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by maybird 5104 days ago
What's creating this shortfall?

Too many openings?

Too many engineers working for themselves?

Too many engineers retiring?

Too many engineers going abroad?

Too many engineers interested in the same small number of niches that leaves everyone else with too few applicants?

...?
2 comments
aaronblohowiak 5104 days ago
All except:

> Too many engineers going abroad?

I don't think this is a contributing factor. More software is getting made/integrated than ever and the talent pool is inelastic; programming is "hard" and "boring".

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suresk 5104 days ago
Also, after the dot-com crash and the first wave of offshoring, programming was sort of seen as a dead end. CS enrollment dropped considerably, and I'm not really sure that it has fully recovered.

I would argue that the talent pool isn't completely inelastic, but it does take a number of years for the talent pool to respond - especially because the most acute shortages appear to be in the market for senior-level developers.

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tikhonj 5104 days ago
At least at my school, I think CS enrollment has swelled in recent years. However, it is not the same as it was back in the bubble (well before my time): back then, the intro professors had various schemes for weeding out potential majors; now they are still trying to get most people stick with it.

With that in mind, I think "recovered" is the wrong word: since enrollment back there was inflated with people just interested in a good salary, nobody in CS really wants that to happen again. As one of my professors would say, that's what the business school is for. These days there is quite a demand on the major, but I think it's actually mostly from people genuinely interested in the subject.

So, purely anecdotally, my observations echo yours: CS enrollment has increased, but not to the levels of the dot-com bubble.

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pnathan 5104 days ago
I started school around then. There was a large bloc of CS majors who just wanted a fat paycheck.

I expect after 2003 or so, that bloc nearly vanished.

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Symmetry 5104 days ago
Less and less people graduating with engineering degrees, and increasing demand.
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