If you think that group of, hmm, 200,000 people is a narrow field which gets priced to match, wait until what happens when you start pitching yourself as being from a reference class of one.

It's not nearly 200,000 people. It's a few thousand at best. Not only do they need to meet the criteria listed, they need to also meet the criterion of wanting to freelance.

I agree with you that for practical hiring purposes the supply of people with a credential available for hire is significantly smaller than the supply of people with the credential. From the perspective of somebody who is not in this in-group and wants to get hired, I would use the broadest possible reading of who holds these credentials (n.b. I really don't think I'm wrong about 200k) and the narrowest possible reading of people capable of substituting for my labor ("me").

I got snippy with a potential client last year who balked at my rate. We'd talked earlier about how hard it was finding developers, and I mentioned a bit of a labor shortage, and he agreed.

When rate came up, he balked, and started saying that lots of people could do what I was doing, blah blah blah, this was 'only' PHP (although it wasn't), etc. I calmly pointed out I was the only person talking to him who was available to come on site the next day to get started. We didn't get started - I suspect the 'this is an emergency crisis' issue suddenly was downgraded to "let's wait until we can find a part time person for $20/hour".

I don't think I'm cocky about this, but I've grown more comfortable in knowing that while I'm not the best, I'm usually the best available. And that's not that I'm bottom of the barrel, but for pretty much any set of tech skills, I personally know people better than me. It's just that they're all employed (or over-employed), and I'm available. Some times. :)

So this person sees no correlation between "its hard to find staff" and "staff are too expensive"?!?!?

If you go out to the market and offer €X for someone to do a thing, and noone takes you up on it, than the market rate (by definition) higher than X, ie you are not paying market rates.

pretty much agreed. I think people grasp a concept academically, but when it comes to actually facing the realit with cold hard cash, there's a lot of denial that floods to the surface. :/

Not everyone is like that, but it amazes me how many people want "rockstar" developers and sr-level engineers with 8-10+ years of experience in major metro areas in the US, and only want to pay $70k. I don't care how many foosball tables you have. Actually, I take that back - yes I do. 1 is too many until you're paying higher wages. Or you risk only being able to attract a certain type of developer... I may just be far too mercenary in my old age. :/

"while I'm not the best, I'm usually the best available" love this perspective. gonna keep it in mind

Some would call it a circle jerk.

Ninja rockstars are notoriously protective.

Those were the developers represented in our first auction, but we're definitely not going to be turning away senior talent in the future just because they work at Amazon, LinkedIn, Etsy or Gilt Groupe.

"...just because they work at Amazon, LinkedIn, Etsy or Gilt Groupe."

What are you trying to say about the engineers at those companies?

That they are from companies that were not represented in the first group.

That we'd love to have them!

I've been reading HN for a long time but I never registed since I never felt the need to comment, until now.

What a bunch of navel gazing, elitist douchebags you are. Do you think actually think working a Zynga or Facebook makes you a good dev. Get a grip. In any sufficiently large set of individuals you will have everything from poseur to star. Facebook, Zynga and others are not immnune to this like you would have us believe.

I was around during the previous tech bubble. Paid my dues in the trenches and earned my stripes. The last startup I was at I was a team lead. It is still around and growing but I guess since I didn't go a fancy school I don't exist. That's ok, keep promoting the hiring of greenhorns who think everything they dream up is new and then proceed to reinvent the wheel. Education does not make you smart, just educated.

BTW: In case your wondering. I'm happily employed making 6 figures for less hours than your screened employers would expect.

Epic. Fail.

I think you're seriously missing the point. The point is not "employees for company X are all awesome!", but rather "company X is a good filter". This is no different than saying "a CS degree is a good filter"; it's not the be-all end-all, but it's a nice initial filter.

(Note: I have neither a CS degree (or even a high school diploma) nor have I worked for any of the companies mentioned.)

Perhaps I was a bit harsh (I don't feel bad), but I don't think I'm missing the point. They are attempting to create an artificial scarcity that promotes their idea of what a good dev is. It is elitist.

"They are attempting to create an artificial scarcity that promotes their idea of what a good dev is."

No. They are catering to a group of people who specifically care about pedigree. They are trying to replace the role of the recruiters who do the same thing.

Yeah, but this 'pedigree' being thrown around in these comments is starting to look more and more like blatant discrimination, which was something the recruiters hide pretty well.

"which was something the recruiters hide pretty well."

The recruiters actively sell the idea that pedigree matters.

I agree. I have worked now 20+ years in finance / technology - get this - before Google and Zynga and pretty much all of your "entrance" companies existed. Since 1999 I have commanded a high salary (but not willing to disclose here) so I would be very interested in seeing if there was any demand for people with skills like mine. Oh well. Let's hope somebody else has the same idea and makes it less elitist - let's be honest - the concept is not very difficult to copy is it ??!

Jumping on this, all of the companies listed are consumer facing at their core product.

I don't think they actually are "elitist douchebags". I think they needed a filter and executed, in that dimension, poorly. I'm sure they'll get better over time. They had to come up with a filter and didn't focus on how it would come across.

I would have partnered with a company that already had peoples' code and some experience using it to find who the good coders are. My recruiting experiences with coding-test sites were not very positive (as with dating, the sites were fine, it's the needle-haystack problem because there were few good ones and they got lots of attention) but Kaggle (which focuses on data science) might have greener pastures.

I just applied and have formerly worked at the aforementioned companies. Does that count?

Yes.

So they think that people who work at medium to large corporations are better engineers than people who work at startups. Personally I've found the opposite to be true.

Why is that bad? People who do art auctions, sell luxury cars or apparel make good money using artificial scarcity.