Fixing the Talent Gap that [Still] Exists in Utah

Software engineers don’t make nearly the money that professional athletes do, but the way that companies are elbowing for top talent in Utah, you’d think this would be a good time for engineer agents to make their grand entrance into the marketplace.

By Cahlan Sharp

This is a guest column. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author and do not imply endorsement by Beehive Startups.

I think that software engineers might need agents. Yes, those agents. Think of it –hundreds of Jerry Maguires bouncing around cramped offices, wheeling and dealing in order get their ego-driven clients the best renumerated positions in the state.

Software engineers don’t make nearly the money that professional athletes do, but the way that companies are elbowing for top talent in Utah, you’d think this would be a good time for engineer agents to make their grand entrance into the marketplace. Companies use terms like “10x employee,” “rockstar,” “all star,” “guru,” and “ninja.” I can’t remember the last time Steph Curry was called a ninja, but I still say we’re onto something.

The feeding frenzy around top talent makes a lot of sense, economically. Companies with lots of funding and innovative products are looking for high-end team members to write software for ever-more-complicated code bases. They can afford to pay recruiters to poach top engineers. They commission billboards from Brigham City to Beaver. These companies are “always hiring” top talent. If you have the right skillset and years of experience, there will always be a position open for you.

Ironically, however, if you are a junior developer, you have dramatically fewer options. Companies are not nearly as quick to hire junior level developers. Again, the economics make sense. Given the non-scientific, non-statistical two year estimation of the average engineer’s “contract” with a company, it doesn’t make sense for these same super-funded companies to spend precious talent and time to level up a junior engineer to mid-level, only to then see the employee walk out the door and go work for a 50% raise at a competitor’s office.

The tech community doesn’t utilize any kind of draft for up-and-coming talent, but maybe we should start. Many new engineers are playing in the proverbial D leagues, waiting for their shot at prime time and the starting roster.

Thus, junior developers are left to earn their stripes, scratching notches on the wall until they reach the magical (if not ridiculously arbitrary) “3–5 years experience.” Then, doors magically start opening. It’s largely a waiting game for juniors. Which is, honestly, a shame. Here’s why:

• We (the business community) “outsource” the training of developers to others.
• We lose the opportunity to build loyalty exactly during the time when loyalty is the easiest to build.
• We miss out on a chance to impact lives and the community.

There are solutions. They aren’t simple. They may not impress your CEO. But they can work. Here’s how I propose we fix the talent gap that still exists in Utah.

Invest in Education

Completely acknowledged bias here, I admit. I founded a company that addresses the problem from the start of the spectrum, before these people are even junior developers. We start working before they can write a line of code. We’ve made incredible progress in helping people in this journey, they’re making fast progress towards greener pastures of mid- and senior-level engineers. But there is so much more we as a community can do to support education.

You can participate in and support public and private K-12 STEM initiatives. You can support local meetup groups. Your company can foster collaboration and growth via not-entirely-selfish hackathons. We can do much better to make sure that we’re planting the trees that will bear fruit in coming years.

Here’s another idea. Create a personalized training course for your specific tech stack or framework. We can help. This isn’t a sales pitch, it’s an off-the-cuff solution that I think could benefit everyone. Let’s gather smart, driven, motivated people who are considered “junior,” then bring them to your company for an intensive training course where they learn the nuances of the frameworks and technologies you use. The people attending get a great education, and you get a great applicant pool that you observe closely for the duration.

Stop believing in artificial measurements.

This should seem intuitive, but we as a culture are having a really hard time moving past it. Does anyone still honestly believe that a four year degree is any real measurement of competency for engineers? How about “years of experience?” Please. That’s probably one of the most misleading metrics that is at the same time the easiest to make up.

Here’s one of my recent favorites:. “We don’t hire bootcamp graduates.” It’s rare, but it exists. If that’s not the silliest thing I’ve ever heard while doing this, it’s close. Looping all bootcamp graduates into the same category is like saying “I’ll never hire anyone out of UVU again.” If you’re not interested in juniors, that’s fine. Let’s move on to how we can address that. Education is changing in a drastic, fundamental, and meaningful way. Learning hours are not created equally. Let’s be more open minded and trust our interview processes to identify great (and soon-to-be-great) talent. Expecting bootcamp graduates to be ready to take senior-level developer jobs is unrealistic, but it’s also very short sighted to pull a blanket pass on the very talented, smart, hard-working, forward-thinking and motivated people that enter this new less traditional education route.

In my approximately ten years of software development, I’ve never had anyone ask me what my GPA was in school. In fact, after my first job, I’ve never had any tech employer ask me about my education. Period. Rather, the questions they’ve given me were always more pressing and present. “What can you build for me?” “How would you solve this problem?” We’re working on more objective assessments of competency, but in the meantime rely more on a rigorous/challenging interview process than on pieces of paper or generalized stereotypes.

Internships and Apprenticeships

“Internship” has earned itself somewhat of a bad reputation. Potential tech interns often fear they’ll be working for little money and be taken advantage of. I’m not sure how we got that way, but we need to reverse it. There are lots of verticals for which internships still carry a lot of weight (and a decent wage).

To take it one step further, let’s talk about apprenticeships. Just like senior-level blacksmiths trained up their replacements in days of yore, a company can invest in an individual (before his or her prime) and have a better long term plan laid out for that employee. Let’s bring this back to the sports corollary. Why not sign a contract with a promising employee where you invest in that person and reap the dividends over two, three, even five years? Make it a win-win. You get a personalized, company trained all-star, without paying the exorbitant salary (at least initially). Think of it as nabbing a Steph Curry before he was a household name. Grow with the talent.

My team has presented to two separate groups of CTO/CIOs in Utah in the last couple weeks. The problem, to them, is that we still are losing talent to outside of Utah. We’re exporting talent. We still don’t have enough talented engineers to fill available positions. Let’s work together to create a sustainable, beneficial solution that lifts the Utah tech economy to a new level. Let’s all invest in the future of our own companies. Let’s create the youth leagues, the club teams, the Summer leagues, the D leagues, and the talent pools that will fill rosters and win championships. And those agents, they’ll be showing everyone the money.

Published 5/14/2015