Hiring software developers is difficult

I have no problem with ageism. Work place has a specific environment. Most of the time, people that fit into this environment at also of a similar age. A 50 is also less likey to take on being told by a 30 year old that his work is "****"
 
_kabal_ said:
I have no problem with ageism. Work place has a specific environment. Most of the time, people that fit into this environment at also of a similar age. A 50 is also less likey to take on being told by a 30 year old that his work is "****"
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It's irrelevant what happens "most of the time", the nature of their hiring policy is that all candidates greater than 30 are excluded a priori, which is both unfair and illegal. Whether or not a candidate is a suitable for the position or not should be decided on their competency and personality as determined by their CV and interview. Discrimination by age is explicitly protected by the Employment Equity Act.

You should replace "age" with "race", "50" with "white", and "30 year old" with "black" in your above statement. Whether it is mostly true, or not, making it a requirement or policy is extremely unfair in the cases where it isn't true.
 
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R300k for a junior position is low? What sort of bizarro world do you guys exist in?
 
cguy said:
It's irrelevant what happens "most of the time", the nature of their hiring policy is that all candidates greater than 30 are excluded a priori, which is both unfair and illegal. Whether or not a candidate is a suitable for the position or not should be decided on their competency and personality as determined by their CV and interview. Discrimination by age is explicitly protected by the Employment Equity Act.

You should replace "age" with "race", "50" with "white", and "30 year old" with "black" in your above statement. Whether it is mostly true, or not, making it a requirement or policy is extremely unfair in the cases where it isn't true.
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Lol, they should just change it to read "candidates under 30 preferred", just like "beeee candidate preferred" which means don't bother applying if not.
 
Compton_effect said:
I've gotten into the habit when hearing how much someone makes to mentally work out their tax bracket, then smile, saying 'That's nice'.
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So making more and having to pay more tax is a bad thing?
Paying the extra tax is k@k for sure, but the extra income is not.

It also depends on whether you have (legel) control over the structuring of your income.
 
Compton_effect said:
I've gotten into the habit when hearing how much someone makes to mentally work out their tax bracket, then smile, saying 'That's nice'.
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No I just meant some (most?) people overestimate their ability and therefore worth. Just speaking in general though since I'm not in IT.
 
RossJones said:
Thanks for the feedback all, some good points here.

Yes we are ageists. We are looking for some one young since they are more likely to be looking to prove themselves. We won't be able to afford an experienced older dev, and to be frank we are looking for some one we can mold into shape. I find that the older guys are stuck in their ways and come with an ego.

I will alter my add as per above. Thanks again for the feedback.
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And you wonder why you aren't getting anyone to respond to your ad
 
RossJones said:
Thanks for the feedback all, some good points here.

Yes we are ageists. We are looking for some one young since they are more likely to be looking to prove themselves. We won't be able to afford an experienced older dev, and to be frank we are looking for some one we can mold into shape. I find that the older guys are stuck in their ways and come with an ego.

I will alter my add as per above. Thanks again for the feedback.
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Good luck with that (youth will always equate to inexperience), so unless you're providing tutorage under a skilled developer; your moulding isn't going to account to anything except quality issues and delays.
 
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abzo said:
No I just meant some (most?) people overestimate their ability and therefore worth. Just speaking in general though since I'm not in IT.
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People who know what they're doing usually underestimate their ability. And R300,000 is upper junior, mid-level pay for a programmer.

_kabal_ said:
I have no problem with ageism. Work place has a specific environment. Most of the time, people that fit into this environment at also of a similar age. A 50 is also less likey to take on being told by a 30 year old that his work is "****"
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All nonsense.
 
Except it's not.

Obviously making job ads with any sort of "ism" is stupid, but lets not kid ourselves, EVERYONE eliminates people as being potential hires after interviews show they might not fit in, regardless of ability. Is choosing someone equally or slightly less skilled, but with more potential, and hunger with them being 26 vs 56 worse than not hiring someone because they seem to be a bit of a douche? Ageism vs personalitism.

this does not mean I personally am closed to hiring people over a certain age. If there is a candidate, who is amazing for the position, and happens to be 60, then joy to us all. Unfortunately, I have probably been poisoned with my experience with oracle consulting, where everyone I dealt with with 20-30+ years experience were rubbish
 
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_kabal_ said:
Except it's not.

Obviously making job ads with any sort of "ism" is stupid, but lets not kid ourselves, EVERYONE eliminates people as being potential hires after interviews show they might not fit in, regardless of ability. Is choosing someone equally or slightly less skilled, but with more potential, and hunger with them being 26 vs 56 worse than not hiring someone because they seem to be a bit of a douche? Ageism vs personalitism.

this does not mean I personally am closed to hiring people over a certain age. If there is a candidate, who is amazing for the position, and happens to be 60, then joy to us all. Unfortunately, I have probably been poisoned with my experience with oracle consulting, where everyone I dealt with with 20-30+ years experience were rubbish
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I doubt the sincerity of what you are saying.

Crap travels in all circles, and in my experience no particular one is more endowed to it.
 
_kabal_ said:
Obviously making job ads with any sort of "ism" is stupid, but lets not kid ourselves, EVERYONE eliminates people as being potential hires after interviews show they might not fit in, regardless of ability. Is choosing someone equally or slightly less skilled, but with more potential, and hunger with them being 26 vs 56 worse than not hiring someone because they seem to be a bit of a douche? Ageism vs personalitism.
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I think you're missing the point: A personality problem necessarily negatively affects the candidate's ability to be effective in his/her job (the job isn't just coding, it's getting along with people, and not creating a hostile work place). Relatively advanced age (you know, 31 and up :) ), by itself, does not mean that a developer cannot do the job, nor does it mean that the developer is a bad fit - if it does according to the current staff, it just means that the current staff need to graduate from their primary school mentality - bigoted behaviour is not a right.

BTW, assuming that all older developers have less "hunger" and "potential" is absurd - this is effectively what an age based policy does.
 
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IME, you will start seeing quality coders at ~450k+, be prepared to pay quite a bit more if you want top 10th percentile coders.

I think your problem is what you offer vs what you expect.
 
sp4ceman said:
so if i wasnt earning your arbitrary figure i guess i wouldn't be a "quality" coder?

hahahaha foff
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Since you ask the question, I guess not. However, you need to keep in mind, that that does not mean quality coders don't work for so little money. You have to keep in mind that most people are not actively looking for another job all the time, well not the ones that do a good job. So you sit with the people on the job market that are looking for a job, which means you have to pay what the rest of the market is offering. Either that, or you have to put up a salary good enough to lure guys that are happy with their current employment away from said employment.
 
P924 said:
IME, you will start seeing quality coders at ~450k+, be prepared to pay quite a bit more if you want top 10th percentile coders.

I think your problem is what you offer vs what you expect.
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I'll agree with you that, in general, the better you are the more you will earn. Banks and bigger software houses throw money at people where the same calibre devs working at a smaller company or startup won't earn the same (bonuses etc come into play).
 
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