I read an interesting article a couple days a go about the hiring frenzy here in Seattle. Yes, unemployment in some sectors is still alarmingly high. Yet in others, there is a huge shortage and the big boys in town whose names are all too familiar, are pillaging the village and each other looking for top-tier talent.
As you know, I have a new job, too. And I get to have a great view of what is happening in this town and I must say, it is energizing. No, it’s not the view I have from my office. But in some ways, it is. For I look down on South Lake Union where a lot of this hubbub is going on right now.
When I was casting about for a job, I applied at Amazon. I guess everyone does. The old joke is that you can’t live in Seattle for any length of time and not work for Microsoft. The same seems to be true about Amazon now.
In fact, the two juggernauts are battling over the same employees, as is Facebook and Google, along with a cadre of lesser known high tech business. Everyone needs programmers and project managers. If you have any experience at all and a pulse, you will get a high paying job here in tech.
It has gotten to the point where the big boys are raiding one another’s chests for employees. Yes, like the old days in Seattle and Portland, employees are being shanghaied. The only difference is these days they aren’t waking up on a boat, indentured. Instead they are waking up in their own beds before heading off to a corporate campus to be indentured.
As I said, I initially tried to get a job at the Big A. I applied several times in fact, a couple by accident. If you’ve ever applied for Amazon then you know that once you have one resume on file, every time you apply for a job, that same resume is sent, even if you applied for a slightly different job. That is the reason I have applied more than once accidentally.
But Amazon was not to be for me. And believe me, that’s fine. I love my new job. Things would have been so much different if I had turned out to be a geek instead. I can just imagine what it’s like in Redmond. Innocent employees walking down the streets. Amazon delivery trucks come down the derive, stop, open their cargo door and a couple of AmaThugs jump out, grab the geek headed for Microsoft and toss him in the back of the truck.
Sure, you thought that those trucks were innocent delivery vehicles. They’re not. They are part of the rogue plan Amazon has to rule the world. It’s a good plan, too. I can’t blame them one little bit.
You see, I am one of their best customers. When I lived on the island down Floriduh way, Amazon was my shopping center. I was and am a Premier customer. I plop down $75 a year to have the privilege of free two-day delivery of any item I want. Well, any item they sell that is Premier plan eligible.
But that’s a lot. And when you live on an island, Amazon can be your window to the world of everything you ever wanted but never really needed.
I only say this because as you know, when I went to Florida, I only had the back of a van filled with stuff and another four boxes I shipped UPS. Yesterday, all my stuff arrived from Floriduh – all 6,080 pounds of it. Now, some of it is the Janmeister’s, true. But I have to blame Amazon for at least 4,500 pounds of this shipment.
As I sit here thinking about it, I should have just ordered it and had them warehouse it for me. I had it shipped for free to Florida and paid about $7,000 to ship it back to Seattle.
If I had been thinking, I would have simply opened up an Amazon shop and put all my stuff I own up on the site at rock bottom prices. Then I could have logged into my Premier account, buy all my stuff back and have Amazon ship it back to my Shoreline house for free.
Damn! That was a good idea. I could have saved a bloody fortune and once again Amazon would come to my rescue, knight in shining armor that they are.
But back to the hiring frenzy. It’s estimated that right now Amazon is hiring 100 employees a week. You read right – a week. That’s 5,200 new employees in 2012 and rumors have it that they are planning to do the same next year. A couple thousand of these are programmers.
On the other side of the big pond they call Lake Washington, there’s another company that needs 1,500 programmers, Microsoft. No one knows how many Google and Facebook, etc. need, but it’s like the gold rush here if you are a programmer.
No need to grab a pan, buy a mule or head to Alaska. All you need to do is punch code or manage projects. That’s it. If you can, you can work all those long hours you so love to work in lovely surroundings with free food, pop and games. Night can become day, day can become night, your fingers can be worn down until they are nubs on the keyboard, and at the end of the day (or night), you can take home a huge check that you can show to your friends as you buy them a round at a local microbrewery.
I sometimes wish I had punched more code. I can wade my way through the basics, but unfortunately, God graced me with the ability to string nonsensical words together instead of // Get a substring
int start = 2; // start is relative to cbuf’s current position
int end = 5;
CharSequence sub = cbuf.subSequence(start, end); // str.
I’m good with that, I guess. Still, it would be nice to be courted like these guys are. As I have said, the “geek shall inherit the earth.” And Amazon and Microsoft have shown that there is indeed a cure for the common code.
In the Emerald City, looking over my shoulder for a passing Amazon truck,
– Robb