reject anyone claiming they are a "software architect" 95% of the time simply based on how they present themselves in that context. And "I don't want to code" is code itself for "someone else should do the work". There are many forms of coding, and being able to go all the way to the detailed solutions is essential to engineering, so these people are all disqualified.

Interesting you say that. When I do software architecting, usually it means coding up and down various levels of abstraction. One would think engineers only want to code... oh well.

Rin says

A better approach is for the recruiter to state the company's or dept's requirements. Then highlight the issues of the week, quarter, or year. Afterwards, you can let the person try to sell himself. Eventually, if the person discovers that he has to 'code', then he won't even bother with the 2nd interview.

I think an intuitive process work better. Unless you are hiring a salesperson, selling is not necessarily a useful skill. Besides, don't forget you may have to work with that person. Work cultural concerns are equally relavant.

I always try to ask unexpected questions, or even questions for which the "expected" answers are wrong answers. You need to probe the mind.