"Find me any company that doesn't have a difficult time sourcing well-qualified Rails developers, or experienced JavaScript experts. There is huge demand, not enough supply"
My problems with this statement is that you didn't mention pay or working conditions. Are they hiring for general talent, offering 200k a year with a nice private office? Are they offering 100k, forcing people to work in a loud open office where everyone can see your screen, requiring that you live in SF where the median priced house is over a mil, and demanding immediate plug and play developer with a a very narrow specialty skill set? I mean, they say they can't hire, but doesn't that mean they can't hire at the price they think they should get to pay?
I do agree with you that one shouldn't conclude a person isn't high talented in software if he or she doesn't have a grad degree. Obviously there are ludicrously talented developers who don't have grad degree, or even any degree of that matter. Software is like that.
A good analogy is the so-called "pilot shortage" among US-based airlines.
There are plenty of pilots around; there just aren't enough pilots anymore who are willing to work for the wages and conditions that exist at the entry level of those airlines. A common figure I've seen quoted is that the education, training and certification required to become an airline pilot comes in around $250,000 total, while the starting salary is often $20,000 or less.
In an ironic inversion of the H-1B debate, apparently foreign airlines in rapidly-expanding markets are quite happy to pay significantly higher wages to snag US-trained pilots.
The problem with pilot wages though is entirely due to the pilot unions of the various airlines. Those with seniority get to pick the best routes and can earn $250-300k. The new pilots however end up working terrible routes and earn 1/10th of that. Overall there is a huge amount of money going towards pilot pay because pilot unions have huge negotiating power. But the unions have determined how to distribute that wealth.
The best routes and best pay are on the long haul, wide body flights. These planes are in the 100s of millions of dollar range. I think it's completely logical an airline would trust their most expensive high revenue flights to the pilots that have seen some shit and negotiated it successfully.
The real reason of the pilot shortage is because the FAA now requires commercial pilots to have 1500 hours of flight time before they can work for an airline. Flight schools will give you 300-400 hours and the rest you have to make up some how. Just like every job these days, everyone wants experienced, entry level candidates.
Not just pilots. The wages in Hong Kong that you can get (source: headhunters approaching me) are literally multiples of US or EU rates. Amongst others I was offered USD 350k + bonus to head a data science team - and all I have is an unrelated engineering degree and three years' experience. This kind of package would be hard to get for a freshly minted Harvard MBA at a major bulge bracket bank...
In finance, I've seen some eye watering packages in China for the same reason, including base salaries of 600k and 750k respectively for someone who was making 300k, at a large institution and a small hedge fund. Obviously, with the local cost of living the difference is magnified.
Personally, moving to Asia was the best career move I ever made; the local economies grow at 15% a year, the local companies grow even faster, and there's a real lack of talent locally vs the ultra-competitive US market. Whenever I can, I try to convince companies here to hire Americans or Europeans remotely or relocate them.
Very interesting. I grew up in Hong Kong and most of my friends are still earning < 100k. Most tech firms don't even have a development team in Hong Kong. For example, Google and Facebook only have a sales team there. Apple and Yahoo are the exceptions but even then the development team is small.
I wonder what company you are working for. As far as I know the demand for tech workers is pretty low over there.
Well, depends what you define as tech. I might get some flak for this but in my experience, the AVERAGE quality of developers in Europe and especially in the US is much higher than in Asia. For example, a majority of the data science candidates I interviewed in Singapore, outside the Haskell community would fit all of the data I provided them with and call that their model (the concept of validation never entering their mind). Similarly, most didn't know what the relational model was and just wanted to use NoSQL methods without justification (mostly because it's hot and would look good on their CV). The exceptions usually already worked in the US, and wanted to come home to their family, so I'm guessing there's a fair bit of brain drain going on. Some specialties which are "harder" to acquire, like dev ops, also help fetch higher levels - I can think of one of our dev ops candidate who was getting 280k USD in Hong Kong managing 100 servers.
I'd say those offers are mostly in the financial industry (obviously) or in big corp (think F500 companies, pharma, etc.) and involved a bit of leadership or specialised experience, not being yet another RoR developer. But keeping up with friends in the US, I find the rates are substantially higher if you can differentiate yourself. YMMV.
Unfortunately most companies/managers don't want to try it. I'm structuring my own company never to have a physical presence beyond the Hong Kong legal offices, but we are a big exception.
Judging by your other comments you're a fan of Thailand so maybe try Lazada, they are hiring a ridiculous number of engineers at the moment, salaries are very high for Bangkok, but the codebase (and politics, just from the size) might be a little painful, and a lot of the development is actually happening in Vietnam, which might be another barrier.
If you want loads of money for boring work, the best way is still to come to Singapore/HK, get any job to get a visa, and gradually contact every recruiter you can. Experienced "leadership capable" developers being rare they'll have plenty of spots, but none of them are going up on websites. The speed at which the market move is staggering, in one occasion I had an offer 2 hours after meeting the company person, and visas take about a week in Singapore.
These are some very interesting insights that you are sharing. I'd love to hear more about this -- southeast Asia seems like an exceptionally lucrative place to work if you are "playing it right." Do you have an e-mail address that I can write a few (short) questions to?
I'm in Fiji. There are American pilots flying for great wages here. Fijian pilots get the shaft though, and only barely get by on their wages.
The Fijians then take jobs in places the americans find harder to stomach (Papua New Guinea, the middle east, etc) and make more than the American expat pilots in Fiji do.
My problems with this statement is that you didn't mention pay or working conditions. Are they hiring for general talent, offering 200k a year with a nice private office? Are they offering 100k, forcing people to work in a loud open office where everyone can see your screen, requiring that you live in SF where the median priced house is over a mil, and demanding immediate plug and play developer with a a very narrow specialty skill set? I mean, they say they can't hire, but doesn't that mean they can't hire at the price they think they should get to pay?
I do agree with you that one shouldn't conclude a person isn't high talented in software if he or she doesn't have a grad degree. Obviously there are ludicrously talented developers who don't have grad degree, or even any degree of that matter. Software is like that.