I am in IT management myself. We can't find Java/Web developers/programmers for $95K per year! The last 3-4 we have had to hire were Indian and not even U.S. citizens. More American kids should be going into the IT field.
Are Things THAT Tight ?
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I am in IT management myself. We can't find Java/Web developers/programmers for $95K per year! The last 3-4 we have had to hire were Indian and not even U.S. citizens. More American kids should be going into the IT field.
MasterBlaster
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yeah we've heard this story before.
I bet if you paid $195k per year then that shortage with dry right up.
Funny how that works.
pimpmyretirement
Recycles dryer sheets
Depending on your area, $95k/yr can be a decent salary for a web developer. At least, it used to be. I know plenty of college educated non-IT types working for much less than that.
In my experience, mercenary IT folks that are constantly chasing higher salaries are a poor long term investment. Adding a digit to that paycheck could do the company more harm than good.
In my experience, mercenary IT folks that are constantly chasing higher salaries are a poor long term investment. Adding a digit to that paycheck could do the company more harm than good.
tmm99
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I read somewhere that some IT jobs are outsourced within this country - to the rural area of the US like Iowa - you don't need to pay as much and you don't have to deal with languge-cultural difference/time difference (only a few hours at most)
We certainly have developers who are making even more than this but my point was we can't seem to give away jobs making $95K per year. There are jobs available if you have the right skillset or live in the right part of the country. Recently saw an article where it said South Dakota has 3% unemployment and is having a lot of trouble staffing very well paying jobs in the oil and gas industry.
I do the same as most of you here...and when they stop by my house I usually try to find something they can do...but I don't pay upfront (been burned on that before) and I don't pay any more than a little over minimum wage per hour....for the stuff I normally would do myself.
Last year....a guy who had been laid off by the concrete public works department in a nearby City stopped by. He took out my old front concrete sidewalk .....we widened it to 6 feet or more, it was/is 35 feet long.......we put curve in it and created a 12 X 14 foot patio...at my front door. Relayed new concrete and bricked it all....for $3,200 (labor and materials) . Had I done this in years prior...it would have been an $8,000 to $12,000 job(or more). I was thrilled and he was happy as were his workers.
Last year....a guy who had been laid off by the concrete public works department in a nearby City stopped by. He took out my old front concrete sidewalk .....we widened it to 6 feet or more, it was/is 35 feet long.......we put curve in it and created a 12 X 14 foot patio...at my front door. Relayed new concrete and bricked it all....for $3,200 (labor and materials) . Had I done this in years prior...it would have been an $8,000 to $12,000 job(or more). I was thrilled and he was happy as were his workers.
I had an 800 ft^2 shed put up. $2000. About $1000 in materials and another $1000 in labor, and it was built in less than a day. I thought that was generous, after seeing how quickly it went up.
Ask around at lumberyards and you may find some that are pre-built and ready to haul. I doubt that Iowa labor is that much cheaper than Missouri.
Hmm....Maybe it's time to dust off my resume and brush up on Java. I loved Java, but walked away when the bottom dropped out with H1-B Indians first flooded the market.
Ask around at lumberyards and you may find some that are pre-built and ready to haul. I doubt that Iowa labor is that much cheaper than Missouri.
Hmm....Maybe it's time to dust off my resume and brush up on Java. I loved Java, but walked away when the bottom dropped out with H1-B Indians first flooded the market.
pimpmyretirement
Recycles dryer sheets
I think the weaker dollar has helped reverse the trend to outsource IT. Nobody I know ever had positive things to say about the resulting product quality or process. The focus was always on the lower price.
My job is hard enough without cutural barriers or time zone conflcits complicating things, so I am glad to see that trend reversing.
My job is hard enough without cutural barriers or time zone conflcits complicating things, so I am glad to see that trend reversing.
The fellow needing cash that day likely needed it to pay the day laborers he hired for the day - especially if he had bank trouble in his past.
I know someone in commercial building who is bidding office remodel jobs to keep his crews working, normally they do warehouse construction.
I know someone in commercial building who is bidding office remodel jobs to keep his crews working, normally they do warehouse construction.
Regardless of how many people are out at restaurants or the malls, it is obviously not a healthy economic climate right now. Yes- as some people have mentioned- jobs such as Java programmers exist and are going unfilled because of a lack of skills. However, for non programmers, and in general,the middle class, this recession has been extremely difficult.
At the risk of sounding offensive, your comment about "oxymoronic to FIRE mentality" is perhaps a bit myopic. If you are working and in a position to FIRE than consider yourself fortunate because there are a lot of people worldwide that are hurting. Yes I know that everyone on this board probably did it the hard way, saving over the years, as did I, but that doesn't change the fact that the economy is in a mess and many people can't find jobs.
Whose to blame? Not really the point but the country is going through a rough patch and to answer your questions, yes things are bad right now.
FinanceDude
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The average American probably does not have the skills acquired to be a Java or web programmer. Not everyone has an interest in IT as a career, heck, a lot of IT folks I know aren't that excited about it, only that the pay is pretty good and its relatively easy to find a job, sounds a lot like folks the plethora of local manufacturing jobs in the 1950's!!!!
haha
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Being a real programmer/developer is a highly skilled job that also takes some special personality traits, espcially at the higher levels. S/He must be a very good abstract and structural thinker, while at the same time being extremely conscious of detail. Not a common combo, and of course they get paid well. They earn it.
Ha
FinanceDude
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haha
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
LOL. I think prgrammers are less full of BS than other group of people that I meet, and for this as well as other reasons I tend to admire them.Just reading that made me tired..........
An awful lot of life is taken up by just trying to swim through heavy seas of BS, ignorance of any relevant facts and general idiocy that any little break from this is very welcome.
Ha
A lot of truth to this. I would say a majority of my friends, co-workers and employees do not really "love" their job. However, it pays them very well and is generally easier (less stress) than the other fields they have worked in. I would say about 2/3 of the people I know who are now programming, do not have an IT degree. Many were accountants, engineers, scientists, etc...before moving to IT. I think more people are capable of doing it than they think. You have to be very analytical and bright to be really good at it, but most people in IT (unless you work for a software company) are simply modifying code that somebody else wrote and it is not really that hard.
I won't be recommending my daughter go into the field but that is more because I don't want her to work in ANY field in Corporate America. I will encourage her to do something else where she can more easily work for herself and possibly even add some real value to society instead of making the execs and shareholders wealthier!
Rustward
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I can tell you from 3+ decades of experience that, in general, there is no comparison between someone who has had a formal introduction to a programming language and someone who just "picked it up". Formal introduction does not necessarily mean college, but it could be employer provided training (in the day, EDS was really good at this), or structured self-study. Of course this comes from someone with the formal introduction, and the person who just "picked it up" would probably disagree.
Assembly language just "picked up" is probably the worst. High-level languages usually not so bad.
I would suggest there is less domestic demand for programmers and more offshoring of it than most people realize. Generally Java programming is considered a commodity. Most of the domestic work seems to be temporary and project-related. End of project, end of job. Of course, there are exceptions.
Assembly language just "picked up" is probably the worst. High-level languages usually not so bad.
I would suggest there is less domestic demand for programmers and more offshoring of it than most people realize. Generally Java programming is considered a commodity. Most of the domestic work seems to be temporary and project-related. End of project, end of job. Of course, there are exceptions.
Funny you mention EDS. I went through their 10 week "bootcamp" for developers that they called "Phase 2" in my days. It was the most brutal 10 weeks of my life. It was like have college finals for 10 weeks in a row, only worse! We were expected to work 16 hours per day, 7 days per week with only the 5th weekend off as a break. At the end of the 10 weeks, you either passed and got to keep your job or failed and lost your job. Those were the only two outcomes! Once you completed this training, you then were essentially obligated to stay with the company for another 2 years or you had to pay for the total cost of the program.
Ross Perot apparently liked to put people through such a tortuous experience because he thought if you could do that, then you could handle any business situations/deadlines that would arise. They had to eventually soften the rules and modify the program quite a bit because people were suing them and winning.
Rustward
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. . . and while I never experienced it personally, I was told by multiple people that at one time the hiring process included a visit to your home and interviews with your neighbors!
W2R
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That sounds like just a security clearance procedure. When I took my job working for the federal government, part of the security clearance involved the FBI interviewing neighbors and others. No visits to my home - - - no reason to do that, since I was [-]grilled[/-] interviewed by the FBI for an hour or so at work. No big deal, at least to me. The guy who interviewed me was just a kid in his early 20's, wet behind the ears IMO and I did not feel at all intimidated.
teejayevans
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Exactly how does that happen, getting a job is not a right, if you don't like it you can walk away? I think they weren't being sued, they were just losing prospects to other companies.
TJ
Rustward
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It was part of the selection process. They may have been filtering out people who would not qualify for clearances, though.
Over the years I have known and w*rked with probably two or three dozen x-EDSers -- and probably some more that I am not aware are x-EDSers. You don't have to look far to find one around here. As a group, they did stand out as better employees.
I heard the same things from all of them.
Perot did things in the 60's and 70's that an employer could never get away with today.
- The interview process.
- Required suits and white shirts for men, suits or dresses and heels for women. (May have been modeled after the IBM dress code in that era.) Some that operated machinery were allowed to work in their shirtsleeves but had to tuck their tie in the shirt opening.
- Prohibited employees from disclosing compensation.
- Absolutely no facial hair on men.
- Coat and tie required in company cafeteria (IIRC free steak every Thursday).
- IIRC cohabitating outside of marriage was either discouraged or prohibited. This might have been the reason for the in-home interview.
And a similar theme among most of the x-EDSers: "Anything to get out of there." They did have a major retention problem. People would hire on to get the training (which was excellent) and then leave. That happened until EDS made their employees agree to reimburse the company a pre-determined amount for the training if they did not stay for an agreed length of time after receiving the training.
Perot preferred x-military applicants.
From: Presidential Candidate H. Ross Perot - The Dark Side
"At the same time, the relationship he creates is one where Perot is all-powerful, and bestows his generosities from on high. He works people extremely hard for little money, and subjects them to instrusive scrutiny, including private investigators, wiretaps, drug tests and lie detector tests.
In this regard, he bears a striking resemblance to Ralph Nader, of all people, who also inspires great loyalty, pushes himself at least as hard as he pushes his employees, burns people out for little money, and seems to feel he has a right to monitor and control their lives.
For example, discussing salaries has been an immediate firing offense from the first days at EDS, Perot's company. The company dress code, up into the 1970s, required white shirts only for men (he considered blue shirts effeminate), no pants or flats for women, and no "mod looks," as the contract put it. But the intrusion went much further.
EDS tapped phones and used detectives to investigate its own employees, . . ."
Apologies for going on a tangent.
MasterBlaster
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yet women were allowed full beards.
dm
Full time employment: Posting here.
After the last week I'm thinking I really don't need a shed anymore.
Rustward
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"He he", maybe I didn't look for it, but saw a little on some women, but it was probably not detected on their part, or ignored, and a gentleman just pretends it is not there -- not limited to EDS employees. Hey, I am not perfect either. You? Yep, you were just joking -- weren't you?
