Google and Yahoo Creating Brain Drain? 307
Searchbistro writes "Software-engineering talent is flocking to Google and Yahoo. Business Week explores the possibility that the big two search companies are creating a brain drain on the rest of the industry. Google snapped up about 230 engineers last quarter. Some stolen superstars are Louis Monier, director of eBay, advanced technology research, and Kai-Fu Lee, a top-flight researcher at Microsoft. Yahoo hired dozens of top engineers, including Larry Tesler, former vice-president at Amazon.com. 'While the Internet leaders snatch up top tech talent, that creates headaches elsewhere. Some startups, for instance, say the talent drain has made their own hiring more difficult.'"
Fortunately none of those drained post on /. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Fortunately none of those drained post on /. (Score:2)
...
Dammit.
Great news for those not in the top percentiles (Score:5, Interesting)
In short: Good news if you're a B-rank engineer
Bad news if you're trying to diversify the industry
Re:Great news for those not in the top percentiles (Score:5, Insightful)
Brain drain only truly occurs when there's a lack of brains flowing to the industry or region, not simply because of a 'cornering of the market' on brains.
Re:Great news for those not in the top percentiles (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Great news for those not in the top percentiles (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Great news for those not in the top percentiles (Score:2)
Well... Google has visited Cornell at least once, to take job applications, since I've been there.
If you log in from the CS department computers (or, at least the ones in the Masters of Engineering Lab), you get a link that says "Graduating? Come work for us!"
So, actually, they're at least looking for Ivy Leaguers from my school. That said, they also had a booth at AAAI. They're, essentially, looking for the best people, wherever they can find them, from what I can tell.
Re:Great news for those not in the top percentiles (Score:2, Insightful)
The best engineering schools are MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, and Caltech. None of them is Ivy League.
So obviously Google aren't that interested in Ivy League degrees, as they're class "B".
Re:Great news for those not in the top percentiles (Score:2)
Re:Great news for those not in the top percentiles (Score:5, Informative)
Don't be afraid to submit your resume. If you have talent, Google knows how to recognize it.
(Oblig: These are my words and opinions, not Google's.)
Re:Great news for those not in the top percentiles (Score:2)
Re:Great news for those not in the top percentiles (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Great news for those not in the top percentiles (Score:2, Insightful)
Great news for the rest -- NOT (Score:2, Interesting)
The top 500 (or top 1000 or top 10,000) will always be working for someone and by the talmudic logic of Mr. Ben Elgin, Mr. Robert Hof (in Silicon) Valley and Mr. Jay Greene (in Seattle), that "means" we have shortage and therefore, we must lay off another two hundred thousands of Americans replacing them with Indians. How 'bout shortage of newspaper hacks, based on the same "logic" and "data".
Brain Drain = good for workers. (Score:4, Interesting)
Want a job? Suddenly you're not being selected from one of 1500 applicants, and it's not a case where employers can put any old conditions on work because everyone is just desperate for any old work.
Now employees are the ones who can pick & choose.
Re:Brain Drain = good for workers. (Score:2, Interesting)
Not that much of a drain... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think it's that much of an issue....
Re:Not that much of a drain... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think it's that much of an issue....
When you are talking about engineers generally, 500 is a drop in the bucket. When you are talking about the top notch engineers, that's a massive brain drain.
Most engineers go about their lives, doing more/less commodity work, often of high quality, and live un-notable lives producing good works.
But there are a few, a very, very few, that have what it takes to really upset the apple cart. These are the top notch folks - those who change not only industries, but ways of life. For millions of people.
It takes a very small number of these guys to change the world. And, right now, they're all flocking to google/yahoo.
Re:Not that much of a drain... (Score:3, Insightful)
You're right about the small number, but we won't know just who will be among those who change the world until they suck it up and just do it.
Re:Not that much of a drain... (Score:2)
It's incredibly annoying when people skip over the "research" section of my resume because "OMG! He has a high GPA!" This happens almost everywhere that I apply. I think that it may be the subconscious need of the interviewer to have a quantitative measure of someone's performance (that is, after all, a resume tip); research doesn't really translate into a number.
IMO, past work is the best way to judge future work. It isn't perfect either, but it's far better than relying on answers to "How many quarters can you stack to reach the moon?" or looking at a number that is, at best, relative to the rest of your school, or, at worst, completely inaccurate.
Re:Not that much of a drain... (Score:4, Insightful)
As it is, most people have to work for a living, working in fucked up organizations, for fucked up bosses, being frustrated all the way.
Google isn't really doing anything no-one has thought about doing before, it's just that their propellorheads are given an ability to execute.
Re:Not that much of a drain... (Score:2)
Some people look at today's highly skewed income distribution as proof that the top 0.01% are supermen, others think it's inequity.
Personally I think there are quite a few people who are good, and who were in the right place at the right time, but who otherwise are not that extraordinary. Then there are a very few who have repeatedly made breakthroughs. I can't believe that's just luck. Then again, that is just what you'd expect if the system were driven by chance. Most people never (literally) get struck by lighting, but a few do. An "elite few," 3 or 4 times.
Re:Not that much of a drain... (Score:2)
Re:Not that much of a drain... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not that much of a drain... (Score:2)
Um... okay (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe they want to work there because they're competing against Google.
PR article for Yahoo (Score:5, Insightful)
It kind of seems to me like they mentioned Yahoo for a lark in this article.
Actually, I'd bet you dollars to donuts that this article was "seeded" by a PR firm in the employ of Yahoo. Their goal: create the impression that Yahoo is second only to Google as a search engine and an employer of Smart People. Make Yahoo seem cool like Google is. For example, the sentence "Yahoo also carries substantial geek cred."
Paul Graham unveils this concept in great detail in his essay The Submarine [paulgraham.com].
Notice the number of quotes from Yahoo employees vs. the number from Google employees, the insider information about Yahoo's future plans vs. the use of facts you already knew about Google anyway.
Bet.
You're Kidding... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:You're Kidding... (Score:2)
Re:You're Kidding... (Score:2)
I'm a QA lead tester. It's my job to reduce 1500 pages of test data into a report so management can make decisions on what to do next. Since I'm "old school", the entire report is in my mind and I can answer any questions put to me. I've seen younger lead testers of the "cut & paste" generation struggle since they can't analyze such information on the fly and can't answer any questions on the spot.
Microsoft can hire anyone but their product sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple has good pull to get people, but even better management. There are tons of talented people - the whole superstar thing can be folly. It's about a culture that permits creativity and innovation.
When you've got people at Microsoft worrying about uttering the word podcast, you can see that they are losing their relevance by the moment. It has happened to many giant companies - as they phase from entrepreneurial and flexible - to arrogant and rigid.
Re:Microsoft can hire anyone but their product suc (Score:2)
Layoffs (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Layoffs (Score:5, Insightful)
IBM and HP both recently laid off 14,000 workers each. There should be plenty of brains out there, available for work.
IBM and HP didn't fire their top engineers.
Re:Layoffs (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Layoffs (Score:3, Informative)
Your new to layoffs (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Layoffs (Score:4, Insightful)
Considering the huge number of layoffs over the last five years, that was my thought, too. There is no shortage of software engineers, and there hasn't been one for well over a decade.
What there is a shortage of is American developers willing to work for the same wages as receptionists. Every time large companies start bitching about a shortage of tech workers, it's a lead-up to increasing the H1B quota.
Re:Layoffs (Score:2)
Huh? As recently as early 2000 bidding wars over engineers & developers were commonplace, and tech companies successfully pushed for those bigger H1B quotas you mentioned. In 2000, I managed to get my last huge salary increase (changed jobs, good timing, right before the bubble burst).
The year 2000 is not "well over a decade" ago.
Re:Layoffs (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Layoffs (Score:3, Insightful)
Engineering is applied physics. Development is applied mathematics. So, you are correct. Developers are incorrect to call themselves engineers.
Secondly, there is a difference between software development and computer programming, which I think you are attempting to blur.
Secondly, why would a programmer have a right to work for more than a receptionist. Receptionists have a much worse job, it's only fair and democratic that those with more stimulating jobs get them in exchange for a lower wage.
Wages are based on two things. One, the amount of money your work creates. And two, the difficulty to replace you, ie your skill rarity.
One could ask why Michael Jordan made so much money. Obviously, anyone can play basketball, which after all, is only a game. The fact is that he could have arguably been called the best player in the world. So one, people paid a lot of money to see not just his team, but him on a regular basis. And two, since he was the best player in the world, he was irreplaceable.
Both software developers and programmers require special skills that take years of training and experience to acquire before even being qualified for an entry level position. That alone makes them rare, with the actual good ones being more rare. Not only are developers rare, but companies have built fortunes off of their work. So, one and two from above are easily covered.
A receptionist does not make a lot of money for the company. And a receptionist can be replaced by almost anyone walking off the street. Since they can not cover one and two above, they are paid poorly.
Now you are confusing administrators with programmers and developers.
Brains Not Draining (Score:4, Insightful)
The emigration of a large proportion of highly skilled and educated professionals...
The emigration of highly educated workers...
The migration of skilled workers out of a country...
depletion or loss of intellectual and technical personnel...
A "brain drain" is caused by the depleted organization. In all of these definitions the emphasis is on the loss of brains. Where they go and what they go on to do isn't specified. An oppresive communist regime could see its top intellectuals flee the country, and have those intellectuals go somewhere free and just live normal non-intellectual lives and it would be "brain drain". What's described in this story isn't so much about companies losing out on talent, "brain drain", rather it's about the companies gaining it, i.e. Google and Yahoo. Besides, brains aren't in limited supply. It's not like one's gain is another's loss. If anything this means that brains become more economically in demand.
Re:Brains Not Draining (Score:2)
So what's the problem exactly? (Score:4, Insightful)
If Google and Yahoo can attract the nerds, and you can't, that's your problem, isn't it?
Re:So what's the problem exactly? (Score:2, Insightful)
This, of course, depends on how they are making use of their new talent. If they give each one a project to lead that is in their specialty, they will likely keep hiring as they need new ideas. If, however, they are trying to coordinate more and more brains on a handful of ideas, they'll eventually find that throwing more brains at the problem may not work out as intended.
Getting back on point, I expect there is still plenty of talent in the United States (and abroad) to fill the positions at start ups and other companies. A business complaining about not having any talent to hire because the "top" 500 or so talented people are taken by the search engine giants likely just means that there is a real problem with their business plan and that it is doomed in the long run.
Just my 2 cents.
Re:So what's the problem exactly? (Score:2)
Yeah right... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Some companies bitch about some other companies who are paying more than they want to pay their own employees, employees leave, and outsourcing to India doesn't work that well. MBAs have to double their prozac dose to cope."
Re:Yeah right... (Score:5, Insightful)
To keep your rent below 40% of your takehome pay, you need to be making 70 grand a year after taxes, so like 100 grand gross.
And heaven help you want to want actually buy a place...
So yeah, you're damn tootin' I'd hop on to a higher-paying, more successful company under these circumstances..
Re:Yeah right... (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, Japanese engineers can impose technically-motivated decisions on the MBAs. This has happened with auto features: the engineers insisted on certain features, while the Japanese equivalents of the MBAs said "they cost too much". In Detroit it goes the other way.
So I'm missing your point about "incompetent, raw-fish eating yes men." The Japanese car companies are better run companies (and better to work for) than Detroit.
And I suggest you try working for/with a bunch of Indians (or greasy American MBAs who see them as the way to get away from crabs like me). Maybe you'll sing a different, less-PC tune. India has around a billion people. There are many smart, driven ones in there. And there are a lot of striving liars who will say anything to make a buck.
Re:Yeah right... (Score:2)
Well, this is not surprising. India doesn't have a comprehensive welfare state, which encourages people to strive really hard to get work. You probably would lie through your teeth too if you were only one generation away from destitution.
Are you sure? (Score:2)
What you're saying might be true, but lets look at a couple of counter examples.
Mazda is owned by ford after they continually had done poorly in the mark.
Nissan was struggling until they hired, I believe, a Frenchman to run the company.
Mitsubishi is in miserable shape, having 3 CEO's in about 3 years. I wouldn't be shocked to see them out of the car industry in a few years.
Now, clearly, some Japanese car companies do well. Honda, Toyota, and Subaru. But the rest are also rans with pretty mediocre products overall.
Is that any better than the rest of the car industry in the rest of the world? I don't see the Japanese as inherently superior at building cars, but perhaps my view is a parochial one.
Civilization Quote (Score:2)
That's about right (Score:5, Funny)
So provide equality (Score:4, Interesting)
- Free high quality lunches instead of reducing lunch hours etc as many presently try to do.
- Gave something comprable to the 20% personal project time.
- Treated techs that "keep the $100'000 network thats critical to the business from screaming to a grinding halt" with respect at least equal to the tool with the MBA that just tossed 100 blue collars out on the street after 40 years so he could get his xmas bonus.
Re:So provide equality (Score:2)
Don't forget breakfast and dinner! I do so love the omelets...
The manager and the engineer (Score:4, Insightful)
* If you can enthuse your team as to what they're doing, that's a point. Enthusiastic people produce much better output than uninterested people. That's different from just enjoying the job -- having a jacuzzi in the office may make the job more enjoyable, but it doesn't necessarily make people enthusiastic about what they're doing.
* If you can pick up on what people's various triggers are, and adapt to them, that's a point. Some people like being presented with competitive environments, some people feel overwhelmed by them. Some people hate being told what to do -- it may be better to "guide" these people, ask them the same problems that you're trying to solve and let them come to the same conclusions you've reached, and other people feel more comfortable if they have clear instruction. Some people don't get work done without a clear schedule, and other people can't stand not having flexibility. Some people work best in serial -- one task at a time -- other people prefer being able to switch around between tasks. A good manager is going to be able to treat different employees differently, each as a different tool he can use to solve a problem, rather than try to force everyone to follow a particular mold.
High-level execs get a lot of flack on Slashdot. I haven't had to interact with these folks much, so I'm not really informed enough to make too much of a judgement. But consider, for a moment, what their role is (and ask yourself whether there is skill involved in it).
When an engineer is working on a problem, he usually gets to work on something that he's had the ability to specialize fairly much around. If someone, say, a vendor, starts feeding him technical bullshit, it's easier for him to figure out that something is up, because he's got a good deal of knowledge in the field. He has to know his field *intimately*, and there is generally little room for error -- if you're wrong about something from a technical standpoint, you are *wrong*. On the other hand, he does have some advantages. The things he's working with are fairly straightforward -- complex, perhaps, but they do something, are intended to do something, and if they aren't, something is wrong. It might be material used in a bridge or chips in a product, but this pretty much holds. He generally has tools that can let him get accurate information about any problems -- it may consume time to do so, or even be somewhat difficult, but if he wants to he can probably diagnose problems to a high degree of accuracy.
An exec has to run organizations that deal with things that he does not have the luxury of specializing in. He *knows* that he doesn't know the details of what he's working with, so he's essentially blind-fighting a bit. A vendor *can* sell him a line of bullshit on technical matters, because he hasn't had the time to specialize in a field. The things he's working with are usually groups of people that have all sorts of agendas, and frequently are not giving him accurate information -- how much funding they *really* could get by with, whether they really believe that they can still finish their project, people who are busy passing the buck and so forth. If he wants to have an engineer review a vendor's claims, he doesn't know whether or not the engineer may be claiming more knowledge than he really has, or may have bias, or whatnot. So he lacks the precision diagnostic tools of the engineer, and has no hard guarantee of being able to obtain accurate information. The upside of being an exec is that mistakes may lead to softer failures than technical mistakes -- you can do something "sort of right" and still have it work quite well, and not have anyone really be able to easily call you out on it. Someone who's really good at handling these tools and working within this kind of system *can* be really valuable to a company. That does not mean that all execs are worth what they are making, however.
Low-level management can be seen as a reasonable path of progression from engineering (you have to know the technical details at least to a fair degree *and* you need years of experience on team projects) versus engineering (you have to know the technical details damn well). It doesn't mean that every engineer needs to wind up a manager, just that a low-level engineering manager that hasn't spent quite some time as an engineer may not be very good. If you're mind-bogglingly good at technical details, but you don't want to or aren't so hot at managing a team, especially if you can provide technical assistance to others, there's no reason that your pay scale should be limited relative to a low-level manager.
Execs simply work in a different field. The problems and skills are different. I don't know why execs (at least, so it seems to me) often start with a higher rate of pay than engineers -- perhaps time as an "executive assistant" or something is similar to being a junior engineer. I really don't know. I see it as a totally different job, not particularly deserving of less or more money.
I do think at the high end, that executives do make too much money. Yes, a CEO can theoretically probably make a large company more money than a single engineer at that company, but how can the company effectively judge that an executive is, in fact, that much better than his peers? The pay scale for executives covers a much broader range than it does for engineers.
Oh, one other thing that folks may not take into account. At the very, very top, up at the in-my-mind-overpaid C* level, execs run the risk of becoming sacrificial lambs. It seems that every time a large company does poorly, it blames its problems on its CEO, fires him, hires another CEO, does a "reorganization" with very high one-time costs that allow it to hide losses and inflate profits in the near future, and then indicates incredibly positive numbers right from the start with the new CEO running things. It has to suck to be working a job with the visibility of a politician or an executive (if a CEO does something that "harms the image of a company", he's probably going to be gone) and with jack-all job security.
I don't and do feel sorry for these companies (Score:3, Insightful)
-M
aw... (Score:3, Insightful)
Is Google the next Microsoft? (Score:4, Insightful)
Google the offers most popular network features, the OS, and the applications.
Every time something new comes along Google ties its version of that into its vast array of other services, and people gravitate towards it by default.
How is this different then Microsoft bundling IE?
Consider that others had map systems before Google. In the future, will Google get criticized for abuse when conglomerating new services into it's site?
I ask this because the line between application and website is getting blurred, and it seems to me that popular opinion on slashdot is that a monopoly should not bundle applications. How will we reconcile this in the future?
Re:Is Google the next Microsoft? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Is Google the next Microsoft? (Score:2)
People have migrated to Google Maps because it's really much better than the others, not because they were coerced by any bundling.
Re:Is Google the next Microsoft? (Score:2)
Google is evil, too (Score:5, Interesting)
Google sued for firing executive pregnant with quadruplets
News.com is running the story Google hit with job discrimination lawsuit [com.com], which describes how
"Christina Elwell, who was promoted to national sales director in late 2003, alleges her supervisor began discriminating against her in May 2004, a month after informing him of her pregnancy and the medical complications she was encountering, according to the lawsuit filed July 17 in a U.S. District Court in New York."
In May 2004, after she became pregnant with quadruplets and during the same month that she lost two of the unborn children, her superior told her that her job as VP of national sales had been eliminated and requested that she take a job in Google's operations division, a position for which she had no experience. Google refused to allow her to take the lower position of East Coast regional sales director, instead firing her and hiring someone with no Internet sales experience.
In mid-June, another Google executive offered to place Christina in the operations job she had already rejected, while in the same email accused Christina's husband of "acting under false pretenses by telling Google that Elwell was having a health crisis".
After Google's director of HR confirmed that Christina had been terminated improperly, she accepted the lower ranking position offered, but then lost a third unborn child and within two days of returning to work on July 19, her doctors ordered her to cease her work because the stress that Google and her supervisor were putting her under created an even higher risk of losing her remaining unborn child.
After she returned from disability leave, rather than allow her to work in sales, Google fired her.
More evil? (Score:2, Informative)
Google tries to patent Web syndication ads
Google is claiming that it has invented a unique way to distribute online advertising via syndicated news feeds--and it wants a patent for the technology.
If granted, the patent would presumably give Google the exclusive rights for "incorporating targeted ads into information in a syndicated, e.g., RSS, presentation format in an automated manner," according to its patent application titled, "Embedding advertisements in syndicated content." ...
Google, Yahoo and a number of start-ups are eyeing syndication as a new outlet for delivering online ads. If Google is granted the patent, it could be a big blow to its rivals in the field, said Forrester Research analyst Charlene Li.
"It would really stifle competition," Li said. "It would be a pretty powerful patent to have."
(read more on CNET)
Re:Google is evil, too (Score:3, Interesting)
However, the pregnancy turned out to be demanding as well, making it so that she could not perform up to her prior level. They tried to do the right thing by moving her to a less demanding position rather than fire her for decreased output. But, she fought this logical move.
The point of the grandparent message was that this woman had several choices in this scenario:
- She chose sales, a demanding career by any standard.
- She chose to move up to an executive position, with tons more pressure.
- With all this pressure and the demand to perform, she chose to get pregnant.
- She chose to stay in the position, although she could not maintain her performance.
- She chose to fight a demotion due to lack of performance.
- She ignored her doctor's advice and stayed on the job, raising her stress, and risk to her babies.
This woman knew what she was getting in to, and all of the risks. She should take some responsibility for her actions. If you can't do the job, then you should not expect the position.Re:Is Google the next Microsoft? (Score:2)
So let's go ahead and evaluate what would happen if the situation you present were to happen.
Google makes a bunch of service applications, and keeps them running on their server farm. The way you access those applications is by firing up your Web Browser and pointing to Google.com. Of course, they have every imaginable application under the sun, but then you close out your web browser and look around your desktop.
Lo and behold, there's every application under the sun as well!!! And guess what? They're not tied to Google in any way, shape or form! How can this be? Is it possible that some applications are not suited for being online applications while some are? Is it possible that you still have choice, where as with Microsoft shipping Windows on your machine and locking it down with DRM strips away that choice?
By virtue, Google can't easily become the "next microsoft". Microsoft monopolized on other companies ideas, quickly (and shoddily) implementing them and shipping them out the door. This has been true from DOS all the way till now. Name a product that MS didn't borrow from another company and pigs will fly out my ass.
Secondly, Microsoft monopolized by grabbing hold of PC vendors with an iron fist and didn't let go. Google has no hold on PC vendors, and frankly, I can't see why they'd care to. Instead, they'd much rather sponsor projects to get ahold of your web browser and rule it with an iron fist. Maybe they'll have a monopoly on web browsers... hah I don't think so.
Lastly, Google has nothing to be anti-competitive with. There's no way Google can force you to use Google for everything you do; they offer no services that can't be found elseware, they offer no product that's completely original that can't be found somewhere else, even within Microsoft itself!
So unless something changes and Google invents the next Killer App, bandwidth shoots through the ceiling, and all of the founders and original workers for Google keel over and die and are replaced by ex-Microsoft employees, I don't really see a way that your theory could work.
Re:Is Google the next Microsoft? (Score:2)
At risk of being modded a troll... (Score:5, Insightful)
As for start-ups, well, it seems just that tad unlikely that many start-ups could afford the former Vice President of Amazon.com. So it's hard for me to cry too hard.
The other important thing to consider is that most IT folk do their best work young and fresh out of college. They're not "old hands", they're "young minds". The real innovators are almost invariably people who haven't learned yet that what they're coding is impossible.
There ARE coders who know something is impossible, but code it anyway, but they are relatively rare. If a start-up wants the absolute best (and at rock-bottom prices), then it needs to go after the recently-graduated. Better yet, the start-up should find hot talent prior to University and sponsor them through it in exchange for part-time work during University and a contract at the end.
The reason youth is important is that old-hands tend to get stuck in a rut. They get used to doing things a particular way and loose the ability to step back and see what it is that is really going on. Look at any online resume of an experienced coder. Odds are, most such folk have a very few skills they have honed to perfection - with the consequence that they can do next to nothing with them.
Now, look at the people who are experienced but who are ALSO doing some damn good work. Odds are high that they'll have a much more diverse range of skills, are much less in some mould or other and likely have a more "Classical" background or education, where diversity rather than finesse was appreciated.
Also, America's work habits burn people out very quickly. No real vacation, no time to recharge, the ideal is to "produce" not learn and the Corporate Culture is king. It is doubtful America's high-tech industry can take much more of this kind of abuse. Something has to give.
Re:At risk of being modded a troll... (Score:3, Insightful)
The reason youth is important is that old-hands tend to get stuck in a rut. They get used to doing things a particular way and loose the ability to step back and see what it is that is really going on. Look at any online resume of an experienced coder. Odds are, most such folk have a very few skills they have honed to perfection - with the consequence that they can do next to nothing with them.
In my experience, people get stuck in some niche as a "specialist" because of the people around them perceiving them that way. It's unfathomable to most people that you can be good at new stuff; in fact, that you can be a generalist, knowing your way about many specialized topics, not just the one.
In fact, one company I know has a policy that people from one department (say, the oracle implementation department) are not allowed to pick up a book on some other technology, because they could have spent that time on specializing even more. More specialized = more bucks. Of course, that sort of pigheaded narrowmindedness kills any efficient collaboration across technologies, never mind interoperability or innovation.
Re:At risk of being modded a troll... (Score:2)
In the UK (Score:2)
google+yahoo hire 0.1% of talent pool (Score:2, Insightful)
It's Not Brain Drain... (Score:2, Insightful)
this is good (Score:4, Insightful)
And CS enrollment is declining too. And interest rates are low.
This is better than a bubble. Companies in the black are in a bidding war for us and the competition 5 years out is evaporating. Interest rates are still at "OMG if we hike it we die" levels.
Good times man, Good times.
I survived the last bubble and I'd have to say that the waters are chummed. Prepare yourselves for some forced coding marches and invest the spoils for the long haul.
I smell bullshit (Score:2)
Yeah, this goes in the same bucket with folks who say they only hire the top five percent. NEWS FLASH: everyone can't hire the top five percent. I'd say a good 99.9% of startups wouldn't know a good tech guy if he rewrote the Linux kernel as a Perl one-liner. This is just a scapegoat for the fact that they have no clue how to hire talented people.
Re:I smell bullshit (Score:2)
I was under the impression that startups happened when you got a bunch of talented people grouping around an idea.
I'll admit that I've got limited experience with startups, but do people really start a business, then try to figure out why they can get to produce the product?
Re:I smell bullshit (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I smell bullshit (Score:2)
Re:I smell bullshit (Score:2, Interesting)
In my experience true startups (which, of course, neither Google or Yahoo have been for a very long time) hire almost exclusively by personal referrals - in part because this way they know what they are getting. I've haven't taken a job anywhere but at a startup for over 20 years and every product I worked on is still being sold. If you ever get an opportunity to even talk to a true startup for a low-senior or higher position and it was not through a personal referal, be suspicious, be very suspicious -- the company likely lacks talent and therefore lacks contacts with talent and is likely to be in the category of startups who never deliver a meaningful product to anyone. Unfortunately, it is very hard to evaluate a senior developer based on a 45 minute interview - there's a lot more to maintainable production quality products than puzzles, programming problems, and passing knowledge of this week's TLAs. As Thomas Edison is purported to day "Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent prespiration"
Re:I smell bullshit (Score:2)
Re:I smell bullshit (Score:2)
I've had a whole lot of interviews recently. Some of them with releatively senior staff. A lot of the time these guys seem to prefer candidates with a noticable similarity to themselves. I suppose to some extent, this is justifiable - since the interviewer is senior, selecting candidates who exhibity similarities to themselves will cause the company to preferentially recruit people predisposed to advancement in the company. Provided the way the company promotes actually reflects contribution to their corporate success, then the strategy can work pretty well. However, this method does obviously beg the question, what other good candiates are they missing out on?
Most of the interviews I've had were with a pair of interviewers. However, at one company I was interviewed by a larger number of people, but separately. Perhaps that kind of process is less prone to selecting just candidates who are similar to the interviewer.
I've certainly started jobs in the past where I've come into the shop and thought, "Wow. These guys are still rubbing sticks to make fire". In those cases, the arrival of new people can be really good - it can jar the organisation out of a rut and make them more creative. This happens most easily of course with smaller teams.
On previous epiodes of job hunting, I've been offered "aptitude tests" at the interview. The kind of thing I'm talking about is where the HR person gives you a printed sheet of C++ exercises. I find those a real turn-off. It means that that company cannot field an interviewer who they can rely on to gauge the technial ability of a candidate. Those question sheets also invariably contain errors. In fact every time this has happened I have done the test anyway, been offered the job, and turned it down.
I recall interviewing at a Belgian financial software company and being asked if I wanted to take the C test or the C++ test (this was in 1996, I think). I said, "both". "But you only have 30 minutes to do the test". "Fine". So I completed both, and circled the errors in the questions, too. When the company contacted me with a job offer I explained that I was not interested in working for them. They came back with an improved offer and explained that they were very keen because I had scored better than anybody else ever had on their C++ test. Of course that made me want to work there even less. If I was the best candidate they'd ever had, everybody already in the company must be worse. Would I want to work in that environment? No thanks. Just imagine the reams of poor code.
Fortunately not all my interview experiences have been like that. In some recent interviews I've been asked questions that have really made me think hard, and we've talked about the issues surrounding the question; that gives me confidence that there are other people in the company who are technically very competent and care about the sorts of things I do (correctness, elegance, performance, maintainability). So I've found a job that I think I'm going to really enjoy doing.
It's not you, it's many of the interviewees (Score:2)
Dude, they aren't doing it because they can't possibly find a single person who can ask a single technical question. They're doing it because companies are innundated with people looking for technical jobs who have absolutely zero idea what they're talking about, and they have to have some kind of filter to keep their engineers from spending all day interviewing idiots.
As you've pointed out, you had no difficulty doing their tests -- but a number of people would be filtered out there.
Now, if that is the *only* interview content, I agree that this would be overkill, but it seems reasonable for the first phase of the interview process.
I mean, you have no idea how goddamn ignorant many of the people applying for jobs are. I remember sitting in a room where an informal interview was being done. Some guy (suit, slicked-back hair, impressive resume, etc) had described himself as an "expert C programmer" (for some reason, every person, no matter their actual experience, is determined to describe themselves as "expert" in at least a couple things -- while this might happen occasionally, the engineer interviewing you is not that stupid). He was asked to write a strcpy() implementation. After something like five minutes of him nervously doodling (he needed to be told what strcpy() was, which didn't look like a good sign), the interviewer started asking him a couple questions. The guy had some sort of confused concept of a string -- he seemed to recall that strings were copied with a member function, seemed to have a fuzzy idea what a Java string was, and then started talking about LDAP (he must have using a string in something database-related in the past). The interviewer tried prompting him, giving him hints, tried asking some other C questions. It was embarassing. And if you have a bunch of your engineers lined up to interview this guy, to try to get some feel of what he can do, you've just blown a man-day completely. You have to have some kind of a filter. So, yes, a set of preprinted questions may not exactly challenge your technical wizardry, but it's cheap in terms of man-hours to apply. If those are the only questions you're being asked, then you might be right -- you might not want to work there. You shouldn't just pass on a job, though, because you have to pass a basic filter.
Lets Face Facts (Score:3, Insightful)
Now days, companies are looking for competent people. That means you will often have to prove that you are what you say you are.
The hordes of people, on Slashdot even, who sit here and balk at having to take relatively simple CS proficency tests and claim that there are no jobs for CS at all are the ones who got their CS degrees without really learning anything or having any actual proficency in the first place. On the other hand, the real geeks are getting jobs left and right and companies want more people like them - they can't find enough! The only people who need to worry about outsourcing are those who don't make the cut.
This is the market at work. It is a great time as ever to go into CS. Its just that this time, you will not be able to slack off and make it. You're going to have to prove yourself.
Nothing a start-up can do (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyone who does't want his own talent product marked with "Google®" or "Microsoft®" should go for a start-up. That's all anyone can do about this brain-drain.
In India, M$ is paying a fresh graduate around Rs. 7,50,000 which is way higher than the average of Rs. 2,80,000. Not to say anything about extremely flexible work hours, relaxed/no dress-code etc etc. Now, which one would you chose? A start-up with no guarentee to see light in next decade or a high-paying software giant?
Re:Nothing a start-up can do (Score:2)
That's an interesting number system that you've got there.
Not to worry.... (Score:3, Funny)
Unfortunately, it's with unskilled labor, takes 9 months to produce and over 20 years to even start being useful.
Re:Not to worry.... (Score:2)
If it's so easy to do, why can't the average slashdotter get laid?
How do you spell horseshit? (Score:3, Insightful)
boo fucking hoo. If there's only 250 competant engineers in the US looking for work then there's a much bigger problem than a 'brain drain' between companies.
There was a time when companies actually trained people out of college. Actually, now that I think about it, there was a time when companies actually hired people out of college.
New engineering logo of america:
Build us a bomb, or live with your mom.
Just a natural cycle (Score:2, Informative)
Empires rise and fall... I don't see anything usual about the hiring practices of Google or Yahoo snatching up the best talent.
Another player will come along in due time...
Nonsense (Score:2)
Since when is a vice-president an engineer? Hiring away someone else's pointy-haired-boss does not create a "brain drain".
Larry Tesler (Score:5, Informative)
Larry Tesler is about as far from a PHB as they get. He worked on the Xerox GUI machines back in the glory days of PARC. Then he worked as Cheif Scientist at Apple for almost two decades. The dude ported most of the Newton code to DYLAN during his 6 week sabatical. More recently he was involved with some Smalltalk based early childhood GUI "programming language". Stagecast software I think it was called. I didn't realize he ended up at Amazon for awhile.
Popular, not talented (Score:2, Insightful)
With thousands of qualified and professional software engineers floating around the industry, the only issue may be finding an engineer who has established themselves with the industry with recognition to boot. There is no short supply, that's nonsense. If your startup has difficulty hiring because of this popularity drain, then it's time to look in greener pastures.
What's yahoo? (Score:2)
Seriously, there was once a day that I used their search engine. Long ago, in the days when people actually thought about which search engine to use.
There was once a day when I got email from yahoo accounts. Long ago, in the days that my university's spam filter permitted incoming messages containing the word "yahoo".
It's nothing personal... (Score:2)
Admittedly, it's a lot easier going to a well-organized company that is on the top for a reason. But, what's the point? Work hard and be the next guy at the top.
See you there!
Tail wagging the dog (Score:2)
Market Forces & Balance (Score:2)
Crocodile tears (Score:2)
Some companies come around and create better working conditions with more opportunities, conditions which recognize and honour the talents that these workers have spent years honing.
Well, I guess these other companies which are being 'drained' (a pejorative meaning they can't compete to attract workers) will just have to improve their working conditions.
They can cry me a river until they do.
Re:Yahoo! is an "Idea Factory" (Score:2)
Yahoo! search has surpassed Google search. (Score:3, Insightful)
I've spent the last few days doing some very important searching - we're thinking about launching a new product in a rather arcane field, and I want to be absolutely certain who the potential competition might be - hence I decided to search both Google & Yahoo!.
Guess what? Yahoo! search beats Google search, hands down. Not even close.
Two thoughts:
Re:Frankly? (Score:3, Interesting)
For every one of these "top engineers" there are ten others just as smart and more inventive who, for whatever reason, have never become known to the handful of people making high-level recruiting decisions. I know a guy, Quinn Tyler Jackson [members.shaw.ca] who developed the theory of adaptive, context-sensitive grammars and built a fast parser that could handle any language with no ad-hoc cruft. It can naturally parse ambiguous things like "time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana". Ten years ago, it parsed the Gospel of Mark starting with just a single noun in its tiny dictionary and only a couple of pages of rules. Is Google or Microsoft or Yahoo! knocking on his door? No, of course not. He doesn't already have a top spot in a top firm, so how good can he be, they figure... if they figure.
I have dozens of patentable inventions lying around. They are in various areas - no one company could use them all. I can't afford to patent a single one of them, and even if I could I couldn't expect to make any money from them without far more resources. Without a patent, I can't even tell anyone about them without giving up the rights. (Companies seldom will sign an NDA to see an individual's idea, and even if they did, how could I afford to enforce it if they broke the agreement?)
Companies don't hire inventors much - they want engineers. Inventors think up stuff, which is easy and fun for the inventor but risky for the employer; making it work is difficult and tedious for the engineer and indispensable for the employer. I'm just an inventive technician, not a top engineer who can not only invent but can get the resources or make the invention work all by himself if need be. So, basically, I'm screwed under the current legal and employment situation.
Some of these ideas could make a company with the right resources a lot of money; some already have. I wasn't the first to think of reconfigurable computing in the early '90s or maybe even the 4-bit lookup table as a "supergate", but I certainly did so before these things came on the market. Ultrasonic beat-wave sound projection, same thing. As an 11 year-old kid in 1983 I came up with an idea for a notebook computer design with two hinged flat panel touchscreens that I think is still better for some purposes than what is on the market now. In 1994/5 I invented a tree browser history which I still wish I could get in Firefox or IE. I have a whole class of interface ideas combining the control of the command line with the discoverability of a menu system. I've got all sorts of optic, acousto-optic, superconductor, magnetic, electrostatic, electronic, power-producing, energy saving, inflatable, legal, corporate, psychological, interface and social applications ideas - and unless something changes, no one will get any use out of them. I don't see any jobs out there for some one like me who doesn't want to sell his soul for a salary.