Job cuts affecting Austin tech?
There was an article in the Statesman today, Wave of tech job cuts could signal trouble ahead, experts say.
(For the record, I love experts. They always make for interesting debate.)
It's stated that on Wednesday, Dell, IBM, and Motorola made a combined total of 14,000 job cuts. Dell took the lions share at 8000. Were these mostly in Austin? And then 4000 at Motorola and 1570 at IBM. I'm curious if this was manufacturing, or R&D and operations too. Freescale had layoffs in early May this year, and we lost people across the board from a cross-section of disciplines. Many good engineers in my area, as well as some management were cut.
"Job security? It's almost non-existent." Yes, but as far as I'm concerned, that's nothing new, especially in the tech sector.
"These are leading companies," Courtney said. "Once they start doing it . . . and the market responds (favorably) to their cost-cutting, it's going to force other companies to look at similar measures."
Some years ago, I once read a [fake] news story in The Onion where Motorola's then CEO Chris Galvin was enthusiastic about the stock price surging after a layoff. So he followed the apparent linear regression and decided to layoff all his employees, which caused the stock to surge even higher. Finally, he formed strategic partnerships with other companies to layoff their employees too. I'll never forget the fictitious quote of an American Airlines employee: "Hey, you can't lay me off! I don't even work for Motorola."
So all joking aside, do you think Austin is heading for a real slowdown?
Leslie Smiers
It is hard to say if Austin is heading for a real slowdown or not. There are several companies in town that are hiring. Also eventhough Freescale had layoffs in May they have continued to hire new people. I have told of about new job openings at Freescale today. I have heard from a few recruiters that there is some company that is opening a new design center in Austin, and they are being very low profile about it.
I think it's hard to tell if there's a slowdown on the way. The same companies that layoff turn around and start hiring again the next quarter. And Dell has been having tons of trouble lately, so that doesn't surprise me. I thought I read somewhere the Dell jobs were in Austin, and some are being given a chance to go to Nashville.
BTW I'm new to the site.
Hi Endless - welcome!
I agree with you: I am seeing layoffs followed by hirings. I have directly observed someone laid off, and then a need in that same organization 6 months later for a person with that exact skill set. And worse yet, although the manager wanted to hire him back, higher-ups refused to rehire, instead opting for someone brand new who must climb the new-to-the-company learning curve. And to date a candidate has not been found.
So I don't know what to say. On the one hand, I'm still seeing a great need for tech folks (just view our jobs section), and yet I'm also finding a significant number of people from that same pool out of work.
Matt
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Leslie Smiers
Matt here is an explaination of why you are seeing layoffs followed by hirings.
1. Most tech companies are using the following theory. You layoff the bottom x% and hire in workers who fit in the top 50%. Therefore you increase the over all compentency of the company. This is why the person that was laid off can not be re-hired.
2. Most companies are striving to have average benifits. Companies will cut benifits and then say "We are just doing what everybody else is doing."
As you can see points 1 and 2 don't always work together. It is hard to recruit above average people to an average company.
I think a lot of companies aren't even worried about the top or bottom percentages... they are just looking at the bottom line. If they can lay off existing FTEs and have others take over their duties for a while they save money. If the work doesn't get done they may eventually need to hire someone again, but if they can replace a senior person with a junior person they have saved money again. A good example of this is Dell. Over the past several years they have laid off thousands of FTEs and replaced them with cheaper contractors through agencies like Spherion. Most of those replacements are paid a fraction of what the old FTEs got, and that is before you consider lack of benefits, etc.
And even when companies are hiring people as FTEs with similar or higher qualifications to people previously laid off, today there has been enough downward pressure on salaries, especially in IT, that companies can easily find new hires for less than what they used to pay. That also fits in with the refusal to re-hire, because they don't want there to be an expectation of the previous salary.
Your second point I agree with completely. For that matter, I think a lot of layoffs are done just to follow the "Joneses" as well.
As for being able to recruit above average people to an average company... it is only difficult in a healthy job market. In a weak market like we've been in since 2001, it isn't that hard because people will do what they need to in order to make ends meet.
I heard (probably third-hand/grain of salt applies) that a lot of those Dell layoffs were in Tennessee.
--
Christopher Iamele
Email: ciamele@austin.rr.com
The most recent Dell layoffs hit all three North American sites, RR, Nashville and OKC. Many of who where let go were at the Regional Sales Manager level, higher paid and at a higher level, and whom did not have a large amount of headcount they were responsible for.
Rumor has it that due to continued concerns about Dell's financial performance they will probably have another round of layoffs yet this spring.
Dell is interesting for a few things...
It did not lay off 8000 but closer to 4500
It then hired around 2500
Now the rumors about another round, but if you look at Monster, Dice, etc. there are several hundred openings. Most of the openings are customer facing.
My guess is Dell is re-aligning a lot of the workforce to put more people in "money making" areas as opposed to operating expense (OPEX).
Of course thqat is not to say that the 4500 represents the full extent of all layoffs as I hear it is an on going process.
Thanks
KMAC
I would agree with that. I think they are going be "trimming" for a while and hiring back in areas they think they need more.
I know several people I worked with that got laid off and are back in different areas.
I know several people who were Dell employees that were laid off and now are working there as contractors through agencies for a small percentage of what they used to make... oh, and little to no benefits.
I've noticed that a lot of agencies recruiting for workers at Dell now have prominent wording that anyone who previously worked at Dell either as an employer or a contractor through another agency has to disclose that up-front. I wonder what kind off mess that is in response to.
All I know is I hope I do not have to find out!!
Yeah, it is a raw deal. One guy I know was making close to $40k as a tech at Dell when he was an FTE. He was laid off and then a couple months later got hired back doing essentially the same work through "Spherion at Dell" for around $14 an hour. To add insult to injury Spherion kept him on less than a year because they don't want to be subject to the sort of "perma-temp" lawsuits that Microsoft lost on. I don't know what he is doing now, I haven't talked to him in a year, last I knew he was working as a PC tech somewhere in south Austin, he said it still didn't pay well but at least it sounded like a better deal than Spherion.
So do I, Could be some of the same people. :-)
I still see a lot of Dell jobs posted on various sites. Based on what I've heard there is a large focus on beefing up service related positions both in and out of IT.
Thanks
kmac
Ad of mid-march 2008, what's the consensus for Austin (this thread was started 8/10/2007)?
If anything from what I see out there it looks like things have slowed down as far as hiring goes since the beginning of the year. Then again I actually expected we would have seen more layoffs by now as bad as the economic news all seems to be these days, so it sure could be a lot worse. I suppose it is possible that a lot of companies have done so much downsizing over the past 7 years that it is a lot more difficult to cut without cutting off whole limbs... the fat was gone a long time ago...
I actually expected we would have seen more layoffs by now as bad as the economic news all seems to be these days, so it sure could be a lot worse. I suppose it is possible that a lot of companies have done so much downsizing over the past 7 years that it is a lot more difficult to cut without cutting off whole limbs... the fat was gone a long time ago...
Oh, I respecfully say that the earthquake is still shaking and the buildings are just starting to collapse (the weakest first). We are still a long ways from the Tsunami that will bounce back from shore to shore ;)
The USA has extremely serious fundamental economic problems (many cultural - such as bling over quality in Film and Software). We gave up manufacturing. I expect us to rise from the ashes, but we are still in the fire spreading stage.
These things move slow. I continue to think "oh in 6 months x will happen" and then it doesn't happen for 18 months. But I don't discount the rapid decline when you reach critical points.
You are in one of the right places at the right time. Keep active on forums like this, save money when you make it, be prepared. It really has been 25 years of good times, so it may seem 'fat was cut' but really that was just a couple years of fat. We still have 23 years of fat left ;)
Not trying to be doom and gloom. Because tech workers with worldwide information flow really are well positioned if they use their skills. It is the USA's best chance of adjusting. And actually enjoying the adjustment! time and time again you will find people who are super-rich but not really happy. The USA can be happy without being #1 #1 #1 all the time. Maturity and all that.
I'm not sure I am as optimistic as you are.
Having been unemployed since the first of the year, I've started to notice some trends.
First the good. When I first started looking (Jan. 3rd or thereabouts), my Monster search would return less than 50 jobs. That same search today returned tonight returned 92.
Now the bad, at least from my standpoint. I've been in management for the last 7 years or so. I've stayed current with what is going on with the products I've been responsible for, and could have at anytime during that time acted (and did from time to time) as an IC (individual contributor). Now I find more "Sr./Lead QA" positions that are specifically targeted for "Experienced(Non-Manager)" (in Monster-speak), where the actual duties are mostly management, mentoring, and helping less senior members in their jobs. Now I find myself "over qualified" for most of the positions I've been looking at.
Having said all that, I'm still hopeful I'll find something this month.
Someone suggested that I "dumb down" my resume. I never really thought I would have to do that, but...
We have a serious cultural problem of not knowing how to screen good people.
Too often relies on personal relationships as a way around doing hard work.
What we really need is a culture of better reviews/better tracking of employee productivity and quality. Too many good people go unrewarded and too much dead wood accumulates. That is why constantly small fast growing firms replace more established - the dead wood only seems to grow.
The USA seems to have lost sense of what freedom of movement, freedom of economics, etc really has on the plus side! The right person for the job, the right tool for the job...
"Too often relies on personal relationships as a way around doing hard work."
The old "it's not what you know it's who you know" and it is very true.
Being that there have been a lot of layoffs where I work I have seen people who were really top performers get let go and ones who are basically wasting oxygen stay. Some of it is because it is who you know, some of it is related to "who you pissed off lately", and then some is the blind cuts HR likes so do.
I've seen the same kind of things in layoffs. You can't make much assumption on how good a person is by them getting laid off anymore because so many of those decisions are personally or politically motivated or just arbitrary these days.
I have discovered that the Customer Service, Customer Support, and Tech Support part of the Tech sector are still looking for "a few good men". Unfortunatley they are being rather picky about qualifications.
Either you are an entry level intern straight out of college or you have hords of experience and appear over-qualified. Naturally when a potential employer looks at the over-qualified candidate, the thought process is that this is just a stop gap job.
I am old enough that I need to find as high a paying job as possible. I find myself wanting to work for Time Warner for about 60% of what someone with my qualifications can earn, given the chance. I'm not so sure I want to do that dance.
Valerie Dennis
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/vcd0826
Blog: http://thinking.ivalerie.com
I understand where you are coming from. The issue of "overqualified" is a big problem. In some cases the legitimate fears of employers are as you note, in other cases it is a way for them to have a legal out for age discrimination.
Unfortunately if those jobs were all that were available I'd be homeless because they usually don't pay enough to cover my (modest) mortgage... I'm in a situation where I can't afford to take much more than a $10k cut from what I currently make without significant pain, but there appear to be very few jobs open out there right now that pay decent that I'm a 110% match for even with 20+ years of varied software development experience.
I'm not sure it's proven that being an older tech worker is sustainable model. I remember the same concerns in the late 1980's and early 1990's with older tech workers.
Maybe it is like professional athletes - but instead of speed and injuries - brains fill up with too much obsolete knowledge?
I'm older myself, so not trying to be negative or anything. I think running business and leading (teaching, training, organizing) is a proven thing at an older age. Being a pure technician seems harder at older ages.
Re: "I think running business and leading (teaching, training, organizing) is a proven thing at an older age. Being a pure technician seems harder at older ages."
I think this statement is correct, but what I'm finding in my search is that everyone wants someone technical that can be an individual contributor, AND lead a team of technical people. Those that know me know I'm capable of doing this; have for the last few years. Problem is, I'm not interviewing with people who know me.
I was encouraged at the PayPal open house last night, as that one of the people I had interviewed with is about the same age as I, so there is hope.
I found this of interest:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080327/tc_nm/att_workforce_dc
"We're able to do new product engineering in Bangalore as easily as we're able to do it in Austin, Texas," he said, referring to the Indian city where many international companies have "outsourced" technical and customer support workers.
================
Personally, I find this to have been true in Austin/San Antonio area (as discussed further in the story).
We have a real issue of tech job imbalance. You have inexperienced college grads expecting high pay and older people who get abandoned (and are often skittish/fearful given the lack of proven path). We seem to only reward a certain skill set range and wage range.
The USA tech industry needs to sort out how to spread out the jobs and encourage overall tech job market stability.
If starting tech talents is getting jobs as Best Buy, GameStop, etc. for $11.00/hour - why aren't they willing to do entry software dev or website admin (operations) for the same pay? Work at home, no commute, more flexible hours, no uniform. SAME PAY, LESS PERSONAL COST.
I have an answer: We have brainwashed ourselves into not 'giving away' our work for low pay. All software work must be $30/hour or more.
Sorry, economics don't work that way. You need to gain experience, learn to master your skills before you get $30/hour or more.
College kids are PAYING $ (tuition) to be taught, then they go out and earn money at restaurants or retail. HELLO, you could get tech experience for 4 years at $11/hour too, EARNING training and money. We need a lot of minor league players to work their way up to major league. You can't just go to college and "buy yourself" major league talent and experience. Yet that is what we try to do.
Software, customer support, etc can ALMOST ALWAYS be done commute-free from home. Very low overhead. No car expenses, no extra square feet, we already have internet at home - yet we insist on commuting (Austin community LOVES cars), having dedicated office space, and demanding extra money to cover all this overhead.
The .com boom of 2001 (easy money) is not likely to come back, the USA is in decline from economic excess (houses can not be exported, nor can used plasma TV's, worn out SUV's and burned up oil). We aren't creating minor league players - and we aren't letting retired major players become assistant coaches.
// YES, there are individual exceptions, I'm talking on the larger scale.
Well, talking on a larger scale is what the CEO of AT&T is doing. It's easy to make those kind of comments when your job pays 20 million a year, and your view is from the space shuttle.
To use your analogy, yes we need minor league players. Problem is, there is no farm system. I've seen a lot of new talent come out of school, and accept a job in tech in something other than development; support and/or QA. I have yet to see more than about 10% be able to make the transistion into development, because there is no path for them to do so. Spending 4 years in QA doesn't qualify you to be a developer, you're now a Sr. QA, which is even worse, because now you're pegged as a QA, not as a technical professional whose skill set could be used or adapted to other functions. Most tech companies seek instant productivity when they hire for a position.
And trends are changing. Tech companies are starting to look for QA people who can and do program, in the same language as they are developing software in, plus any additional scripting languages that QA can use to automate even further. This is a good trend for the industry, but bad for a lot of people. Why? These companies want to hire developers for these positions, rather than giving that technically compotent QA person the ability to grow into the role. Again, it's the "instant gratification" they want. I know a lot of QA people who could adapt to this environmenet, but are not being given the chance. (As a personal aside, I think that if I were qualified to automate all of a developers unit tests and automate the testing of the application, my skills would have to be better than the developers, and I should be paid more. Hum, think that's happen?)
We work in an industry that encourages promotion and advancement by changing jobs. I've even seen recruiters that will judge candidates as not being very attractive because they've stayed in the same job too long, so they must not be very marketable. But yet, how many times have you seen a lead or manager hired into a company when there were capable people within the organization that deserved the promotion. Maybe that's more because the tech industry tends to be a start-up world, and not an industry of large corporations that can move people along.
I spent 13 years as a developer or development manager. I made the transition to QA about 8 years ago to fill a need. You think anyone would hire me to do development or manage development again; no way. Why? Because I wasn't a hands-on developer in my most recent role. Could I do the job? Yes.
Like a said earlier, when this industry develops a minor league system like there is in baseball, then we'll have the ability to develop talent, and get them ready for the "show". But until then, I don't expect anything will change.
OK, now that I've just alienated every hiring manager out there, I gotta get my game on for the happy hour tonight, because I'm still looking for a job. See ya there - end of rant.
Oh yea, unemployment sucks!
You could be a teacher and help solve the problem. I'm trying to feel out of now is the right time in the industry for this. I feel economics point the way - the low value of the USD currency is creating export opportunities. I also think it is about time we (USA) take advantage of telecommuting (much like manufacturing). We have a serious cultural bias against it and the rest of the world is eating our lunch.
I'm toying with the idea of Jelly being a format / template for teaching. If guys can play music on the street corner for donations, why not a tech teaching for donations? Tech students don't need to be using borrowed money - and taking other (non-tech) service sector jobs for gas money. I'm not saying it is for everyone, but exactly what would a healthy minor league look like in tech industry?
Thought about that. Problem is, teaching in the public sector pays less than waiting tables on an hourly basis. That's why you see ex-teachers working at Chili's and Cheddars.
Teaching in the private sector can be very rewarding, but is affected by economic trends even more so than a job at a resturant. The first thing that goes in most tech companies is the training budget, if they even have one.
Just not a stable situation.
Well Jelly is a mix of 1) people who work full time at me strictly looking to scratch social or network itch, 2) independents looking for work or future gigs.
I don't know your whole picture, so ignore what isn't appropriate... but you clearly have forum participation and writing skills. The independent / community participating (business minded especially) geek can often have an edge over the 'faceless crowd' - especially when that crowd is overseas and travel costs are going up [economics a common theme for me, especially when planning changes/strategy].
Things I encourage unemployed to do: 1) open source projects, 2) teach or offer free help at things like Jelly. If you have talent, at least you are getting your skills out there.
as an aside:
BTW, I'd rather buy an un or underemployed geek a beer/coffee/lunch than help out the 'homeless guy' at the stop light. As I want to be a little more involved than just giving money and not knowing the situation. I'm not afraid to be charitable, and I'm not the only one. When I'm fully employed, a coffee or lunch isn't very expensive to me. Your ideas and experiences are of value to me (economic and personally).
I should be a the door64 night, my picture is on Twitter if you want to find me. http://twitter.com/RoundSparrow - no promise I can be of any direct use to you, but I've been around.
Must have had my head in the sand too long; don't know anything about "Jelly". It sounds like a place (virtual?) or forum. If I google Jelly will I find it ;>)
One of the reasons I closed my rant with "unemployment sucks", is that I think I'm actually working harder now than when I was employeed; and I'm certainly no slacker. I started out this morning before 7:00 updating my resume on Monster, Dice, Hotjobs, etc. Then went through job listings on each, as well as Craigs List and some others. Took a few minutes to write the rant. Wife left for work at 9:30, so I took a break to shower and eat some breakfast.
Right now I'm working on improving my Ruby skills in an effort to write a fairly generic automated test harness using Watir. Discovered I'm probably going to have to learn Rails as well to complete the task, so I'm searching for references. Wife gave me too many errands to run today, so I have to get on that quickly because I have a 4:00 phone screen for a potential job. After which I'll drive downtown to the happy hour, and see what I can make of that.
I was going to print up some generic type business cards with my contact information on them, but don't know if I'll have time, but we'll see.
I'll need to get back with someone today or tomorrow about a possible 2 week consulting gig in K.C. next month, that could pay me about 6K plus expenses.
So I've been busy!
Thanks for the offers of lunch or beer; both are some of my favorite things to do. But we're maintaining for now.
Tell me more about Jelly!
Thanks for the good words. Look forward to seeing you tonight.
I seem to have a nack for helping people with their career, so that's why I'm kind of forward on it. I'm not in the business of it, just hang out a lot and listen.
Again, with little specifics to go on about you: in general, sending out too many resumes is kind of a negative. Precision placement is often finding the right opportunity and being invited or knowing when to speak. Sound like you are doing a great job in effort.
If you are landing $6K in 2 weeks ($75/hour * 80 hours) with expenses, I consider that pretty good ;) And it sounds like you are being an independent.
Jelly
=========
The concept of Jelly is mostly about people who work hard but often on their own or not without a fixed set of co-workers. Could be a person doing their own self study (learning Ruby in your case).
Look here: http://wiki.workatjelly.com/JellyInAustin
It is often nothing more than a 10 people working on their laptops and not really talking a lot together. But you are welcome to approach people and ask questions, maybe have someone review your work, the kind of things you would do with a co-worker. It is a growing concept, so subject to evolution ;)
You are right on when it comes to pigeon holing candidates. Employers do seem to assume that the only thing that a candidate can do is exactly what they are doing in their current job or did in their previous job. Even previous experience doesn't seem to help if it is more than a few years old. I did Java development several years ago, but absolutely nobody would ever give me a chance as a Java developer these days because I don't have any experience with the current versions and because they aren't willing to pay a senior developer wage to someone with only a few years of Java even if they've got 20 years of C/C++ and other development experience. Only recent experience that exactly matches their buzzword list matters.
The reason recent grads aren't getting $11/hr software engineering jobs is because there aren't any other than perhaps short-term internships. I think that a lot of new CS grads would rather do software engineering than work at Geek Squad, even if they got paid the same money but without employers making those opportunities it won't happen. And the reality is, most employers only hire experienced people for software jobs and if a candidate doesn't have at least 2-3 years, they are not considered. There just aren't enough real entry level jobs with any upward path to go around. As for "working your way up" without getting a degree, that is a very hard path to follow since most employers will not hire people without a degree anymore, with the possible exception of people with enough years of experience to substitute.
As for work-from-home, it really isn't employees that are the problem, most employers insist on seeing people in the office 40 hours a week. Even if you could find an employer that was flexible enough to allow a person to work from home 50% of the time, you still can't get away from the need to have a car to commute and having space in an office. You would save some money on gas, but the other costs like insurance don't change.
You sound like you are blaming the worker for things that aren't in their control.
Well, the rest of the industry can have their layoffs if they want. They can all participate in an economic slow-down if they want. Heck, they can even go into full recession if they want. I'm not participating.
We have open reqs and can't find solid experienced talent. That's what keeps me awake at night.
- Derek Viljoen
If you can't find solid experienced talent in Austin you don't know how to look, are looking for the mythical "5lb butterfly" or you pay too low.
I've seen your postings, so #1 isn't the problem... I think your problem is a combination of #2 and #3...
#2 in that your job descriptions are asking for 15+ qualifications, many of which are specific to a narrow niche market and it may be difficult to find someone who is a 110% fit. It sounds like anyone who isn't at least a 110% match is not "solid experienced talent". Figure out what you really need and what candidates might have similar but not exact match experience that could learn or be trained. There are also words like "fast-paced environment" and "work hard, play hard” in your postings that warn away over 35 candidates... those things often can be translated as "expected to work 60+ hours for 40 hours of pay -- you won't see your spouse or children.
#3 in that your postings make the mistake of not having a clearly stated salary range. You should know what a real market salary/benefits are is and be proud to state what you are offering. Absent that the good candidates are going to assume you will try to low-ball them.
Address those two issues and I think you will find more success. Maybe even a good night's sleep.
Wow you really seem to think you know what we need. The only problem is I think you're looking at the wrong company or something. Nowhere do we say "work hard, play hard." Here is the list of minimum qualifications from one of our postings:
Minimum Qualifications:
• 7+ years of software development experience, including at least 2 years of C# and .Net and 5 years of Java technologies or C++.
• Strong troubleshooting, decision making and problem solving skills.
• Deep understanding of multithreading.
• Strong grasp of software design patterns and effective development methodologies.
• Ability to communicate effectively and to influence strategy, tactics and perceptions.
• Resourcefulness, independence, self-discipline, and positive attitude.
I don't think those are "narrow niche" skills. Please point one out.
- Derek Viljoen
I assume that you are talking about KTG, if not, then my apologies, I have the wrong company... but if it is KTG then this is cut-n-pasted right from one of your postings:
"KTG has a true “work hard, play hard” culture. Join us and be a part of a dynamic team working on exciting next generation client/server software."
And here are the minimum qualifications:
"Minimum Qualifications:
• 5 plus years of experience developing software utilizing object oriented techniques
• Significant C++ experience
• Experience developing multi-threaded server applications that meet demanding throughput and latency constraints
• In-depth understanding of various client/server processing models with extensive server side experience
• Experience using profiling tools and techniques to optimize program flow and resource utilization
• Disciplined use of a source control system
• Network (sockets) programming experience
• Strong sense of teamwork with excellent communication and collaboration skills
• BS in Computer Science or related degree or equivalent work experience"
And the "nice to haves" list makes it even more specific that you really are only interested in people who have low-level high performance securities trading transaction processing experience. That is a pretty narrow niche. You might find a fair number of people with that specific experience in Chicago or NYC, but there aren't a lot of companies building that kind of applications here.
Once again, if that isn't from one of your company's postings, then I apologize.
However, to respond to the posting which you've quoted... one thing that will make it difficult is that you are demanding significant experience with both .NET and Java and/or C++. Finding people who have significant recent experience with both whittles the available pool down quite rapidly. It would be much easier to illustrate if I could drop a graphic in here... It would be like the locus of two circles that only slightly overlap. You'd have a much easier time if you were willing to accept someone with experience in one or the other who is willing to learn the one they don't know (or know well) yet.
I don't really care if you choose to ignore my advice, but don't expect me to buy "we can't find anyone". You may not be able to find superman who will work for peanuts, but there are people out there who could do the job if you were willing to give them a chance.
Just for commentary (this is not a job posting thread but a discussion of marketplace).
I'm nearly qualified for that job, although a little weak on the recent Java experience. But .net and Java are so similar, I would question any candidate who is qualified for that job who couldn't easily adapt. Threading is a difficult thing and design/OS experience is probably more important than language library/syntax.
Anyway, I always wonder about such a high skilled job in terms of SO MANY years of recent experience. How long is a person with this skill level really needed? There might only be 60 people (WAG) in the USA who are truly good candidates for this job (and also seeking work). Unless the project is really huge, this person is probably going to have to do a lot of less challenging work.
The real point is the pay level. If all the work is indeed challenging (project team of 15+ full time developers, and needing a threading specialist) - then pay should be $95,000++ or more with full benefits. Otherwise you are probably better hiring someone who is freelance or part time and only paying them when you need them (to advise the other developers / make a thread devision plan / testing modules / and do code quality control and optimization)
Otherwise find someone at $55K a year and let them have a little time to learn or do other easier work (as the difficult/expensive work ma only end up taking 25% of their time over a 1 year period).
I have no real idea the size of the project, size of the company, time frames, etc. But I'm contexting some of that in my reply.
// I run my own consulting business and have since 1999. I'm NOT looking for work and don't really know the Austin market specifically, I just live here strictly out of choice. My dev work is all done via telecommute, I could work from anywhere (and practically have the past 9 years).
I think there are a lot of people around who are "nearly qualified" that may not bother sending a resume because they've run into the trend lately that anyone who isn't a 110% match doesn't get a response. Slight changes to the requirements and wording of the postings could greatly increase the number of people responding. Of course if they are already getting and rejecting a lot of resumes because they think those people suck, then they probably don't want that.
I pretty much agree with you on the pay level issues, and not only is the salary range noticeably absent from the job postings, that whole point of my message didn't get responded to. As I've said before, if they are truly offering a competitive market compensation package, and I think your $95k++ is not out of line given what they are asking for, then they should be proud to state it. I would suspect that most truly top level talent don't bother applying if there is any question that the compensation is adequate.