| > There's actually a shortage of data-savvy people who can also write production software, and you would nicely complement a more research-inclined data scientist or analyst -- someone with far more experience with research/analysis than development. I experience the same problem with shortage-at-price-X in the field you describe. I'm a machine learning engineer with experience in MCMC methods, but I also have a lot of low-level Python and Cython experience, some intermediate experience with database internals, and lots of experience writing well-crafted code for production systems. There are basically zero companies willing to pay what I'm seeking (which is a salary based on my previous job and a few offers I got around the time I took that job). In fact, in some of the more expensive cities, the real wage offered is far lower than other markets. I've seen reputable, multi-billion dollar companies offering in the $140k range for this type of role in New York. That's wildly below anything reasonable for this sort of thing in New York. I've seen companies in Minneapolis offering $130k for the same kind of job -- and even that is still too low for Minneapolis! The same has been true in San Francisco as well. Because these companies value you more for simply looking good on paper and looking good as a piece of office ornamentation when investors stroll through, and they view you as an arbitrary work receptacle closer to a software janitor than a statistical specialist, their whole mindset is about how to drive wage down. Frankly, given the stresses of the job and the risk of burnout, I think it's actually a terrible time to be in the machine learning / computational stats employment field, despite all of the interesting new work and advances being made. The intellectual side is good, but the quality of jobs is through the floor. |
Man, do I ever agree. This is where the "shortage" argument falls apart.
This is why I'm so uninterested in the abstract arguments happening elsewhere on this topic about whether markets are failing and basic laws of supply and demand no longer apply at theoretical salary levels (10 million was offered as an example).
Why are we bothering with this debate, when it's so far from reality? I'd say that if you're trying to hire a very high skilled and critical tech worker in SF, and you just can't find one no matter how hard you try, and then I find out that you're only offering 140k a year?
In San Francisco and New York (and anywhere else in the US, really), that's nowhere close to the kind of pay where we should start scratching our heads about a shortage and start wondering why the usual laws of supply and demand aren't working anymore.