[LA.pm] jobs available, going unfulfilled

[Ben Tilly]

On Wed, Sep 22, 2010 at 11:18 AM, Randal L. Schwartz
<merlyn at stonehenge.com> wrote:
>
> Twice in the last two days, two different organizations in the greater
> LA area approached me to help them find folks to fill mid-level Perl
> hacking slots (varying between IT and webdev).  They both said "it's
> getting *very* hard to find people."
>
> Now, I'm really curious.  Why is this?
>
> Is it a supply problem, or a demand problem, or both?

I believe both.

On the demand side, LA has a number of companies that started with
Perl, and continued to grow.  And also some serial entrepreneurs that
keep on creating new companies using Perl.  This creates a healthy
local demand for Perl folks.

On the supply side a lot more people who would have started with Perl
a few years back are starting today with PHP, Ruby and/or Python.  If
you want junior people that isn't an issue - you can just train them.
If you want mid-level people a lack of people entering the pipeline is
an issue.

> As in, are there fewer Perl programmers here but the same demand?
>
> Or the same (or more) Perl programmers here, but even more demand?
>
> Or something else entirely?

I would add that the Perl community as a whole seems to be greying.
The result is that more Perl folks think of themselves as senior.
This is highly inconvenient for companies that would like to fill
bodies at a lower salary point.

> By the way... I'm not trying to make a buck out of this.  I'm just
> trying to help people who ask me to help, and I'm also genuinely curious
> about the state of hiring in the Perl community, particulary in LA since
> I'm also working here for a while.

I didn't think you were.

> (I'll also be sending this message to the other local PM groups, so if
> you see it multiple times, I'm sorry.)
>
>
> --
> Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777 0095
> <merlyn at stonehenge.com> <URL:http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/>
> Smalltalk/Perl/Unix consulting, Technical writing, Comedy, etc. etc.
> See http://methodsandmessages.vox.com/ for Smalltalk and Seaside discussion
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