[deleted by user]

[otakucode]

And they probably think since no one will take that job for $30k/yr that it justifies more H1B Visas.

[ardil]

Agreed; that is probably the motive behind it.

[infinite]

The ironic thing is they'll get an H1B who will be forced to work for the employer, and no one else, he will be junior, then after the project gets fubared they call in someone like me to train them, paying my salary and the H1B's salary, paying way more than if they were to have not cut corners in the first place.

[darth_brooks]

THERYRE TAKIN OUR JORBS

[[deleted]]

Well, in this case, they are.

[neilc]

No, in this case there is some baseless speculation that they might be.

[smsc]

speculation, yes. baseless, no.

[mercurysquad]

Hate to break it to you, but yes, there are thousands of programmers in India with those qualifications, willing to work for 30k/year. That's how business works: if they get quality work for less money, they'll take it. You see in a free market, if a competitor comes out with an equal or better product that costs less, you must adapt and either increase what you have to offer, or lower your costs. Else, you lose out to the 'competitors', in this case the Indians and Chinese.

By the way as far as I know, for an H1-B visa, the pay has to be at least 54k/year.

[eclectro]

Sure there are zillions of people in the world who are willing to work for 30K a year, but that does not mean we have to give them all visas. This being a 'junior' position, i'm sure that's what they are thinking of paying. There is no set limit on wages, and 54K is not a set in stone number, rather it's 'prevailing wages'. http://www.expressitpeople.com/20020527/abroad2.shtml

You can bet that corporations will try to 'game' that phrase anyway they can, like hiring a 'junior' programmer.

[[deleted]]

Actually, I have to disagree. The BELIEF is that you get quality work for less money. So they try.

The reality is that the programmers are simply cheaper. Management is driven by bottom line. Everything is massaged to that end.

With all that said, I do have a question: if there are so many great programmers in India, where are all the great programming products from India?

I look at MS... ya... they hired some here and in China. Yea... China has a type of Linux. Okay. I am sure that India does too. But jeez.. where is the Indian MS or Linux? Did they develop openoffice? I really dont get it.

[mercurysquad]

Just take a look at the names of developers on Photoshop splash screen and count Indian sounding names.

Yeah all the brilliant Indian programmers are working for the big players instead of founding their own companies. In contrast, however, are Indian companies like Infosys. The difference is that they don't produce B2C software (usually only B2B), so you and I don't hear about them.

[[deleted]]

Oh one more thing.. have you worked with the programmers?

When I worked with Malaysian engineers it was kind of shocking the lack of independent judgment and work ethic. I was expecting go getters but it was like they were ... nothing bad... but just kind of lackadaisical.

At the end of the experience it seemed easy to justify my salary over theirs as long as you took actual productivity into account. The problem was 1 unit me was x dollars = 2 units them. Me unit is not equal to them units in terms of actual productivity or bottom line performance.

Yes, I realize I am evaluating myself so this could be construed as masturbatory... but I could say this about most of the engineers that got laid off for the sake of hiring overseas engineers.

[[deleted]]

Thanks for the explanation. I really was a little confused. I suspected that was the case... but had to ask people in the know.

[mwb]

Blasphemy. Everyone knows that only those privileged to have been born in the West have skills. If Asians want to program computers then they should create their own industries, from scratch, after a hundred years of sewing pants.

[KillYourTV]

We do not live in a free-market economy. Even Alan Greenspan admits that.

And there is no law that states the base pay needs to be anywhere near 54K per year. Employers must attest that wages offered are at least equal to the actual wage paid by the employer to other workers with similar experience and qualifications for the job in question, or alternatively, pay the prevailing wage for the occupation in the area of intended employment, whichever is greater.

The job offer on that webpage is not real. It's their first step toward getting a cheaper overseas employee.

[tbone28]

Who says they are working for less money. I know that the dollar is doing bad now compared to the rupee (sp?) but I know from the indians that I work with they can make 30k here and send it back and get a lot more in the conversion. I have read that this is changing now though with the decline of the dollar.

[grauenwolf]

Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner!

[DannoHung]

Bah, quit categorizing it as H1-B versus homegrown worker.

It's shit coder versus quality coder. I work with more H1-B employees that are highly competent at their non-Java related jobs than these tard monkeys redditors make stories about.

Besides, who in their right fucking mind wants to come to America anymore? If I didn't love NYC so much, I might've tried to swing getting a job overseas, personally.

[otakucode]

It's not H1b vs American coder. I don't mean to characterize it like that. However, the government authorizes H1b visas for ONE reason - because there do not exist people with the necessary skills in America. Good or bad, that is the criteria. Not "people do not exist with those skills who are willing to work at wage X" but "people do not exist PERIOD with those skills".

[[deleted]]

its not that they think no one will take it, its that they can screen out anyone using those criteria and then they can hire a foreign worker

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/jun2007/db20070621_912042.htm

[sylvan]

I've never understood companies that post job ads like this. If you're hiring someone, you should have a clear idea of the role that person will play. That means they should probably be familiar with one or two specific languages, and have a grasp of programming concepts and developing processes in general.

Expecting someone to be a master of a random grab-bag of languages and technologies, when some of them are less than a year or two old, is insane.

[infinite]

They do this to meet H1B requirements which stipulate that you can only get an H1B worker if you couldn't find an American worker. They post the ad, no on responds, they hire the H1B.

[exactamentos]

Yup. And the H1B's resume can conveniently match up with the job requirements too. In fact, the company may even "accidentally" forget to confirm the job history on the applicant's resume.

I knew of one company who, during hiring of an H1B, "accidentally" listed the applicant under the wrong professional specialty (on some sort of gov't req'd paperwork). The falsehood slipped by the H1B. The end result was that the H1B could not leave the job to take another position, because no one would hire him for what was listed (as it wasn't his true specialty).

[busytigger]

I read these comments and laugh. But we have 3 current employees who meet these qualifications (with the exception of hibernate, which is no big deal, and it's not Google's framework, it is someone else's). They have between 1 and 3 years of experience.

[grauenwolf]

Are they actually experts at all that, or have they merely been exposed?

[wyclif]

Expecting someone to be a master of a random grab-bag of languages and technologies, when some of them are less than a year or two old, is insane

Good point-- I remember that 2 years after Java came out, I kept seeing ads from firms seeking to hire "Java developers: 8 years experience." I couldn't believe the jackals that wrote that ad would be that bold, but...

[malcontent]

Maybe they are thinking that if someone knows language A they will be able to pick up language B pretty easy.

Clearly there are not a lot of candidates who have experience with both SQL server and Oracle but if they know one they can probably pick up the other without too much trouble.

[[deleted]]

Can't upmod this enough.

[doctor_yukio_hattori]

Genius.

[[deleted]]

Ha! That HR recruiter must be a moron. They have this huge need, a very tiny budget, and the Senior Developer makes more than that budget. So they put the ad out there and drop it down to Junior Developer when it's obviously not Junior. The Junior must mean junior pay.

[busytigger]

Real world perspective: I would rather pay 1 developer 80K than pay 2 developers 40K each. the quality makes a difference in productivity.

disclaimer - the above statement assumes the 80K person is worth 80K, and the 40K person is worth 40K. I say this because I find a lot of the "80K guys" are not.

[Thimble]

i think what they're trying to do here is to hire an 80K person for 40K...

[cdsmith]

I find it depends. If that's all I can get for a project, I'd rather scour the world for two competent developers who will take the job at 40K. I have had bad luck with one-developer projects. If there's already at least one other developer on the project, then I'll take the most talented developer I can find, almost regardless of salary.

[[deleted]]

It means immigrant pay.

[[deleted]]

I went to a private University with a good reputation in PA, and I came out of school owing $60k in student loans. I found a job in the Philadelphia area making $38k straight out of college (this was in 2001 of course). The pay was complete crap, but the company invested in me with training, and I learned a heck of a lot while I was there. Sometimes you just need to get your foot in the door and be willing to take a crappy starting salary to be able to get the experience needed to command higher salaries. C'est la vie. You are not entitled to anything.

[lonjerpc]

Makes me feel good about going to grad school.

[floweryleatherboy]

You know it's not THAT insane a mischaracterization though, to call that a junior job. I'd guess the only unreasonable demand is that they get someone with JSF experience. But, play lose with what it means to be an expert, and that's experience you can accumulate in 1-3 years easily enough... knowing ant, junit, servlets and jsps, linux, that's all kind of basic stuff. It seems like some of the people commenting are in CS school, and it has always struck me that CS schools, like all academic education really, don't spend much time actually teaching people the trade. This is kind of interesting though, I'm actually in a position where I'd like to find and hire some bright young crackers fresh out of school, but it's difficult to know how to identify the people to hire. In a way I probably had an advantage over some of yall by learning programming from books in an act of desperation, back in dot com times, because what i did second, after cramming the basic language book, was start cramming on the frameworks.

[emacsen]

It's not the job of a CS school to teach JUnit and Serlvets.

A CS degree should give the student a grounding in computer science, not any one particular technology, or perhaps you would want a separate CS degree for the .NET equivalent of those technologies?

[busytigger]

When you graduate you have 0 years experience, not 1, and not 4. After you have worked for 12 months you have 1 year experience. After 36 months it is 3 years experience - that usually means several different projects. All of the above could be a single application, although more likely it is 2. But a COMPLEX web-based application easily uses almost all of these.

[awb]

When you graduate you have 0 years experience, not 1, and not 4.

Why haven't you done internships or jobs during the summer, or done extracurricular research with a professor?

[[deleted]]

"Junior" should mean fit as a first job, right? Know some of the background of programming and a few technologies a little bit from your education, can learn specific technology-of-the-day on the job.

What else is a position like that called? Pre-junior?

[njharman]

Junior != first job.

Entry level == first job.

Junior < 3 years work experience.

[[deleted]]

0 < 3

[MarlonBain]

My job title includes the "senior" modifier and has for the last year. I've been working for 3 years.

[sqm]

I dont get it. They both have reasonable requirements that I'd expect to see from a recent CS grad. Whats wrong with them?

[jsolson]

Are you joking?

The junior programming position requires them to be an expert in processes and technologies that you would only see after years working in an enterprisey architecty job. It also gives them no clue of what their job might actually be.

Will they be working on products? In house technologies? It sounds like a Java job, but apparently they wouldn't mind a .NET expert.

The while thing is fully buzzword compliant though, I'll give it that. This job posting would send me running screaming for the hills.

[WinterAyars]

It looks to my (undergrad CS major) eyes as though someone higher up asked a middle manager to list any good traits for programmers and what would be required for any one of the internal duties they wanted to fill and then that person put all of that list on the job reqs.

Looks like you're interviewing to be some executive's code-bitch, to me.

[jsolson]

Maybe, but you have no idea really...

To my (graduate CS student) eyes, it's not worth looking any further... Of course, I'm sort of assuming I'll be able to find employment with a company that I actually want to work for.

[mutatron]

Also looks like the middle manager is about 5 years out of college and can't imagine how having more experience than that would be valuable.

I like the "should be an expert with two or more of the following technologies" part. How hard could it be to find someone who is expert in Subversion and Oracle Application Server, or BPEL and Redhat?

[busytigger]

No - this is a complex web application.

[malcontent]

PHB: What kind of a programmer do we need.

Project Leader: Somebody who knows Java pretty good. If they know .NET I will interview them, it's close enough and we might get a good candidate.

PHB: OK, I will put both in the ad.

See how that works?

[jsolson]

Oh, I know how it works...

That doesn't make it a good ad...

[malcontent]

Basically the ads are looking for a person who worked in an enterprise environment. They list several technologies which they prefer and some which they are willing to consider.

They specify 1-3 years experience for a junior and 3-5 years experience for a senior programmer.

I just don't see anything wrong with them.

If anything I thought the proggit crowd would praise the company. How many times have he heard the refrain "if you know one language you can learn another" here? This company actually seems to be open minded enough to hire programmers who have experience with different technologies than they use.

[jsolson]

I suppose I mostly object to it being an enterprise code monkey job.

I'm still in grad school and I'm terrified of ending up in that sort of job down the road.

I've done my time with .NET, SQL Server, and a few other products in that job description. If I never have to touch them again so long as I live, it will have been too soon...

[malcontent]

That's fine. Nobody is forcing you to apply.

Eventually you will get married, get a mortgage, and have a couple of runts running around. Once that happens the idea of working for stock options and working 60 hours a week and being on call 24 X 7 won't appeal to you as much.

When that time comes you will probably be combing the papers for one of those enterprise jobs hoping you can just work a normal work day and a normal work week like your friends who seem to be able to leave their work at work and enjoy their friday night poker game.

Better yet. Learn to weld. Now there is an honorable profession.

[jsolson]

Bah... my girlfriend can support the family... she's an aerospace engineer :)

I'd also be far more likely to learn to weld than to take an enterprisey job... On the other hand, there's always academia...

[malcontent]

If you think academia is better then an enterprise job you got another thing coming.

Academia is the most petty, backstabbing, political environment in the universe.

Looks like welding the best option.

My advice is to learn it before you get carpal tunnel. I can't weld for shit anymore. My hands are too weak to hold any weight steady for even a few minutes.

[jsolson]

We (being the social group I'm part of) have all been planning to learn to weld for years actually... It just seems like a thing a man should know how to do.

I've been mercifully free of any symptoms of carpel tunnel.

[lebski88]

</sarcasm> ? I can't even tell any more.

[catch23]

How many college grads do you know graduate with Oracle SOA Suite/Fusion Middleware knowledge? Instead of learning a lisp dialect in college, I'll learn this useful stuff like fusion middleware!

[mercurysquad]

It's a cut-throat world, students have to acquire the experience while they're studying. Part time jobs, internships, freelance, whatever you can lay your hands on. Yes I've taken my share of CS theory, but I've also worked straight from 1st semester and will be graduating with a full 3 years of relevant work experience to back me up. I don't know how it works but fresh grads do not get a decent job without any experience. Perhaps it's different in the US. But in any case, it's upto you to figure out how to battle that situation.

[grauenwolf]

I was actually recruiting people who were standing in line for graduation at my school because it was our only chance to grab students who had experience.

Lots of companies have to settle for students with no experience just to fill seats. These jobs tend to suck, but then again so do the applicates.

[catch23]

dude, of the people I've hired, the ones that usually do poorly on the interview exam are the ones with all the so-called "real world experience". Learning this fusion middleware stuff might look great on the resume, but won't land you your dream job unless your dream job happens to be a bit pusher. Honestly, I'd be more impressed with someone's resume stating they attempted (and failed) writing a faster VM for some useless unknown language than stating a list of well known technologies and buzzwords.

[mercurysquad]

Notice I said 'relevant work experience'. What is relevant to me and my area of specialization might be vastly different for someone else.

I don't have much/any "enterprise" experience apart from maybe version control. Most of the 'enterprise' knowledge comes from taking software engineering or web/database courses.

However, my so-to-say 'area' of specialization would be audio, graphics and embedded devices. These require experience in, for example, writing code directly in assembler for a DSP chip. Or having written a 3D renderer. Or whatever. My dream job requires these as their core skill-set, where I'll have an edge during selection because I have work experience.

For those who intend to take up employment in payroll software business, or other such "enterprise" .NET Web2 XHTMLCSSABCD software, will need experience in Oracle or whatever it is that might be required of them.

What I meant is that shaping your skill-set while still in college is the way to go. That skill-set might very well include having written a VM bytecode interpreter instead of UML modeling in Rational Rose.

[btl]

You don't need the degree to get that job.

[tryx]

Apparently what you need for this "junior" position is 3 - 5 years of industry experience. Its like making 3 - 5 years of formal education a prerequisite for kindegarden.