!RE: A million tech jobs unfilled

[Marcus G. Daniels]

Glen writes:

< I interviewed one of his mentors there and, although the model *seems* good, they're similarly plagued with the grant-writing burden Eric(S) and Pamela mention.  The same seems similar at a company, here called Galois. >

That's my impression of Galois as well, that they do a lot of job-by-job things (SBIR funding), and don't have investors with a long-term vision.
At LANL, there's a split between people that have long-term core program work (there are no real issues with getting funding, but the work is not inspiring and sometimes doesn't even make sense), the science community (full time grant-writing, where some players are much more equal than others), and what I would call forward-looking programs (hustle and fight for territory -- it is almost like start-up).    But it is hard to have much hope for a complex that is run by a person (Rick Perry) that ran a campaign on the premise of shutting it down.

Especially in the Trump era, I think private research is the place to be.  Preferably for a company that has multi-national investors.

Marcus

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[Marcus G. Daniels]

David writes:

< Reacting to Glen's comments: of that million tech jobs, how many are really necessary. Speaking only within the context of software development, I am certain that 70-90 percent of existing jobs and unfilled jobs could be eliminated. >

< We have known since the seventies that some individuals are 10-100 times more effective than average. The idea of how to identify and support "high performance teams" has periodically taken center stage in the profession - only to be shot down by management and HR. [Robert Glass, Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering.] >

Yup.

Marcus


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[Jacqueline Kazil]

I think larger companies have more of a structure for more experienced hands on technical folks — they are called Individual Contributors or ICs. Sometimes they are also called “Fellows” or “Distinguished Engineers”. Usually these roles are allotted freedom to contribution based on how they see value. But sometimes they are told to focus on a certain area.

For a company to support ICs usually two conditions have to be met...

1. The company has to be large enough where ICs are valued. From my experience, I have seen this happen around,150-250 staff memebers.

 2. The contributions of IC have to valued. 

Some companies I know with these types of roles...

-Google

-Dropbox

-Capital One

-Jackie 

On Fri, Jan 11, 2019 at 7:04 AM ∄ uǝʃƃ <[hidden email]> wrote:

Cross-pollinating threads, as a >50 year old somewhat technical person, I and my clique have trouble getting and keeping these "tech jobs" because they are too focused on short-term objectives and tightly pigeon-holed skill sets.  I can almost universally get many of these jobs (or at least land multiple interviews) simply because I'm slightly literate in ~10 to 15 programming languages.  Most of my clique isn't quite as lucky, being rooted in (brain damaged by!) one or 2 of them in the same paradigm.  But even if I take one of these jobs, it quickly becomes mind-numbing; I get bored and move on.

So from my (anecdotal) perspective, all 4 of the perspectives (Michio, CMU, the private sector companies doing the poaching, and anyone who succumbs to "the myth of the objective") are all suboptimal. Pamela seems to have identified a critical element, at least for people in my ¡category!  One person barely inside my clique, though ~5 years younger, took a job at SRI.  I interviewed one of his mentors there and, although the model *seems* good, they're similarly plagued with the grant-writing burden Eric(S) and Pamela mention.  The same seems similar at a company, here called Galois.

It looks to me like people are promoted *out* of R&D and into business.  If you have even the slightest ability to land funding, that becomes your job, to the detriment of any actual R&D you may have done if you hadn't had your head crushed in an avalanche of budgeting documents.

So, to me, the problem seems less about education and more about the lack of societal infrastructure that supports actual *work*, in contrast to fiefdom building and busyness.  And if that sounds socialist, I'm OK with the label.  My transformation from libertarian to socialist is complete. 8^)

On 1/11/19 2:54 AM, Edward Angel wrote:
> One consequence of the present situation that will have long term consequences is even though the amount of research funding in CS is high, universities are having trouble attracting high quality graduate students, the next generation of educators. Although this situation has little to do with trumpism, there have been serious consequences of foreign students and researchers being denied visas. As the universities in other countries such as China and Singapore continue to improve, the future does not look good for technology education here.
> [...]
>
>> On Jan 11, 2019, at 7:26 AM, Jacqueline Kazil <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>
>> The numbers for tech jobs are all over the place. The one that I have heard most is 1.5 million, but I have also seen everywhere from 500k to 3 million.
>>
>> Most of the theories of why this is not because of Trump, but because of issues with education.
>>
>> There are not enough people in education teaching people technology, because people can easily go and get 1.5x to 3x their salary in the private sector. For example -- Uber gutting Carnegie Melon's Researchers: https://www.theverge.com/transportation/2015/5/19/8622831/uber-self-driving-cars-carnegie-mellon-poached <https://www.theverge.com/transportation/2015/5/19/8622831/uber-self-driving-cars-carnegie-mellon-poached>
>>
>> I sit on the board of the Python Software Foundation. I am putting together an RFP with others to fund educational initiatives in Python. It will be coming out later this month or next month.
>>
>> -Jackie
>>
>> P.S. Side note about education and python... In Guido's (creator of Python) proposal to Darpa to fund the development of Python for educational purposes, he references Logo as a great tool, but limited. That was 2001. The same year that Netlogo was created (if I have my years right).
>>
>> On Thu, Jan 10, 2019 at 4:47 PM Alfredo Covaleda Vélez <[hidden email] <mailto:[hidden email]>> wrote:
>> And will remain un-filled for years while "trumpism exists":
>>
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgsVE2RBto8 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgsVE2RBto8>
>>
>>[..]
>>
>> On Sat, Mar 4, 2017 at 3:04 PM, Nick Thompson <[hidden email] <mailto:[hidden email]>> wrote:
>>
>> Dear Friammers,
>>
>> 
>>
>> There are apparently a MILLION tech jobs going un-filled in the US – hence the panic in the tech industry concerning the immigration purge. Would this be a time for members of this list to consider seeking a better job?  Or, at least, to ask for a job?
>>
>> Or demand that your boss let you work remotely and move here to Santa Fe where the coffee is good, the air (usually) clean and where you are never more than ten minutes from the head of a hiking trail?
>>


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[Steve Smith]

Marcus -

My own experience at LANL for 27 years (leaving 11 years ago yesterday)
is roughly similar to your own.   Having been in the hardscrabble world
of startup/product-development/consulting for the remaining time, there
are things about being "institutionalized" that I miss, but much of what
you talk about is not part of it.

My daughter is finally mid-career as a PhD Molecular Biologist in
Academic Research... heavily underpaid by the standards I am familiar
with... and confronted with being a woman among my generation's "good
old boys" tying up most if not all of the funding (therefore having to
work for "one of them").   She is very suspicious of industry since it
is almost exclusively big-Pharma and is (as a researcher directly, and
by extension in her loyalty to the fundamental research she is involved
in) the victim of *their* voracious nature.   As a new parent and
primary breadwinner, she is re-evaluating whether she could find some
kind of industry job, but still finds it morally challenging in several
ways.

I thought that Rick Perry's stated belief that DOE should be cut was
less meaningful than the fact that he spaced out on it's name/role even
as he was claiming it needed to be eliminated.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQEJFvGemPM

I was visiting NREL on the day that Perry was announced for heading DOE
and the "energy" there was quite odd.   Then again, by coincidence
another visit there was disrupted by him visiting and their calling an
"all hands meeting".

I felt as if I was in an Orwell or perhaps Cyberpunk story.

- Steve

On 1/11/19 7:58 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:

> Glen writes:
>
> < I interviewed one of his mentors there and, although the model *seems* good, they're similarly plagued with the grant-writing burden Eric(S) and Pamela mention.  The same seems similar at a company, here called Galois. >
>
> That's my impression of Galois as well, that they do a lot of job-by-job things (SBIR funding), and don't have investors with a long-term vision.
> At LANL, there's a split between people that have long-term core program work (there are no real issues with getting funding, but the work is not inspiring and sometimes doesn't even make sense), the science community (full time grant-writing, where some players are much more equal than others), and what I would call forward-looking programs (hustle and fight for territory -- it is almost like start-up).    But it is hard to have much hope for a complex that is run by a person (Rick Perry) that ran a campaign on the premise of shutting it down.
>
> Especially in the Trump era, I think private research is the place to be.  Preferably for a company that has multi-national investors.
>
> Marcus
>
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[Gillian Densmore]

^^^

For what it's worth anecdotly some amount of a lot of jobs get posted for legal reasons. Acme Co has someone reffered to them, or they are just moving people around. Either way, they know who they want. 

Also their is some amount of chicken and egg: Applying to do Project Lead or C++ FrameWork of Awesome or what ever. A ton of people apply, some new, some not some have general transferable skills...just not with FrameWork of Awesome...well how do they get to be able to work with FrameWork of Awesome, if companies are more and more hestitant to do part time for on the job training to full time (probation trial)?

Also generally speaking places are shoring up more and more. FWIW of people I know, and my own experience an add, for any area gets posted, then someone changes their mind out of economic jitters and a looming fiscal cliff...or so sayeth opinions from...every news source ever.  Well...they might hope if they 'let sleaping dogs sleep' by way of not responding to or they legit totally forgot about the helpwanted well after they got a project done...

and then their are the Indeed.Com's and Linkdyns whos spiders are pretty bad about finding adds that...don't even really exist sometimes. I haven't a clue how much of that applies to a faily broad statement Well lots tech jobs aren't filled yet.

On Fri, Jan 11, 2019 at 9:56 AM Jacqueline Kazil <[hidden email]> wrote:

I think larger companies have more of a structure for more experienced hands on technical folks — they are called Individual Contributors or ICs. Sometimes they are also called “Fellows” or “Distinguished Engineers”. Usually these roles are allotted freedom to contribution based on how they see value. But sometimes they are told to focus on a certain area.

For a company to support ICs usually two conditions have to be met...

1. The company has to be large enough where ICs are valued. From my experience, I have seen this happen around,150-250 staff memebers.

 2. The contributions of IC have to valued. 

Some companies I know with these types of roles...

-Google

-Dropbox

-Capital One

-Jackie 

On Fri, Jan 11, 2019 at 7:04 AM ∄ uǝʃƃ <[hidden email]> wrote:

Cross-pollinating threads, as a >50 year old somewhat technical person, I and my clique have trouble getting and keeping these "tech jobs" because they are too focused on short-term objectives and tightly pigeon-holed skill sets.  I can almost universally get many of these jobs (or at least land multiple interviews) simply because I'm slightly literate in ~10 to 15 programming languages.  Most of my clique isn't quite as lucky, being rooted in (brain damaged by!) one or 2 of them in the same paradigm.  But even if I take one of these jobs, it quickly becomes mind-numbing; I get bored and move on.

So from my (anecdotal) perspective, all 4 of the perspectives (Michio, CMU, the private sector companies doing the poaching, and anyone who succumbs to "the myth of the objective") are all suboptimal. Pamela seems to have identified a critical element, at least for people in my ¡category!  One person barely inside my clique, though ~5 years younger, took a job at SRI.  I interviewed one of his mentors there and, although the model *seems* good, they're similarly plagued with the grant-writing burden Eric(S) and Pamela mention.  The same seems similar at a company, here called Galois.

It looks to me like people are promoted *out* of R&D and into business.  If you have even the slightest ability to land funding, that becomes your job, to the detriment of any actual R&D you may have done if you hadn't had your head crushed in an avalanche of budgeting documents.

So, to me, the problem seems less about education and more about the lack of societal infrastructure that supports actual *work*, in contrast to fiefdom building and busyness.  And if that sounds socialist, I'm OK with the label.  My transformation from libertarian to socialist is complete. 8^)

On 1/11/19 2:54 AM, Edward Angel wrote:
> One consequence of the present situation that will have long term consequences is even though the amount of research funding in CS is high, universities are having trouble attracting high quality graduate students, the next generation of educators. Although this situation has little to do with trumpism, there have been serious consequences of foreign students and researchers being denied visas. As the universities in other countries such as China and Singapore continue to improve, the future does not look good for technology education here.
> [...]
>
>> On Jan 11, 2019, at 7:26 AM, Jacqueline Kazil <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>
>> The numbers for tech jobs are all over the place. The one that I have heard most is 1.5 million, but I have also seen everywhere from 500k to 3 million.
>>
>> Most of the theories of why this is not because of Trump, but because of issues with education.
>>
>> There are not enough people in education teaching people technology, because people can easily go and get 1.5x to 3x their salary in the private sector. For example -- Uber gutting Carnegie Melon's Researchers: https://www.theverge.com/transportation/2015/5/19/8622831/uber-self-driving-cars-carnegie-mellon-poached <https://www.theverge.com/transportation/2015/5/19/8622831/uber-self-driving-cars-carnegie-mellon-poached>
>>
>> I sit on the board of the Python Software Foundation. I am putting together an RFP with others to fund educational initiatives in Python. It will be coming out later this month or next month.
>>
>> -Jackie
>>
>> P.S. Side note about education and python... In Guido's (creator of Python) proposal to Darpa to fund the development of Python for educational purposes, he references Logo as a great tool, but limited. That was 2001. The same year that Netlogo was created (if I have my years right).
>>
>> On Thu, Jan 10, 2019 at 4:47 PM Alfredo Covaleda Vélez <[hidden email] <mailto:[hidden email]>> wrote:
>> And will remain un-filled for years while "trumpism exists":
>>
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgsVE2RBto8 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgsVE2RBto8>
>>
>>[..]
>>
>> On Sat, Mar 4, 2017 at 3:04 PM, Nick Thompson <[hidden email] <mailto:[hidden email]>> wrote:
>>
>> Dear Friammers,
>>
>> 
>>
>> There are apparently a MILLION tech jobs going un-filled in the US – hence the panic in the tech industry concerning the immigration purge. Would this be a time for members of this list to consider seeking a better job?  Or, at least, to ask for a job?
>>
>> Or demand that your boss let you work remotely and move here to Santa Fe where the coffee is good, the air (usually) clean and where you are never more than ten minutes from the head of a hiking trail?
>>


--
∄ uǝʃƃ

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[Marcus G. Daniels]

Steve writes:

<  She is very suspicious of industry since it
    is almost exclusively big-Pharma and is (as a researcher directly, and
    by extension in her loyalty to the fundamental research she is involved
    in) the victim of *their* voracious nature.   As a new parent and
    primary breadwinner, she is re-evaluating whether she could find some
    kind of industry job, but still finds it morally challenging in several
    ways.  >

A successful company has to create revenue to pay for research, but it may create a lot of revenue from research.
In fact, I don't even want my tax revenue to go to parts of the country that I see as having regressive tendencies.    The greater good isn't for the greater good.  For me, I am fine to mainly supporting the people around me who do good work.   I don’t see that as tribal, just the facts of life that I tried to prevent from happening in the first place.   I'm glad there are people trying to get things on track again, but building an ark is a sensible contingency too.

Marcus



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[Steve Smith]

Marcus -

In fact, I don't even want my tax revenue to go to parts of the country that I see as having regressive tendencies.    The greater good isn't for the greater good.  For me, I am fine to mainly supporting the people around me who do good work.   I don’t see that as tribal, just the facts of life that I tried to prevent from happening in the first place.   I'm glad there are people trying to get things on track again, but building an ark is a sensible contingency too.

I'm with you on this... I think the practical application of "supporting those around me who do good work" is often mistaken for (or overlaps with?) tribalism.

On the topic of "Arks":  I just finished reading a SF novel (Man in the Tree) by a (semi) local author/friend, Sage Walker.   It is "yet another" Space Ark story, but as she didn't start writing SF (her first novel was Whiteout) until she (semi) retired as an MD in her 60's(?) and she is now in her 70's, has an unusually rich awareness of human nature and social constructs (ad-hoc family/friend groupings as well as formal structures such as hospitals and local/regional/national health-care systems).

Complementarily, I finally took an interest in Musk's aspirations for colonizing Mars which has lead me to contemplate the myriad (mostly sociopolitical vs technical) implications of that.   Similarly, the SFI "expoplanet" initiative informs this consideration as well.   I'm also a big fan of the urbanist Paolo Soleri and his "Arcologies" which is a portmanteau of "Architected Ecology" but represents ultra-high density urban constructs designed on principles similar to what might otherwise be reserved for generation-ships or space-arks.  Not absolutely/fully self-contained, but designed to provide virtually all of their own needs...  direct solar energy, food production, rain capture and water recycling, etc.   Not formally as isolated as say Biosphere I/II but in principle, significantly self-sustainable and probably hardenable to be less fragile to external conditions.  

Right here in River City (Tesuque-Pojoaque Rivers) is the Tesuque Seed Bank.   While not an Ark exactly, they are trying hard to attend to one of the central goals of an Ark.

I've drifted in and out of the periphery of prepper and survivalist communities, though they almost to an individual are much too "individualistic" (rabid libertarian) for my taste, which also includes being gun nuts and ammo hoarders.   I like some of the basic questions they ask, but am not so much on board for their answers.  

It is interesting to see similar if not identical awareness coming from the likes of you.   I'm not sure what an Ark implies for you.

- Steve

Marcus



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[Marcus G. Daniels]

Glen writes:

To what extent is a person simply a *vehicle* for innovations to bubble up through?

Steve writes:

< It is interesting to see similar if not identical awareness coming from the likes of you.   I'm not sure what an Ark implies for you. >

The Ark I imagine is a minimal platform to ensure that innovations bubble-up through a population.   Sanctuary cities are a sort of Ark.   Use of Tor or Bitcoin by progressives in countries like Iran would be a virtual sort of Ark.

 

Marcus

 

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Steven A Smith <[hidden email]>
Reply-To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Date: Friday, January 11, 2019 at 2:18 PM
To: "friam >> The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group" <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] !RE: A million tech jobs unfilled

 

It is interesting to see similar if not identical awareness coming from the likes of you.   I'm not sure what an Ark implies for you.

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