My ecommerce business is based out of Los Angeles and our shipping clerk gets that. I wish he knew a dozen programming languages... unfortunately he is still training on email. He can pack the hell out of a box though.
Once again, we see the terrible effects of there being not enough technical talent here in the United States.
As we are constantly told by the VCs and large tech firms, we need to open up the green card immigration program to allow developers in who will do the jobs that Americans just won't do. Like, for example, being a full stack web developer who does QA, customer support and data scrubbing for 12 bucks an hour while living in one of America's most expensive cities.
I do agree with you, but to be fair, this is only a single post, likely from some company that either has no idea what they're doing or is deliberately interested in exploiting someone in desperate need of a job.
I'm pretty sure nobody who fits a quarter of their qualifications is in desperate need of a job.
Of course, this is almost certainly a situation where the person writing the job description has absolutely no idea what they actually need so they took a very bizarre shotgun approach.
The H1B that is mostly talked about when it comes to IT jobs and imimgration requires companies to pay at least the prevailing wage for the area in question.
So on average, it should either have wages stay the same OR raise them a tiny bit
On what day of class do they prove that "Microeconomics" is a Science? Would you care to demonstrate that?
I'm just asking because you're making an appeal to something in that argument, and I'm curious if you're appealing to a serious scientific field of study, or something passing for one.
Karl Popper said falsifiability is an essential feature of any scientific theory, so it's not weird to ask for a falsifiable statement from "Microeconomics" so that we can tell whether it's a scientific theory.
Mind you, I don't disagree with your conclusion that prevailing wages go down when labor supply is increased. What I am asking is whether "Microeconomics" is a science.
H1B isn't like normal immigration in its effects on wages. They do come over here, but they are at the mercy of their employer to stay. This makes it so the employee can be far more abused (paid lower, working far more hours in worse conditions, ect.). A legal immigrant may be willing to work for a bit less, but since they are able to seek another job without being kicked out, they would have little effect if any on wages. An H1B can't fight and either has to take it or leave and be replaced by someone who is willing to be exploited. Thus they have a far great impact on lowering wages.
There are protections under the law that are susposed to prevent this but they are wildly ineffective.
I've always wondered if you respond and say "Well I could do this for you but it would be $87.50 an hour." if they would respond. A friend of mine who ran a consulting business would do something like that and picked up a few gigs that way.
I tried this on RentACoder a few times. Response was either <crickets> or a polite "no, thank you." I usually only responded to EE hardware or firmware gigs.
Those ones really crack me up. Its the first filter of the clowns that have no idea what they're talking about. The other glaring one that normally gets/got me back in the day that Java == JavaScript to all agencies.
Personally, I'm learning to code in Python, and once I do will probably work for $3 per hour doing remote work via a freelancing site. At the moment I'm going through Flask— which shouldn't take more than a couple of days to grok at a basic level. I made a CRUD site a few years ago, so it's not like I'm starting for zero.
Anyway, working for below minimum wage is economically rational. Once I have more experience I'll command more money, or create products for myself.
Don't go that way. Seriously. It's better to offer your services for free to local non-profits than work for peanuts. The main thing is that clients who pay the lowest also treat you the worst. You'll meet a lot of unreasonable demands and overally crappy people while working those very low wage projects.
Go to your local non-profits and offer them your services for free. Be clear that you're just learning and that's why you'd make them a web page or an intranet app for free. You'll get to learn, some feedback, more or less honest customers and karma points. Once you got experience and portfolio, you can go after the better paying projects (~$10/h or so) that are run by sane people who will treat you well.
Source: Started freelancing back in high school, almost 10 years in business.
I learned web programming by building an e-commerce site from scratch in Perl the late 90s. When all was said and done, my partner and I split $2k, which brought my hourly rate to $1-$2/hour. But for 10 years I made $55-$75/hour maintaining that thing - which I hadn't really foreseen I just wanted to learn web programming. The point is it can be worthwhile.
I think we're talking about different things. Did you do freelancing on Elance/Odesk/etc?
I agree that doing a useful real world project for learning is great. If you get paid for it, it's even better. But cheapass clients on those websites are usually a different kind. People want to have a {popular thing} clone or {popular thing} meets {another popular thing} and don't really understand neither what they want from the freelancer nor what they want as the final delivery. Of course, there're good but cheap projects on those marketplaces as well. But as a beginner, it's way too use to stumble upon let's say... not very pleasant clients. Thus if money is not the issue, I'd recommend going the non-profit way instead. They at least know what they want and usually appreciate your work.
If they pay by the hour, then I don't care if they want me implement odd requests.
I need some money. Not much. $3 per hour is more than enough—since I have another source of passive income.
I've done a little web design freelancing in the past, so know what to expect. The worst part about freelancing is feature creep, IMO. Which isn't an issue, if I get paid per hour.
I've thought it through. I'm in the UK and could get a minimum wage job with way higher pay. But that wouldn't be coding or making products.
Surely you are trolling? $3 or pounds per hour in the UK? If you have enough brains to learn coding or a web technology, you have enough brains not to do that. I think I've been trolled.
Hey man...this is crazy to me that you would do dev work for $3 per hour. If you put your contact info in your profile I'll send you a month's salary at that rate if you promise to spend that month leveling up properly instead of doing annoying / one-off / generally shitty work for poorly-paying clients. Trust me, the people who are only willing to pay $3/hour are not who you want to be working for. Once you're good you should be able to find a job paying at least 10x that, so you'll be able to pay me back with a day or two of work.
If you are serious about the offer - I would take it. I could explain it in detail via email as to why, but it really boils down to motivation and having somebody who supports you. Currently I'm learning Rails, and I'm having no luck landing a job, since there are so few opportunities in my city. Your help would mean a lot to me, because I'm pressured by just about everybody around me to find any job, just anything really. It stresses me out - I want to finish my projects and start applying to companies again. All I need is one month, and yet I don't have it. You could give me one month! I'll promise doing at least one meaningful commit a day, and I'll even start a blog and everything. If you were kidding then nevermind, I just had to try, since that is probably better than working for people who pay $3/h.
I think this is a problem with the industry as a whole. You're generally not very valuable as a new, junior, or in-training developer, so to go from no knowledge to a place where you can learn and earn is tough. However, this creates a squeeze for proficient senior developers. The industry creates a bottleneck for early-career developers that restricts the supply of mature developers, which affords these developers very high market value.
It's not surprising to me that there are ads like this or sites where people can and do willingly work for $3/hour (and not just because their cost of living is lower), while at the same time the higher end of the market starts at nearly 6 figures fully loaded. The market wants senior developers, but doesn't want to invest in junior dev to get there.
If there wasn't a bottleneck, then senior devs wouldn't get paid as much. The bottleneck is similar to an economic moat[0]. Economic moats and durability are attractive.
SWI-Prolog? DrRacket? This has to be a joke, right?
They're obscure enough that a non-programmer wouldn't likely know they exist, yet nobody with a clue would request that of a web developer. The only plausible explanation I can fathom is that they Googled a list of IDEs and picked a few at random... or that this is a joke.
[i pray] it is. Many of the technologies listed solve the same problems, yet knowledge of "all" is a "must". I've seen some mixed stacks, but never the Java, Scheme, ASP, PHP, C++ one.
This actually looks a lot like the product of someone asking several "tech savvy" friends what skills a web developer would need, and then pasting the results into a job announcement.
This practice isn't limited to small shops either - I've seen multi-billion dollar companies (not in the tech sector) require a 4 year CS degree for a Wordpress developer position.
This would also be a great way to warn other devs off of the company (note that the sites are given).
I actually tried a couple of searches based on your comment and I really didn't get anything that wouldn't taken quite a bit of effort to piece together into this listing.
"what does an expert web programmer know"
"what does it take to be a web programmer"
"what do I need to know to be a web programmer"
This might be a warning written by someone who is leaving. In other words, with a less-than-friendly parting of ways, his/her final task was to write a job description to hire a replacement. If so, well played.
I don't live in LA so am not too sure about the wage market there. But 12$/hr seems pretty low for any job, let alone a developer position, in the second largest city in the US?
I bet some HR person came up with that stack and the corresponding pay.
I doubt this company has an HR person. They most likely stole another job post or this is a complete troll. $12/hr isn't a _bit_ low. It's about $100 per hour low.
"Unfortunately, your request for a 5% raise was rejected. We're sorry to see you go. Can you help hire a replacement? Just write up a quick job posting w/ your basic work experience and daily routine. Thanks."
Damn! I was going to apply to this but I only have experience with GoDaddy and BlueHost, but not HostGator. I'll have to take my Prolog experience elsewhere.
Now, I'm definitely not saying that anyone should do this, because I don't advocate any illegal actions. But, if they happened to get DDOS attacked, I would laugh heartily.
107 comments
[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 176 ms ] threadMust have HUGE AMOUNT OF EXPERIENCE IN ALL THE THINGS (with bonus "Hosting" on GitHub)!
Pay rate: $12/hr.
As we are constantly told by the VCs and large tech firms, we need to open up the green card immigration program to allow developers in who will do the jobs that Americans just won't do. Like, for example, being a full stack web developer who does QA, customer support and data scrubbing for 12 bucks an hour while living in one of America's most expensive cities.
/s
I wouldn't know, I can't even get an entry level gig.
[link redacted]
Of course, this is almost certainly a situation where the person writing the job description has absolutely no idea what they actually need so they took a very bizarre shotgun approach.
So on average, it should either have wages stay the same OR raise them a tiny bit
I'm just asking because you're making an appeal to something in that argument, and I'm curious if you're appealing to a serious scientific field of study, or something passing for one.
Karl Popper said falsifiability is an essential feature of any scientific theory, so it's not weird to ask for a falsifiable statement from "Microeconomics" so that we can tell whether it's a scientific theory.
Mind you, I don't disagree with your conclusion that prevailing wages go down when labor supply is increased. What I am asking is whether "Microeconomics" is a science.
There are protections under the law that are susposed to prevent this but they are wildly ineffective.
http://letscreateapp.com/LCA%20careers.html
Funny how they mention Magento, but the site is actually on Volusion.
Anyway, working for below minimum wage is economically rational. Once I have more experience I'll command more money, or create products for myself.
Go to your local non-profits and offer them your services for free. Be clear that you're just learning and that's why you'd make them a web page or an intranet app for free. You'll get to learn, some feedback, more or less honest customers and karma points. Once you got experience and portfolio, you can go after the better paying projects (~$10/h or so) that are run by sane people who will treat you well.
Source: Started freelancing back in high school, almost 10 years in business.
I agree that doing a useful real world project for learning is great. If you get paid for it, it's even better. But cheapass clients on those websites are usually a different kind. People want to have a {popular thing} clone or {popular thing} meets {another popular thing} and don't really understand neither what they want from the freelancer nor what they want as the final delivery. Of course, there're good but cheap projects on those marketplaces as well. But as a beginner, it's way too use to stumble upon let's say... not very pleasant clients. Thus if money is not the issue, I'd recommend going the non-profit way instead. They at least know what they want and usually appreciate your work.
I was looking at jobs for Flask/Django devs yesterday. The compensation is quite impressive.
Assuming the job market is similar in a couple of years, I should be fine. And even if it doesn't, I'm interested in creating my own products.
Edit: Grammar.
I need some money. Not much. $3 per hour is more than enough—since I have another source of passive income.
I've done a little web design freelancing in the past, so know what to expect. The worst part about freelancing is feature creep, IMO. Which isn't an issue, if I get paid per hour.
I've thought it through. I'm in the UK and could get a minimum wage job with way higher pay. But that wouldn't be coding or making products.
Make sure to check Freelancers' thread on HN on the 1st of the month.
I code 7 days a week, so even if that happens I'll still clock a decent number of hours. That would be a bit of a deal breaker, though.
> Make sure to check Freelancers' thread on HN on the 1st of the month.
Thanks for the tip!
USD.
> If you have enough brains to learn coding or a web technology, you have enough brains not to do that.
I'd rather do that than a non-coding job for more money. In the long run, I think I'll be better off.
I'd rather do the work. I intend to code in my free time, so can level up regardless.
Thanks a ton for the offer, anyway!
It's not surprising to me that there are ads like this or sites where people can and do willingly work for $3/hour (and not just because their cost of living is lower), while at the same time the higher end of the market starts at nearly 6 figures fully loaded. The market wants senior developers, but doesn't want to invest in junior dev to get there.
[0] http://www.morningstar.co.uk/uk/news/120912/what-is-an-econo...
They're obscure enough that a non-programmer wouldn't likely know they exist, yet nobody with a clue would request that of a web developer. The only plausible explanation I can fathom is that they Googled a list of IDEs and picked a few at random... or that this is a joke.
This practice isn't limited to small shops either - I've seen multi-billion dollar companies (not in the tech sector) require a 4 year CS degree for a Wordpress developer position.
I agree with GP that its' just blind googling.
I actually tried a couple of searches based on your comment and I really didn't get anything that wouldn't taken quite a bit of effort to piece together into this listing.
"what does an expert web programmer know" "what does it take to be a web programmer" "what do I need to know to be a web programmer"
This might be a warning written by someone who is leaving. In other words, with a less-than-friendly parting of ways, his/her final task was to write a job description to hire a replacement. If so, well played.
I bet some HR person came up with that stack and the corresponding pay.
(I'm assuming that the person who compiled this has a clue, which is a thesis not very well supported by the posting itself...).