We are faced with often contradictory information about the market for talent. On the one hand, we are told that compensation in many parts of the tech field has been stagnant for a decade or more. That the average salary for many tech jobs, adjusted for inflation, is approximately the same as it has been for years.
On the other hand, we are led to believe there is a shortage of competent programming talent, which is why the tech industry is pushing for immigration reform and why companies, even start-ups, offer ridiculous or even outrageous perks. So which is it, or can it be both?
There appears to be some truth to both arguments. Salaries in many tech fields, even programming have been fairly consistent, according to the data. Globalization has spread those skills around the world, particularly to parts of Asia, where the requisite skills can be acquired for considerably less than they go for in the US. However, tech now encompasses so much of the economy that 'average' may not be a useful indicator. Virtually every business and government agency requires people with technological expertise. From auto mechanics to public assistance administration, these skills are needed.
But there is a big difference between the tech support people in your insurance agent's office and the programmers sought by companies in Silicon Valley, Alley and the various innovative locales in between.
There is a cultural side to this. Talented programmers expect the outrageous. It is part of what makes the job alluring and it is firmly entrenched. Over the top perks may be a rounding error to the venture capitalists who fund these enterprises and some of the costs can be written off. They also compensate for the long hours and the uncertainty that comes with committing to new businesses whose success is not assured.
Whatever the reality, the ethos has been established and shows no signs of abating. JL
Julie Bort reports in Business Insider:
Even though debate rages over whether the tech talent shortage is real
or a myth in terms of raw numbers, tech companies know this:
good programmers and good designers are definitely hard to find. So they've gone to some pretty crazy lengths to find them.
The
talent wars in the tech industry are legendary.
A bicycle, an Iron Man 2 Deluxe Helmet and ...
a cow
In 2011, New York company Amicus, which helps non-profits raise money, was
looking to hire some programmers.
It offered a long list of perks,
NextWeb reported: $2,000 in cash, a full-year supply of Counter
Culture Coffee, a local gym membership, an iPad 2 (for prototyping), an Iron Man
2 Deluxe Helmet, an unlimited supply of your favorite beer, a fixed gear bicycle
and a cow.
Yes, a cow.
The cow would be donated in the programmer's name to Heifer.org, which
provides livestock to impoverished nations.
A paid-for vacation
It's trendy for companies these days to offer employees "unlimited
vacation."
But Airbnb, a site that lets people rent out their spare rooms, goes it one
step better. It pays for at least one vacation with an
annual $2,000 travel
stipend.
Bands, games and unlimited storage
Dropbox
Julie Bort/Business Insider
File sharing site Dropbox is able to offer its employees a unique perk:
All-you-can-eat storage in the cloud.
For many a geek, unlimited storage is a very big deal.
But wait, there's more.
Dropbox also lures them
with free breakfast, lunch and dinner daily, a complete music studio equipped
with drums, P.A., amplifiers, and a lot of gaming.
It offers "Starcraft, dedicated game rooms, DDR (yep, a real machine)" in
addition to the usual ping pong tournaments.
Perks for after you die
Even Google needs to sweeten the pot to hire and keep its talent.
Its perks are legendary: free haircuts, gourmet food, on-site doctors and
high-tech “cleansing” toilets. But one of them is really stupendous: death
benefits.
If a US Googler dies, the surviving spouse or domestic partner gets 50% of
their salary every year for the next decade, reports
Forbes' Meghan Casserly.
The billboard challenge
Last month, one exit North of SFO, a billboard was posted with a challenge
for developers.
It asked them to write a program that comes up with the shortest commuting
route for a bunch of tech companies in San Francisco. That submission also acted
like a job application for the companies including Mashery, Flurry, New Relic
and Glassdoor.
The billboard was the brainchild of
CodeEval. It comes up with lots
of funky games to lure developers for companies like Modcloth, BitTorrent and
others.
Free gourmet dinners for a year
When, Munchery, a San Francisco company that delivers gourmet meals, was
looking for an iOS developer, it offered a perk to anyone who could help it:
free food.
"Like every other company and your Aunt Sally, we’re looking to hire an iOS
Engineer," Munchery explained
in its blog. "Anyone who refers an iOS engineer to us that we
end up hiring, gets free Munchery dinners for a year! (Note: if you are an
awesome engineer and reach out to us directly and get hired, we’d be more than
happy to hand those free dinners to you!)"
Unlimited limo rides
Uber, a car transportation startup, offers employees free, unlimited car
service. They can even use Ubers to commute to work for
free.
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