Why is it so hard to find good programmers?

Posted by Jim Stroud

August 6, 2007

This article was too good not to share. Let me know your thoughts?

I was invited to a wonderful dinner party (I swear it wasn’t too spicy Sarah!) with some St. Louis Perl peoples this week while I’m here on business. At one point we were talking about hiring programmers, specifically Perl programmers.

We agreed on the following:

* Finding good programmers is hard in any language. And that a good programmer can be as effective as 5-10 average programmers.
* Average pay rates between equivalent programmers are out of sync and are based more on the language used than the skill of the programmer.
* You don’t need to hire an expert in language X, you can and should look for expert programmers that are willing to learn language X. An expert can easily cross over from being a novice in any language in a matter of a few weeks.
* You should seriously consider allowing your expert developers to telecommute full-time. Restricting your search to programmers who live in your area or are willing to move limits the talent you can acquire. Arguments regarding “face time”, productivity, etc. can easily be nullified when you look at how some of the largest and most successful Open Source projects such as Linux, Apache, and Firefox are developed by individuals rarely living in the same time zone or even country.

* We love Perl and think it’s a great language that you graduate to after you have been forced to use less agile languages such as Java, C/C++/C#, etc. Not necessarily a first language you get your feet wet with and then move onto a *cough* “real” language.

Many people in the Perl community have been writing on this topic lately and wanted to share my opinions on the subject, as it is one I have put many hours of thought into. Doing my best to keep this language agnostic as I believe these tips can be applied to any programming language. I will however, use Perl in some examples as it is my preferred language.
Why is it so hard to find good programmers?

The simplest reason is when a company finds a good developer they do more to make sure that person is happy which leads to longer tenures. Better salary, more flexible working conditions, good tools, interesting projects, and better perks can often keep a programmer working for you longer.

Another obvious reason is that experts in any field are small in number, so your possible talent pool is limited. This leads managers and HR departments to settle for average or even below average developers. I believe this is the single biggest mistake a technology oriented company can make, regarding developers…

Read: Guide to Hiring Programmers: The High Cost of Low Quality