5 ms·

War for tech talent in NYC

64 points by kiddo 16y ago

huertanix 16y ago
There's a thread in Quora listing a fair chunk of NYC startups that are currently hiring, and it grows almost daily: http://www.quora.com/Which-startups-in-NY-are-hiring http://www.quora.com/Which-startups-in-NY-are-hiring
jdp23 16y ago
"I haven’t seen it this hot since 1997. It’s white-hot." Sounds bubble-icious to me ...
- smokinn 16y ago
  Sort of. The problem with calling everything a bubble is the implication that bubbles inevitably pop. In our industry, good programmers tend to create a vastly disproportionate amount of value compared to what they're paid. It's easy to pay programmers hundreds of thousands of dollars because with programmers, a few thousands of dollars of computers and some electricity you can make millions. Maybe it's a bubble but I think it's simply a market correction. If your output is valuable you can and should be compensated well for it.
  - nir 16y ago
    Well, bubbles do pop. The market was hot 96-2000, then cold say 2001-2005, then got hot till the mortgage crisis, then cold until a few months ago etc. Great programmers can create a lot of value, in the right context. Boo.com ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boo.com http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boo.com ) might have had developers as bright as Amazon's, working just as hard - but in the end they created $0 value.
    - smokinn 16y ago
      It's obviously not a given that you get programmers together and they create value. There's a lot more to a business than coding. What I was arguing is not that bubbles don't pop but rather that you can't call everything a bubble because that implies that it's going to go down. Maybe it's because I'm a programmer myself and therefore I'm too biased but I see very few jobs right now that are in such high demand and whose demand is only going to rise even more in the near term. Basically I was saying it's not a bubble, it's a normal market correction. We had the dot-com bust that devalued programmers massively because of completely artificial conditions and this "white hot" we're currently in really should be the norm.
    - petercooper 16y ago
      As an aside, (and apologies if you've read it) "Boo Hoo", the corporate biography of Boo.com's rise and fall, makes for both hilarious and scary reading: http://www.amazon.com/Boo-Hoo-Dot-Com-Story/dp/0099418371 http://www.amazon.com/Boo-Hoo-Dot-Com-Story/dp/0099418371 Their technical people did pull off some great feats but ultimately it was a shambles from start to finish.
      - nir 16y ago
        Nice! I wasn't aware of this book, will add it to my list.
  - jdp23 16y ago
    Maybe it is a bubble and maybe it isn't. We shall see. But this kind of white-hotness occurred in past bubbles, so it's one more indication that's what going on. And yes, bubbles pop.
- sayrer 16y ago
  Smells like a PR plant by the headhunting firm.
jasonlbaptiste 16y ago
Who here is an NYC startup and who here is hiring?
- gaustin 16y ago
  I'd like to add a further question, if it's not frowned upon. Are there any that might be interested in folks who would start remotely (but willing to come out for bits of onsite time) and then relocate to NYC in a few months?
  - shafqat 16y ago
    Yes - what kind of tech are you interested in? Email me (email in profile)!
- rit 16y ago
  10gen, the company behind MongoDB (whom I work for) is hiring in NY: http://www.10gen.com/jobs http://www.10gen.com/jobs Python, Java, C++, etc
- shafqat 16y ago
  NewsCred is hiring - we're looking for information retrieval engineers. So any experience (or even interest) in search, IR, solr, lucene, machine learning etc would be great. If not, willingness to learn. We'd love on site, but would consider the remote option if the fit is great, and the remote location is near NYC.
  - dotnetrock 16y ago
    How do you guys make money since there is no pricing or any info on what the service will cost.
    - shafqat 16y ago
      We're a B2B company. We charge other web publishers a monthly fee to access our content API. Depending on what kind of content they need and how big they are, the pricing starts at 1K/month to 5 digits/month...
rwhitman 16y ago
I'm actually starting on the hunt for an employer in NYC right now, but there are so many co's hiring its somewhat daunting as to where to start. Is there any NYC-specific tech job board out there?
- jasonlbaptiste 16y ago
  See this is good though that it's the employee's choosing. They'll end up finding a better fit of a company, which works better for a startup. What interests you and what's your specialty?
  - rwhitman 16y ago
    I've been trying to break into Product Management or UX. I'd say my personal interest is in community / social products. Kind of a weird situation, relocated from LA a month ago. I've been an independent contractor my entire career (10 years), huge range of skills including founded a startup, early stage product consulting, frontend dev, UI/UX design, Django & PHP dev, project management, social media marketing etc. Not sure how to approach this employment thing on new territory, especially with such a weird career path.
    - jasonlbaptiste 16y ago
      NYC is actually perfect for a lot of this. I think UX, design, and front end dev fit well with the mixture of media and technology. Back end and hardcore tech is obviously important, but the real winner is going to be due to design. Dropped ya a LinkedIn and happy to intro you to some startups where this might fit: j@jasonlbaptiste.com (invite open for others as well).
      - rwhitman 16y ago
        Very psyched, just reached out on LinkedIn. Thanks!
- nir 16y ago
  http://nextny.jobthread.com/ http://nextny.jobthread.com/ Also, if you attend meetups in your field (eg NY Python/PHP/Android/etc meetup) they often allocate a few minutes for job offers/seekers. The article's right, there's a strong demand now. Make sure to save some of your income once you get a job (NYC can easily eat up any wad of cash you'll throw at it ;) - the bubble will inevitably pop, make sure you can wait the next one comfortably.
Skywing 16y ago
Pick me, pick me. :)
- yan 16y ago
  Are you the same Skywing that used to post on Genmay like 6-8 years ago? I think I bought a Toshiba laptop from you.
dkasper 16y ago
Seems to be true in the Bay Area as well.
tocomment 16y ago
You'd think they'd want to hire someone in philli who's willing to work two days a week onsite and the rest from home but no. It's like I have the plague whenever I mention it.
- gaustin 16y ago
  I have a similar issue. My attempt at a solution is to build a portfolio so compelling that employers will hire me for (mostly) remote work without qualms. Hopefully the market for developers is still strong when my portfolio is strong. Failing that, I guess I'll move back to civilization.
- huertanix 16y ago
  I think that there's a certain dynamic with people that work in person that doesn't happen as much remotely; In person someone could walk into a random conversation after overhearing an idea, start adding their own twist to it, and eventually someone starts scribbling on a whiteboard and a new iteration of your product is born. I just don't see that happening as easily over groupware.
  - yannickt 16y ago
    Having everyone on site is almost essential for an early stage startup, but the more established the business the less frequent the dynamic you describe, imo. I think many companies would benefit from hiring a few remote workers. It is one of the many ways a company can win the war on talent. I think one underrated aspect of Google's success in attracting top talent is that they do R&D in many more locations than e.g. Microsoft. Also IIRC the main engineer on Chrome/V8 started working for Google from his home in Denmark.
goodgoblin 16y ago
I would love to know what the average startup is paying now in NYC v.s. what the average Wall Street Firm would pay for the same programmer.
- cletus 16y ago
  That's really apples and oranges. In many ways, Wall St and startups don't want the same programmers, at least not as much. Working on Wall Street--or most large companies for that matter--is largely transactional. You provide a service. You get paid for that service. You tend to get paid quite well to make up for the abuse you often end up taking. This is particularly true if you work in financial markets (as most Wall Street programmers do) where there are two kinds of people: traders and people who don't matter (being everyone else). With a startup--particularly an early stage startup--you're taking a long term stake in the company, possibly a significant stake. If it's particularly early that stake but will largely be in lieu of a market wage (or any wage at all). In my experience the profiles of the people in both categories (in an ideal sense from the company's point of view) don't quite match.
  - saikat 16y ago
    Wall Street is large, and there are many types of firms there. Technology is a lot more important in a lot of Wall Street firms now than they used to, and, at the hedge fund I used to work at, programmers were the first class citizens and made many of the large decisions. The startup type is the perfect fit for these places - they want people who, with little management, can make innovative tools from scratch that will earn the place millions of dollars. And they pay a lot of money for this kind of person.
  - asanwal 16y ago
    With respect to recent grads (bachelors, master, PhD), if you have loans to pay off, the allure of Wall Street is significant and understandable as it puts more money in your pocket tmw vs. 99% of startups. In the case of these grads, it's not an issue of profile but simple arithmetic that results in Wall St winning.
samratjp 16y ago
"Right now in New York City every technology company is hiring engineers, programmers, Java developers or PHP/Perl developers,” Carvajal said. “I haven’t seen it this hot since 1997..." Ummm, did they get the quote from 1997 too? I find these stacks to be in the minority these days for a startup anyways. Or is this a NYC trend?
- pavel_lishin 16y ago
  They might not be going to startups only. Does HotJobs cater to other tech companies, too? I'm a PHP developer, and I don't think I'd consider my current NY employer (worked here for about a month now) a startup.
- geebee 16y ago
  This quote struck me as a bit outdated as well. Not because it mentions Java and PHP, but because it seems to imply that those are the big two skill sets. The "what does your startup use?" polls that show up on HN every know and then suggest Python and Ruby are in heavy use (though PHP and Java do still get a decent showing)
  - asnyder 16y ago
    Believe it or not the self-selecting group represented on Hacker News is absolutely not representative of the developer majority. Furthermore, it's very unsettling that even on hacker news there's this prevalent anti-PHP attitude. With the release of PHP 5.3, and the current maturity of the numerous frameworks there's never been a better time to use PHP.
    - geebee 16y ago
      I have no trouble believing this. I should probably have said "even on hacker news polls, Java and PHP get a substantial showing..."
    - KaeseEs 16y ago
      That there hasn't ever been a better time to use PHP doesn't make it a good time to use PHP, cf. http://vimeo.com/17675268 http://vimeo.com/17675268
joe-mccann 16y ago
Austin, SF/SV and NYC are all in the same boat: Tech talent demand is unbelievably high. If you have a LinkedIn profile with reasonable skills (hell, put "HTML5" in your profile and watch what happens) you probably are already aware of this.
- sbisker 16y ago
  What does it mean when companies are trolling around looking for "HTML5"? Is that just the new buzzword? Or are that many companies actually interested in building things with Canvas these days? (I hope it's not because they think you need some sort of special HTML5 experience to learn how to embed video.)
  - huertanix 16y ago
    For the most part, I've noticed it means "do things Flash does, but on an iPhone/iPad." So yeah, canvas.
Tycho 16y ago
I have a pet theory about the apparent shortage of 'experienced engineers' in the midst of high unemployment. Software development as we know is an inherently unstable activity - it's very hard to gauge how much a project will cost in time and money. Supposedly 50% of IT projects fail and 70% don't meet all their targets (or something catastrophic like that). Well here's my theory. When you can't tell how much something will cost or even whether it's really possible, when there are no guarantees, the only thing that can comfort you is that your competition wont fair any better. To ensure this, you just need to employ the top programmers/architects. If you have people of the best calibre, you can rest easy, because if they can't deliver, nobody can. Thus, companies looking to launch risky software ventures need what is by definition a scarce resource (the best developers). Unless the nature of software changes drastically, there will always be a shortage of the 'experienced engineers' necessary to placate the anxiety of this high risk business. Human expertise is finite, the capacity of software projects to fail is infinite. (particularly if you're talking about launching web apps and new platforms and such... if you just need some simple engineering then not so much)
- ardit33 16y ago
  um, if you want to build any great products, you need really good people inboard. Average is just not good enough. I noticed this is the same for sports. I play soccer frequently, and I noticed that in order to win, you really need few good players in the team (way above average). Not everybody has to be really good, but you need few good pl In a team of 11 you need a great: Goalie Defender 2 Midfielder (one center and one runner on the sides) One great Scorer/Forward The rest of the team can be OK, (i.e good enough or average), but with good organization this team will excel. Now think of a startup that instead of being able to field 11 players on the field, they can field only 7-8. Then everybody on the team has to be really good from the get go for it to have a chance. Once it grows, it can afford more warm bodies. People that can do useful work (fix bugs, create additional features), but that are not able to do groundbreaking work by themselves.
trumbo 16y ago
I'm a programmer in NYC who doesn't have a work visa. (But I've worked as a freelancer in the city for years, so I have lots of experience.) How should I bring that up to potential employers? During the application or during the interview or after I get hired? How much would it affect my compensation?

64 points by kiddo 16y ago

There's a thread in Quora listing a fair chunk of NYC startups that are currently hiring, and it grows almost daily: http://www.quora.com/Which-startups-in-NY-are-hiring http://www.quora.com/Which-startups-in-NY-are-hiring

jdp23 16y ago

"I haven’t seen it this hot since 1997. It’s white-hot." Sounds bubble-icious to me ...

smokinn 16y ago
Sort of. The problem with calling everything a bubble is the implication that bubbles inevitably pop. In our industry, good programmers tend to create a vastly disproportionate amount of value compared to what they're paid. It's easy to pay programmers hundreds of thousands of dollars because with programmers, a few thousands of dollars of computers and some electricity you can make millions. Maybe it's a bubble but I think it's simply a market correction. If your output is valuable you can and should be compensated well for it.
- nir 16y ago
  Well, bubbles do pop. The market was hot 96-2000, then cold say 2001-2005, then got hot till the mortgage crisis, then cold until a few months ago etc. Great programmers can create a lot of value, in the right context. Boo.com ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boo.com http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boo.com ) might have had developers as bright as Amazon's, working just as hard - but in the end they created $0 value.
  - smokinn 16y ago
    It's obviously not a given that you get programmers together and they create value. There's a lot more to a business than coding. What I was arguing is not that bubbles don't pop but rather that you can't call everything a bubble because that implies that it's going to go down. Maybe it's because I'm a programmer myself and therefore I'm too biased but I see very few jobs right now that are in such high demand and whose demand is only going to rise even more in the near term. Basically I was saying it's not a bubble, it's a normal market correction. We had the dot-com bust that devalued programmers massively because of completely artificial conditions and this "white hot" we're currently in really should be the norm.
  - petercooper 16y ago
    As an aside, (and apologies if you've read it) "Boo Hoo", the corporate biography of Boo.com's rise and fall, makes for both hilarious and scary reading: http://www.amazon.com/Boo-Hoo-Dot-Com-Story/dp/0099418371 http://www.amazon.com/Boo-Hoo-Dot-Com-Story/dp/0099418371 Their technical people did pull off some great feats but ultimately it was a shambles from start to finish.
    - nir 16y ago
      Nice! I wasn't aware of this book, will add it to my list.
- jdp23 16y ago
  Maybe it is a bubble and maybe it isn't. We shall see. But this kind of white-hotness occurred in past bubbles, so it's one more indication that's what going on. And yes, bubbles pop.
sayrer 16y ago
Smells like a PR plant by the headhunting firm.

jasonlbaptiste 16y ago

Who here is an NYC startup and who here is hiring?

gaustin 16y ago
I'd like to add a further question, if it's not frowned upon. Are there any that might be interested in folks who would start remotely (but willing to come out for bits of onsite time) and then relocate to NYC in a few months?
- shafqat 16y ago
  Yes - what kind of tech are you interested in? Email me (email in profile)!
rit 16y ago
10gen, the company behind MongoDB (whom I work for) is hiring in NY: http://www.10gen.com/jobs http://www.10gen.com/jobs Python, Java, C++, etc
shafqat 16y ago
NewsCred is hiring - we're looking for information retrieval engineers. So any experience (or even interest) in search, IR, solr, lucene, machine learning etc would be great. If not, willingness to learn. We'd love on site, but would consider the remote option if the fit is great, and the remote location is near NYC.
- dotnetrock 16y ago
  How do you guys make money since there is no pricing or any info on what the service will cost.
  - shafqat 16y ago
    We're a B2B company. We charge other web publishers a monthly fee to access our content API. Depending on what kind of content they need and how big they are, the pricing starts at 1K/month to 5 digits/month...

rwhitman 16y ago

I'm actually starting on the hunt for an employer in NYC right now, but there are so many co's hiring its somewhat daunting as to where to start. Is there any NYC-specific tech job board out there?

jasonlbaptiste 16y ago
See this is good though that it's the employee's choosing. They'll end up finding a better fit of a company, which works better for a startup. What interests you and what's your specialty?
- rwhitman 16y ago
  I've been trying to break into Product Management or UX. I'd say my personal interest is in community / social products. Kind of a weird situation, relocated from LA a month ago. I've been an independent contractor my entire career (10 years), huge range of skills including founded a startup, early stage product consulting, frontend dev, UI/UX design, Django & PHP dev, project management, social media marketing etc. Not sure how to approach this employment thing on new territory, especially with such a weird career path.
  - jasonlbaptiste 16y ago
    NYC is actually perfect for a lot of this. I think UX, design, and front end dev fit well with the mixture of media and technology. Back end and hardcore tech is obviously important, but the real winner is going to be due to design. Dropped ya a LinkedIn and happy to intro you to some startups where this might fit: j@jasonlbaptiste.com (invite open for others as well).
    - rwhitman 16y ago
      Very psyched, just reached out on LinkedIn. Thanks!
nir 16y ago
http://nextny.jobthread.com/ http://nextny.jobthread.com/ Also, if you attend meetups in your field (eg NY Python/PHP/Android/etc meetup) they often allocate a few minutes for job offers/seekers. The article's right, there's a strong demand now. Make sure to save some of your income once you get a job (NYC can easily eat up any wad of cash you'll throw at it ;) - the bubble will inevitably pop, make sure you can wait the next one comfortably.

Skywing 16y ago

Pick me, pick me. :)

yan 16y ago
Are you the same Skywing that used to post on Genmay like 6-8 years ago? I think I bought a Toshiba laptop from you.

dkasper 16y ago

Seems to be true in the Bay Area as well.

tocomment 16y ago

You'd think they'd want to hire someone in philli who's willing to work two days a week onsite and the rest from home but no. It's like I have the plague whenever I mention it.

gaustin 16y ago
I have a similar issue. My attempt at a solution is to build a portfolio so compelling that employers will hire me for (mostly) remote work without qualms. Hopefully the market for developers is still strong when my portfolio is strong. Failing that, I guess I'll move back to civilization.
huertanix 16y ago
I think that there's a certain dynamic with people that work in person that doesn't happen as much remotely; In person someone could walk into a random conversation after overhearing an idea, start adding their own twist to it, and eventually someone starts scribbling on a whiteboard and a new iteration of your product is born. I just don't see that happening as easily over groupware.
- yannickt 16y ago
  Having everyone on site is almost essential for an early stage startup, but the more established the business the less frequent the dynamic you describe, imo. I think many companies would benefit from hiring a few remote workers. It is one of the many ways a company can win the war on talent. I think one underrated aspect of Google's success in attracting top talent is that they do R&D in many more locations than e.g. Microsoft. Also IIRC the main engineer on Chrome/V8 started working for Google from his home in Denmark.

goodgoblin 16y ago

I would love to know what the average startup is paying now in NYC v.s. what the average Wall Street Firm would pay for the same programmer.

cletus 16y ago
That's really apples and oranges. In many ways, Wall St and startups don't want the same programmers, at least not as much. Working on Wall Street--or most large companies for that matter--is largely transactional. You provide a service. You get paid for that service. You tend to get paid quite well to make up for the abuse you often end up taking. This is particularly true if you work in financial markets (as most Wall Street programmers do) where there are two kinds of people: traders and people who don't matter (being everyone else). With a startup--particularly an early stage startup--you're taking a long term stake in the company, possibly a significant stake. If it's particularly early that stake but will largely be in lieu of a market wage (or any wage at all). In my experience the profiles of the people in both categories (in an ideal sense from the company's point of view) don't quite match.
- saikat 16y ago
  Wall Street is large, and there are many types of firms there. Technology is a lot more important in a lot of Wall Street firms now than they used to, and, at the hedge fund I used to work at, programmers were the first class citizens and made many of the large decisions. The startup type is the perfect fit for these places - they want people who, with little management, can make innovative tools from scratch that will earn the place millions of dollars. And they pay a lot of money for this kind of person.
- asanwal 16y ago
  With respect to recent grads (bachelors, master, PhD), if you have loans to pay off, the allure of Wall Street is significant and understandable as it puts more money in your pocket tmw vs. 99% of startups. In the case of these grads, it's not an issue of profile but simple arithmetic that results in Wall St winning.

samratjp 16y ago

"Right now in New York City every technology company is hiring engineers, programmers, Java developers or PHP/Perl developers,” Carvajal said. “I haven’t seen it this hot since 1997..." Ummm, did they get the quote from 1997 too? I find these stacks to be in the minority these days for a startup anyways. Or is this a NYC trend?

pavel_lishin 16y ago
They might not be going to startups only. Does HotJobs cater to other tech companies, too? I'm a PHP developer, and I don't think I'd consider my current NY employer (worked here for about a month now) a startup.
geebee 16y ago
This quote struck me as a bit outdated as well. Not because it mentions Java and PHP, but because it seems to imply that those are the big two skill sets. The "what does your startup use?" polls that show up on HN every know and then suggest Python and Ruby are in heavy use (though PHP and Java do still get a decent showing)
- asnyder 16y ago
  Believe it or not the self-selecting group represented on Hacker News is absolutely not representative of the developer majority. Furthermore, it's very unsettling that even on hacker news there's this prevalent anti-PHP attitude. With the release of PHP 5.3, and the current maturity of the numerous frameworks there's never been a better time to use PHP.
  - geebee 16y ago
    I have no trouble believing this. I should probably have said "even on hacker news polls, Java and PHP get a substantial showing..."
  - KaeseEs 16y ago
    That there hasn't ever been a better time to use PHP doesn't make it a good time to use PHP, cf. http://vimeo.com/17675268 http://vimeo.com/17675268

joe-mccann 16y ago

Austin, SF/SV and NYC are all in the same boat: Tech talent demand is unbelievably high. If you have a LinkedIn profile with reasonable skills (hell, put "HTML5" in your profile and watch what happens) you probably are already aware of this.

sbisker 16y ago
What does it mean when companies are trolling around looking for "HTML5"? Is that just the new buzzword? Or are that many companies actually interested in building things with Canvas these days? (I hope it's not because they think you need some sort of special HTML5 experience to learn how to embed video.)
- huertanix 16y ago
  For the most part, I've noticed it means "do things Flash does, but on an iPhone/iPad." So yeah, canvas.

Tycho 16y ago

I have a pet theory about the apparent shortage of 'experienced engineers' in the midst of high unemployment. Software development as we know is an inherently unstable activity - it's very hard to gauge how much a project will cost in time and money. Supposedly 50% of IT projects fail and 70% don't meet all their targets (or something catastrophic like that). Well here's my theory. When you can't tell how much something will cost or even whether it's really possible, when there are no guarantees, the only thing that can comfort you is that your competition wont fair any better. To ensure this, you just need to employ the top programmers/architects. If you have people of the best calibre, you can rest easy, because if they can't deliver, nobody can. Thus, companies looking to launch risky software ventures need what is by definition a scarce resource (the best developers). Unless the nature of software changes drastically, there will always be a shortage of the 'experienced engineers' necessary to placate the anxiety of this high risk business. Human expertise is finite, the capacity of software projects to fail is infinite. (particularly if you're talking about launching web apps and new platforms and such... if you just need some simple engineering then not so much)

ardit33 16y ago
um, if you want to build any great products, you need really good people inboard. Average is just not good enough. I noticed this is the same for sports. I play soccer frequently, and I noticed that in order to win, you really need few good players in the team (way above average). Not everybody has to be really good, but you need few good pl In a team of 11 you need a great: Goalie Defender 2 Midfielder (one center and one runner on the sides) One great Scorer/Forward The rest of the team can be OK, (i.e good enough or average), but with good organization this team will excel. Now think of a startup that instead of being able to field 11 players on the field, they can field only 7-8. Then everybody on the team has to be really good from the get go for it to have a chance. Once it grows, it can afford more warm bodies. People that can do useful work (fix bugs, create additional features), but that are not able to do groundbreaking work by themselves.

trumbo 16y ago

I'm a programmer in NYC who doesn't have a work visa. (But I've worked as a freelancer in the city for years, so I have lots of experience.) How should I bring that up to potential employers? During the application or during the interview or after I get hired? How much would it affect my compensation?