yeah I'm kind of shook as well about the election.

edit: sorry to hear about the gf and the job situations, suzzer. hope it all gets better!

I literally can't even...

For me to believe there is a skills shortage there would have a previous time period where there wasn't a skills shortage. Salaries would have to be increasing and simultaneously standards would have to be dropping. When the Us invaded Iraq there was a skills shortage of young men seeing combat. We lowered standards and offered higher bonuses at the same time.

Salaries may be high but standards are certainly not dropping. My interviews for software have been absurd compared to every other job I have had. There is nothing like hours long take home assignments, and 6 hour onsite interviews anywhere else. In addition there would be little emphasis on cultural fit. That would not be a luxury that anyone could afford in market with skill shortages.

Shortage has a fairly precise economic definition. Just because there is demand for a skill doesn't mean that there is a shortage of that skill. Analyzing whether or not there is a shortage is best analyzed in terms of supply curves, demand curves, equilibrium points, and such in my view.

Something like a proliferation of boot camps may actually tend to lower the equilibrium point between supply and demand by increasing the supply. Increasing demand would tend to raise the equilibrium point between supply and demand. So an accurate model of the relevant supply and demand curves is probably the most effective way to analyze whether or not there is a shortage.

Suzzer,

To be fair, deep down you knew this was going to happen at the start-up. 90% of start-ups fail, and when everyone is working other full-time jobs and the start-up is in Australia and the designs are coming from the CEO and his lead investor... the odds of success have to be sub 1%. The fact you are getting paid is obviously good, and the equity likely worthless, but it always has been.

There is nothing wrong with telling the CEO you are a bit concerned about the recent language and asking to get paid for some of the work you are going to do up-front. You can make up a story about getting burned in the past and I'm guessing you are one of the strongest people on the team so he should NEED you to be there for the final leg. The worst he could say is no, or fire you, both of which don't really seem that bad compared to working for free on something that is bound to be ultra stressful. **** doing that for free.

It is good you have a 2nd job to fall back on. In terms of the election, yea I understand you are still quite shook about that, but overtime hopefully things end up not being too crazy. In terms of breaking up with the gf, you did it right before the holidays, which is basically the greatest time possible for that so at least you have that going for you.

+1

I don't really know what that means.

I believe salaries are increasing. You can google a bunch of data (h1b salaries, various news articles, etc.). Here's one of the first that popped up for me: http://www.informationweek.com/strat...image_number=9

I also believe standards are dropping. See bootcamp discussion. More and more companies are ok hiring self-trained and bootcamp trained developers.

Totally disagree. Companies are looking to grow, but not grow at all costs. Lots of companies think that 'cultural fit' avoids hiring people that will be a net negative. Nobody is going to hire somebody they think will be a net negative. It makes no sense regardless of how hard it is to fill a position.

ya the flats have been dead for years. a few places are returning but they are low in the pecking order. ohio city/west 25th is hopping now. west 6th has become trendy. gordon square is worthwhile too. and tremont is heavily traveled too. none of those places existed 15 yrs ago.

LL, I don't think it's going to work to ask to get paid now. They made it pretty clear all of us on 'salary' get paid at the end of the month. Also a guy I brought in to do HTML/CSS work has been kind of flakey and it doesn't put me in a great position. Although he's starting to crank stuff out finally, thank god. I may literally have to start doing the CSS. My CSS is like old people ****ing - slow and sloppy.

However as long as we are making progress I expect to get paid for November. I'll worry about Dec when it happens. At least I am learning redux now. Even if I don't get paid it's still worth it.

Google onsite tomorrow. Been doing a lot of leetcode problems, 170+ done so far. Really wish I could have done 300+ but not enough time. Don't know what else to do. Wish me luck guys!

Good luck!

From a buddy of mine:

What? No VIM, no Emacs? Ewwwww... it's a Windows guy! Trash that resume ::trollface::

Apparently he's also fluent in JSON. Gotta hire that guy now.

During the original dotcom boom some guy on a plane told me xml is gonna be the next linux

If he is fluent in XML as well then this guy is the whole package.

edit: LOL, was just writing about XML while you posted ^^^

I remember being told to list MS Office experience on first resume out of college... granted it was new then but still...

If there is always a skills shortage, that is not a real skills shortage. Shortages are by definition temporary.

Fair points. We may be in a skills shortage.

It is about level. If there is a ton of cultural fit I would argue this means companies can afford to be choosey, if there is less than that means they cannot.

Where is this definition?

It's not quite tautological but standard microeconomics suggests shortage in an economic sense (quantity demanded > quantity supplied at prevailing prices) cannot remain persistent unless pricing mechanisms are broken. Shortage is another way of saying that current prices are below equilibrium prices that would balance quantity supplied with quantity demanded. It may sound paradoxical bu saying that there's a shortage of programmers is equivalent to saying that programmers are underpaid.

Yes, thanks. But the bolded is important, along with a number of other complications that can affect supply/demand. Saying a shortage is by definition temporary (or even 'not quite tautological') is as silly as using Newton's first law while ignoring friction. I guess on some scale everything is temporary - so there's that. But given a set of economic/political policies its absolutely possible for a non-temporary shortage.

But whatever. If someone wants to use real data to explain to me why we don't have a skills shortage, I'm all ears. I laid out a number of reasons for why I believe we have one, referencing various sources.

Edit: And of course a skills shortage means the people with those skills are underpaid. But that's missing the point (which I already covered).

This piece on CNN says that 4 out of 5 software development jobs in the US go unfilled.

http://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2016/11...-interview.cnn

How many jobs do you think could be saved if people did research into product solutions that fit their needs (and god forbid changing their needs a bit) instead of hiring developers to build their own thing or customize (bastardize) the thing they bought?

It just seems like to me there are a lot of people out there who want to dictate their Jobs-esque vision onto other people instead of focusing on actually achieving the goals of their organization.

Product solutions almost never fit perfectly IME. And if you need too much customization it's easier to just write your own.

But there are people out there right now fluent in JSON and Chrome Element Inspector. Inefficient market.