[toast0]

> appreciate Elixir but the problem is the job market/talent pool is tiny compared to other existing languages.

> I shipped an entire telecom infrastructure with barely knowing Elixir and we brought on contractors to audit the code and they found no issues.

Erlang/Elixir experience is rare, because it's not widely used and the teams are small. It's not worth trying to hire for it. Hire for people who can figure it out on the go (amd are willing to give it a try).

You did it, hire other people who seem likely to be able to.

[zuzululu]

as a SWE this is not a good sign. it means the job market is slowly transitioning into temp work like economics. The value I got out of the Elixir contractors was immense since it not only proved that we can get a huge bulk of the work done without specialists and use them on demand for audit for a few months before AI this would've been not been possible.

normal market dynamics suggest scarcity demand premiums but this is not the case with software developers it seems.

[toast0]

Well,

a) did you pay your Elixir contractors more than you would pay a Java contractor for similar work?

but also...

b) scarcity isn't the only factor in price. Erlang/Elixir developers are scarce, but Erlang/Elixir jobs are also scarce. You need both demand and scarcity to raise prices. Also, it doesn't cost much to turn a willing, good developer into an Erlang/Elixir developer; substitute goods reduce the impact of scarcity.

also c) if you found contractors, but not employees, maybe you weren't willing to pay enough... So maybe the price is higher than you thought?

[zuzululu]

a) for sure but my point is that we didnt need them for long

b) true

c) i think we paid them $100/hr for two months which is fair