Tech Jobs and the Market

Picture: commons.wikimedia.org

Straight out of college, a software developer in Massachusetts can be earning up to $90,000. The market is highly competitive, but it is not workers who are desperately trying to land a job. If you are a fresh graduate having a tech job, chances are you are getting about 20 calls a day from recruiters, and if you decide to switch to another employer, you will probably get a 20 - 25 percent raise.

These all varies from state to state, of course. Funny enough, in spite of great universities located in Boston area, Massachusetts is the most difficult state in the U.S to hire tech workers, the Massachusetts High Technology Council claims. The other states that are experiencing similar difficulties are Maryland and Virginia. The lack of the labor force can be compared to the dot-com boom. There are many young companies that are growing fast, and not enough skilled workers in particular geographic areas to fill the positions. In Massachusetts, the travel site Tripadvisor Inc., marketing company HubSpot Inc., and robot company iRobot Corp. are constantly having tens of positions open. iRobot, for example, has been increasing the number of tech job recruiters in the company, as hiring tech people became a top priority for the firm. That is notwithstanding paying fresh tech graduates from $65,000 to $80,000. Some companies are so desperate, that they are offering $10,000 bonuses for leads that convert to employees. One of the highest paying offers was by HubSpot in 2013, back then they were offering $30,000 bounty.

The field that struggles the most is cybersecurity. In recent years, the world has seen a significant increase in cyber attacks. According to a consulting firm PwC, increase of cyber attacks in 2014 was 48%, and the number must probably will be growing with the expansion of the Internet of things.

To some extent I find it hilarious. In so many industries it is incredibly difficult to find a well-paid job without having many years of work experience. For example, getting a job in marketing for a fresh graduate is quite complicated. Even an entry job would often require some former real-life working experience along with a university degree. My own Bachelor's degree is in Business Administration (with many marketing courses taken), and it is not that easy to find a job that I would like with a good pay. A sort of switch where you need to choose what to sacrifice: money or desire to do a particular type of job. The same dilemmas are present in the tech industry, of course, however, with a starting salaries over 60 thousand, the money matter stops being that significant.

Tech jobs are not that welcoming to older tech workers, however. They seem to be out of the market right now, and even if they want, they do not receive as many offers as younger people.  Reasons for that vary, many blame so-called Silicon Valley age discrimination. Although, there is age discrimination in the industry, some other reasons are lack of fast-changing skills, unwillingness to move from suburbs to Boston or Cambridge (or any other major IT centres for that matter), and unwillingness to work longer and often unstructured hours. Software developer should always have up to date skills as technologies are developing really fast. For example, a year ago, it was cool to use Angular.JS, and now people are moving to other, newer frameworks. Older workforce, though, can be highly skilled in certain areas, often do not update their skills and, hence, just grow unfit for many current tech jobs.

Older tech workers are often told after interviews they do not fit companies' cultures, which they perceive as a message that they are too old. And, although, some think that some veterans of the industry who are used to wear suits and ties to work do not fit into a circle of bearded hipsters with macbooks, I believe that discrimination still takes palce to a large extent. One person who spend many years working in tech told in the interview with Boston Globe, that after he removed first 25 years of his work experience from a resume, he started receiving more calls.

Sometimes, age discrimination in technology becomes very explicit. Remember that guy who was giving out business cards saying 'I'm CEO, bitch?' During his speech at Stanford back in 2007, Mark Zuckerberg has told the audience that "Young people are just smarter." Weather there is some truth in it or not (I guess younger people are less afraid of taking risks), the practice of hiring younger people works as a rule. Some older dudes reported going through plastic surgeries to look younger to appear as they belong to the modern day's tech industry. You cannot look like you have several children, a wife, mortgage, and a minivan anymore.

According to PayScale Inc., the Seattle salary data and software company, in 2014 the median age of workers at Facebook was 29. At Google and Amazon.com - 30. This is 13 and 12 years younger than the median age of all American workers, which according to the Labor Department is 42,

So we have figured out that if you are young, then you have more chances to land a tech job. But what's on demand and what are the salaries? According to theladders.com, in year 2015 the most trending careers in tech were Senior Software Engineer (with $109k nationwide average), Java Developer ($85k), Product Manager ($120k), Web Developer ($99k), and .NET Developer ($88k). However, the agency demonstrated average salaries, that might not represent the actual situation accurately due to salary differences in different regions across the U.S. Although, to be fair, if a salary for a particular job in San Francisco is higher than a salary for the same position in another location, it does not mean that a job seeker would be better off in San Francisco. Technophiles may claim that Silicon Valley is the place to be (and they are quite right), but after adjusting cost of living, quite possibly Boston or Washington D.C. would be more attractive than San Francisco or New York.

by Nik Rollinson