Linux Foundation Survey Shows Companies Desperate To Hire Open-Source Talent (zdnet.com) 51
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: At the Open Source Summit in Seattle, The Linux Foundation, and edX, the leading massive open online course (MOOC) provider released the 2021 Open Source Jobs Report. In this survey of 200 technical hiring managers and 750 open-source pros, the organizations found more demand for top open-source workers than ever. On top of that, 92% of managers are having trouble finding enough talent and many of them are also having fits holding on to their existing senior open-source staffers. In short, if you've got open-source skills, whether you're a developer, a sysadmin, a DevOps expert, or a cloud-native pro, there's a good-paying job waiting for you out there. And, where before the Covid-19 pandemic, you might have been stuck with only jobs in your area, these days, thanks to the rise of working from home, you can still live at the old homestead instead of moving to Silicon Valley or Manhattan.
On top of this 50% of employers surveyed stated they are increasing hires this year. The jobs are out there. The difficulty for companies is, as 92% of managers report, finding enough talent and hanging onto existing talent in the face of fierce competition. This is especially true for cloud-native application development and operations skills. Cloud-native tops the list of skills needed with over 46% of hiring managers looking for people with Kubernetes smarts. Indeed, for the first time in the survey's history, cloud and container technology skills are more in demand by hiring managers than Linux. Indeed, cloud and container skills rank far above Linux in this go around with 41% over 32%. [T]he survey also found that DevOps has become the standard method for developing software: Virtually all open-source professionals (88%) report using DevOps practices in their work, a 50% increase from three years ago. In other words, it's all DevOps all the time. "The survey also revealed that a majority of employers, 88%, now say that hiring certified professionals is a priority," the report adds. "That's an 87% increase in only three years, 57% in 2020, and 47% in 2018."
Sadly, discrimination has also become more of an issue. "18% of open-source professionals now report they have been discriminated against or made to feel unwelcome in the community," the report says. "That's a 125% increase over the past three years."
On top of this 50% of employers surveyed stated they are increasing hires this year. The jobs are out there. The difficulty for companies is, as 92% of managers report, finding enough talent and hanging onto existing talent in the face of fierce competition. This is especially true for cloud-native application development and operations skills. Cloud-native tops the list of skills needed with over 46% of hiring managers looking for people with Kubernetes smarts. Indeed, for the first time in the survey's history, cloud and container technology skills are more in demand by hiring managers than Linux. Indeed, cloud and container skills rank far above Linux in this go around with 41% over 32%. [T]he survey also found that DevOps has become the standard method for developing software: Virtually all open-source professionals (88%) report using DevOps practices in their work, a 50% increase from three years ago. In other words, it's all DevOps all the time. "The survey also revealed that a majority of employers, 88%, now say that hiring certified professionals is a priority," the report adds. "That's an 87% increase in only three years, 57% in 2020, and 47% in 2018."
Sadly, discrimination has also become more of an issue. "18% of open-source professionals now report they have been discriminated against or made to feel unwelcome in the community," the report says. "That's a 125% increase over the past three years."
Lies (Score:3, Interesting)
What they really want is to pad numbers and demand more green cards. These companies are just going through the motions, minus actually replying to applicants.
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One of the few things I agreed with the Tinted One on is making skilled worker visa applicants justify their "shortage" claims better to make sure they were not just looking for indentured servants.
Quite often there is a "good enough" citizen match if you allow some training time in specific shop tools. For example, a dot-net developer can learn to use dot-net with MySql instead of MS-Sql-Server. The requirements in the form of "experience with A and B and C and D, etc." is unrealistic. Too many and's.
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You've never had to train a H1B visa holder to do your job, apparently.
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I find myself sick once again, whenever there are expectations of workers in the field of engineering.
Have a nice day, as they say.
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Everyone other country has rules for outside workers. Are they all "sinning"?
Re: Lies (Score:2, Informative)
I cannot understand why people think the government should be able to tell private companies who they can and cannot hire. If you really must have Socialism, [...]
See? This is why it's a good idea to have state-sponsored education, from the 1st grade to PhD graduation. So morons have less of an excuse to spit out nonsense.
Contrary to popular belief, "socialism" does not mean "government tells people". It also doesn't mean "what I don't like about regulation". It's not a wildcard target for you to project all your fears and political resentments upon.
"Socialism" It's about one thing, and one thing only: who owns the means of production. Now you may like it or not; and you may like labor regulation or not; but that doesn't make them equal.
Re: Lies (Score:2)
Socialism" It's about one thing, and one thing only: who owns the means of production.
I already own the means of production. According to my stock portfolio, that is.
What you are thinking of is a kind of collective ownership in name only. Where decisions are made by a group of bureaucrats in the name of the workers. But the workers can't sell their shares or short the stock of individual companies if they believe those bureacrats are morons.
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I already own the means of production. According to my stock portfolio, that is.
Yep. You being the one with the capital stake in the game, you're giving a good example of capitalism. In Socialism, it would be the society at large. (I know, the difference may blur at times... this is why it's so funny reading every other day someone up in arms about "Socialism!1!!".)
What you are thinking of is a kind of collective ownership in name only. Where decisions are made by a group of bureaucrats in the name of the workers.
I obviously skipped over a lot of the finer details, I'm no expert on this. But, essentially, there are several distinct forms of "socialism". The one you're describing, where Society owns the means of production indirectly
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If we, for example, were to prohibit selling of shares
Then we would have no way of sending price signals to incompetent managers and bureaucrats that they are screwed up.
People would still have jobs, could found corporations
Soviet tractor factories. They keep cranking out the same garbage. Because some bureaucrat has a five year production goal to meet.
No more stock market, no "money makes more money" games
No more price signals for the most efficient allocation of capital. And rewards for the people who made the correct choices. And we get Soviet tractor factories. Instead of the wisdom of the masses (capitalism).
Re: Lies (Score:2)
I'm not sure you actually read my post. Nowhere did I talk about 5 years plans ie bureaucrats.
And that "wisdom of the market" bullshit is what brought you, for exame, the current John Deere tractors with all the lock in underhanded strategy. You pay more than a family home in Seattle for one, and you still have your harvest foul on the fields because you can't even repair it until they give you a "service" spot in their calendar, sometime next year.
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Re:Lies (Score:5, Interesting)
What they really want is to pad numbers and demand more green cards.
A legal resident with a green card is very different from an H1B. Someone with a green card can switch jobs at will and work anywhere in America with no legal restrictions. An H1B is an indentured serf bound by law to their master.
I am fine with more green cards, so foreign workers are treated fairly and companies compete to hire them.
The H1B program should be ended.
Re:Lies (Score:4, Informative)
Former H1B here, now on a Green Card for over 10y. I come from a country with lower wait times so my situation was not exactly the same.
I did switch companies twice while on H1B, and each time it took only 15 days for the expedited process to be completed. At which point I would give my two weeks notice and start at the new employer. Overall it would be 4 weeks from the time I accepted the offer to the time I would start at the new company. And this was me being paranoid, technically you can start sooner IIRC. Once I reached an employer that actually would start a Green Card application, I had my card in hand in less than a year.
Now, for countries with very long wait times, that's a bit more difficult, but I know of a lot of folks from these countries that have switched companies as well while on an H1B and waiting for a Green Card. While you are on your original H1B time you can switch companies without much issues, but once you need to go beyond that original few years, your employer has to file for a Green Card, you get to extend your H1B while you wait for the process to progress. That indeed could take a few years but once your application reaches a certain status, that application is linked to you directly and can be transferred to a new employer.
Not all companies are versed with the application procedures, and there are costs involved, including lawyers time that make you fill forms which are pretty much the same questions as on the Government forms, but in a way that allow them to bill more time since they now have to transcribe your answers from their form to the official forms (lawyers tricks). In the end, it does make it a bit harder to hop around, especially when the applications processes are frozen like it was the case with the former administration, but overall it is not the ball and chain that some describe.
Having a Green Card is certainly a relief because it removes a weight from your shoulder with regards to life planning and less with the ability to switch companies or demand a fair compensation package. We no longer need to renew visas in embassies outside the US, and we never have to fear that the Immigration Agent at the airport might not like our haircut that day. We did wait for the Green Card as a requirement for buying a house, but we could have bought one sooner if we really wanted to as well.
Now there are definitely abuses, and I think that companies where more than 50% of the employees are on a H1B should be scrutinized. I am in favor on pushing for a percentage cap on how many H1Bs a company can hire (25% or less?). There are a couple of 'consulting' firms that are clearly abusing the system and if these few were disciplined the situation would be better.
Approaching Captain Obvious levels (Score:2)
Most web-based apps depend on at least some open-source components, so almost any web app will need somebody who uses open source and thus would show up on such survey.
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While OP is indeed correct that that *would* solve the problem, that would not legally be possible, which is why I suspect the trollbait being posted as AC.
That said, it does highlight that most of this desperation is borne out of corporate more or less handcuffing themselves when it comes both to hiring practices and compensation by supporting the same government polices that now prevent them from attracting and retaining top talent.
Far as I'm concerned? Let em burn. Things are so unpleasant in corporate t
Explosive education. (Score:3)
[T]he survey also found that DevOps has become the standard method for developing software: Virtually all open-source professionals (88%) report using DevOps practices in their work, a 50% increase from three years ago. In other words, it's all DevOps all the time.
Whew. Thank goodness Packt [fanatical.com] and Pluralsight [humblebundle.com] has everyone covered.
Simple solution. (Score:5, Insightful)
On top of that, 92% of managers are having trouble finding enough talent and many of them are also having fits holding on to their existing senior open-source staffers.
Offer more money. If they aren't offering higher salaries then they aren't really trying. I'm tired of the corporate lies.
No kidding I just saw an article (Score:3)
We hear a lot about how entitled employees are but nobody ever really talks about how entitled employers have become. At this point they feel completely entitled to our work and it's the lowest wages possible. Your inability to run a successf
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Problem with daycare for very young children is that they can only have 2-3 kids per adult max. So their wages have to come out of daycare fees for 2-3 kids, and the people paying for daycare are probably working at Target or similarly low paid jobs.
Some countries have subsidised childcare and it's extremely high quality. In places where they don't it tends to be poor quality, minimum wage, one adult to many children.
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Your point still stands, but in my state the maximum number of children per child care staff is 4 for children under 14 months of age, 5 for children between 14 months and 2 years old, 8 for 2-year olds, and 10 for 3 & 4 year-olds.
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Offer more money. If they aren't offering higher salaries then they aren't really trying.
Are you claiming that there are millions of skilled developers sitting at home unemployed and refusing to work until salaries go up?
If not, then how is extra money going to cause more developers to become available?
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And if your salary is less than my current hourly rate, or if you have a reputation for making your employees pee in bottles and poop in bags, you proba
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None of what you say makes an additional developer available.
But quitting your current job to take a better job, the shortage is just shifted from one company to another.
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Not everyone involved in open source projects are working jobs that desire that particular trait, jackass. Will people leave one job for a bunch more money elsewhere? You bet.
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An attractive salary will motivate developers with different skillsets to train-up in the specific skills being requested. So: more money = more developers available.
An attractive salary will also motivate currently-employed developers to switch jobs. So: more money = more developers available.
An attractive salary will motivate more students to major in this field. So: more money = more developers available.
Seriously, this is how it works.
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But Linux is free! Thus people should be too!
Though, it may not just be the money - the money might be good, but there might be dozens of other reasons why people aren't coming.
Let's say it requires going to the office. Would you take a a 20% pay increase if it meant having to commute back and forth every day again? (That's 20% above your current salary, so "more money!").
But what if the job meant no after hours work? If an emergency happens, there's someone to handle it, so no pager duty? Would you take a
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Pay is too simplistic a formula
Pay is a starting point. You want to throw in other benefits? Great but increased pay is where you need to start.
Oh really, now? (Score:5, Informative)
This was a real job posting, by the way...
And right at the top...
ENTRY LEVEL 10,000+ employees
Yeah, right. Okay. "Desperate." Uh-huh. Oh yes, very "desperate", I'm sure. Gotcha.
Hat tip to Jermaine Jupiter! [twitter.com]
I honestly don't see an uptick (Score:4, Interesting)
Most employers looking for Open Source programmers still require a college degree which shouldn't be a prerequisite with technology jobs.
Many remote jobs still require you to show up in person, sporadically or semi-frequently.
Recruiters are very demanding. If you are at an intermediate- or mid-level skill level in some area they will usually breeze on past you on LinkedIn. They only want people with 5+ years experience. They demand experience from everyone, yet are looking for people who already have nothing but sequential levels of experience, and no time gaps. Chicken and egg scenario.. How do you get experience unless you get the job? This is especially hard on those starting out and young people. Mentorships only exist in non-profit or collegiate settings. The commercial corporate work world does not do mentorships, never really has and never will. I'm not talking about Google or Microsoft. I'm talking about small and medium sized companies. This is one reason I don't work exclusively in commercial corporate settings.
Until 70% of companies are actively using Open Source in enterprise (instead of %25 or less) I don't see this grim situation ever changing. Something is wrong with the world of tech work in general and all the software in the world won't change that until something like Public Benefit Enterprises (read: PBC's) replace corporate charters and all the stupid management heads who work for the billionaires.
I'm lucky I found a job that lets me set my own terms. Hopefully the world of remote work will let people gradually set their own terms on their time but I'm not holding my breath.
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How do you get experience unless you get the job?
By doing professional development on your own time.
Your employer isn't your mommy. You need to take responsibility for your own future.
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By doing professional development on your own time.
They still count that as personal projects. If it's not for a sizeable company, it's a personal or side project that they discount. I've only recently found a job where the interviewers of many interviews drilled in this point really hard.
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They also seek 5+ years of experience because such recruits have much higher base pay, and reward the recruiter far more. They're also more likely to stay around a few years, rather than walk out or be walked out at the end of the 3-month training period.
Meh (Score:4, Insightful)
One thing I don't understand (Score:3)
The last line is something I really don't understand. Unless someone is trying to spin. It says "discriminated against or felt unwelcome".
I've been involved in open source since at least 2008. I know the race and gender, or sexual interests, of maybe 1% of the people I've worked with on open source. Probably well under 1%. They only know my race and gender if they've seen me speak at a conference. Which means only a very small percentage indeed. Only the ones I've flirted with with know my sexual orientation, so that be roughly zero to one persons. Far fewer than 1% of open source professionals have seen me speak, so far fewer than 1% could discriminate against me on such a basis.
A few decades ago, an AP journalist was told by a marine biologist that trash /litter in the ocean, things like jugs, six-pack yokes, bottles, bags, etc could kill a million animals. The AP journalist wrote the following sentence:
"Six-pack rings and other trash kill a million sea ..."
Of course what "went viral" was the six-pack yokes. People wrote new articles saying that six-pack yokes kill a million, when that's not in any way what the scientist said.felt
Perhaps when asked whether they've "discriminated against or felt uncomfortable", 17.9% have felt uncomfortable and 0.1% felt like they had been discriminated against.
Perhaps they *felt* like they were discriminated against - when their pull request was sent back for revision - by people who don't actually know their race or sexual orientation or whatever.
Otherwise it just doesn't make sense to me. I've never seen a PR on which the author added their sexual orientation as a code comment.
Hidden factors in screening (Score:5, Insightful)
These days, a large number of companies use software automation to handle resumes. And default settings automatically reject resumes listing too much experience! The assumption driving that is that if someone has worked too many places or done too many projects, there is something wrong with them like being flaky or unreliable. It all comes back to lazy or stupid HR managers who set configuration too tight. Then they lose many applicants.
This is like rejecting a doctor or lawyer because they had too many clients.
Sadly, most large corporations now use ATS and as a result bar good applicants; the hiring manager never sees their resume.
A second factor is that ATS cannot read between the lines and infer experience situations. Instead, all ATS collect keywords from the job req then match the resume to those words. If a resume does not directly show those words, the submission fails. And if the resume is not formatted so that the dumb software can parse it matching a template, the submission fails.
I analyzed a lot of ATS software for capabilities, and I concluded a lot of the code is crap. Inflexible, poorly written. I have seen translated versions of my resume output by ATS, and the software turned it into gibberish. Due to misparsing, the SW rated me zero in important categories. As a result I got rejected without a human ever reading the resume. I only discovered this when friend in HR showed me what happened to the information. The hiring problem is partly due to an industry with bad practices and poor tools and overwhelming laziness.
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FTFY
The modern way is to split the CVs ("resumes" to people who don't speak English) into two piles, and discard one pile. It is always best to reject unlucky people. This is a much better policy than getting "algorithms" to do the selection.
If you really want to hire people who can technical jobs keep HR well away from recruitment cos they have no concept of what technical work involves other t
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Unless you're an independent contractor, working too many places is a red flag to humans reviewing the resumes as well as to automated software reviewing the resume. It generally is correlated with applicants that are flaky or unreliable, even though there are occasionally exceptions.
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Skills (Score:2)
Certified professionals? (Score:1)
Linux isn't easy to master (Score:2)
I suspect the real problem is that Linux isn't something that's easy to master if you don't have at least a bit of love for it. A lot of younger techs are use to using GUIs and working with relatively easy to install systems whereas setting up something like VMs with GPU Passthrough working correctly will take weeks to figure out. Senior Linux techs have had the experience and time to work on these systems with knowledge that often takes more than a quick google to find.
Train (Score:2)
How many of these "desperate" companies are willing to train people with a suitable background on the specific skills they want?
Problem is: They only wanna take. Not give. (Score:1)
They are leeches by nature, after all.
That is what "for-profit" means.