Where have all the software developers gone

Where have all the software developers gone

Carl Dempsey, Salesforce Picture: Feargal Ward

The technology industry was the apple of the government’s eye during the recession, breaking up an otherwise dismal news cycle with much-needed job announcements.

The industry has since gone from strength to strength. This month alone, Amazon announced 300 technology jobs in Dublin; global communications firm Avaya announced 75 tech jobs in Galway; and enterprise information management company OpenText said it would create up to 105 jobs in Cork.

The large multinationals are not the only ones hiring in Ireland. There are thousands of start-ups and SMEs with vacancies for developers, data scientists and systems analysts. The government’s Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Action Plan is forecasting 44,500 high-level IT job openings in Ireland from 2014 to 2018.

But where are these skilled IT people going to come from? Ireland is not educating enough of them. This year, 60 per cent of industry demand is expected to be met by the Irish education system. That leaves 40 per cent of roles that will not be filled by Irish graduates.

By next year, it is estimated that there will be a shortage of up to 864,000 IT professionals in the European Economic Area. Ireland will be competing with the rest of Europe to attract highly skilled individuals, particularly in-demand developers.

According to industry experts, the only solution is to increase the amount of Irish graduates with IT skills.

A supply of talented software development graduates is “essential to support current needs and future development”, said Brendan Watson, course director of Limerick Institute of Technology’s (LIT) BSc in Software Development.

Watson said demand must be stimulated for degree courses that comprehensively cover software engineering, programming and technologies applicable to businesses.

“Raising awareness among potential students of the opportunities for software developers and the nature of software development roles is a challenge for all of us: third-level colleges, the software industry and career guidance staff,” he said.

Watson said children were often discouraged from choosing a career in software development because of negative perceptions of the industry. “The fact that currently there is no computer studies subject, in second level junior and senior cycles, where students could develop coding skills and knowledge of associated IT technologies is not helping the situation,” he said.

He added that initiatives such as CoderDojo – which teaches coding skills to kids and teenagers – were to be commended and should be included as part of second-level education.

Ger Knowles, associate director of IT at recruitment firm Morgan McKinley, said that many bright developers were emerging from LIT and other Institutes of Technology. But he added that

universities needed to become more responsive to changes in the IT industry. Most colleges do not teach coding languages such as Javascript, Ruby and Python, which companies like, he

observed.“Pressure will have to be put on colleges to get the graduates with the right qualifications.”

The problem is making it hard to recruit. Increasingly, multinationals are in such need of

developers that they are hiring people with any language and upskilling them to the language used by the company, according to Knowles.

“The idea is, if they’re able to learn one language, they can learn another,” he said.

Start-ups often do not have this luxury, as they cannot afford to spend time training developers. As a result, many start-ups are forced to offer huge pay packages to attract employees.

So why are many third-level courses not more targeted towards employers’ needs?

Many colleges do not like the idea that they are churning out students just to fit them into jobs, according to Janice O’Connell, head of the IT department at LIT.

O’Connell reckons this is not realistic. “Students are in college so they can get out and get a job,” she said.

She also said she believed students’ lack of interest in technology careers was “down to Mammy and Daddy”.

“Some 65 per cent of a student’s decision to pick a particular college course is based on their parents. If you add in their teacher’s influence, it’s 90 per cent,” she said.

“If your parents or teachers do not know about technology, then it’s very unlikely that you will study it in college. It hasn’t filtered down to the schools that this [IT] is a guaranteed career for life. There are very few unemployed programmers out there.”

LIT puts a focus on designing courses with the most employable and in-demand skills. It includes industry certifications, such as the Cisco certification, as part of its courses. And it collaborates with industry to create students that will match their future job projections.

It has already run a successful eight-week programme aligned with companies including SAP, Kerry Group, HP and General Motors under the government-run Springboard education

programme. Kerry Group was so impressed with the programme that it created seven jobs for people on the course.

View from the floor

Duncan Lennon, Qstream: ‘We can’t compete with the Googles of the world on perks’

Duncan Lennon is chief executive of Qstream, a mobile sales acceleration platform that helps large enterprises monitor and manage the capabilities of their sales representatives.

The company’s European headquarters is in Dublin.

Lennon said that hiring qualified candidates is “challenging across all departments”, especially in engineering and client services.

“By definition almost all the really good people already have a job and may not even be thinking of making a move,” he said.

Qstream “can’t compete with the Googles of the world on perks or salaries,” he noted.

“We focus more on the benefits of working at a smaller, rapidly growing technology company,” he said.

Lennon said that traditionally, computer science degrees had a “geek” reputation and were not popular, but that has changed.

“In the last few years, the start-up scene has become cool. Everyone wants to start or work at the next Facebook, or be the next Instagram sold to Facebook.

“As an industry though, we can’t wait four years or more for these newly minted grads to come looking for their first job.”

He said that talent must be attracted to relocate here from other countries, adding that Qstream’s most recent engineering hires were from other EU countries.

“Of course, there is also plenty of great Irish talent too, including people who have worked abroad – in Europe or the US – in the tech industry and then returned to Ireland because we now have the kinds of job opportunities that previously were very hard to come by.”

Overall, he said he is “very optimistic”.

“It feels like there is no going back now, and Dublin will be a key city in Europe for the technology industry for the foreseeable future. The talent pool is growing and, though competition for top talent will remain high, great companies, big and small, will always be able to attract great talent.”

Oisin Kim, Webdoctor.ie: ‘We talked to one recruiter, but the fees were insane’

It’s not all bad: Oisin Kim, co-founder of Webdoctor.ie, the online doctor service, said he did not find it difficult to fill IT roles.

“Every one of our hires to date has been from a personal connection – someone we’ve worked with in the past. So far, our hiring costs to date can be measured in coffees and lunches,” he said. The team at Webdoctor.ie has grown from two to seven in 13 months.

“We plan to grow by at least another ten, and possibly as many as 20 if our UK expansion happens earlier than planned, in the next 12 months,” he said.

Another company Kim is involved in, Amach.co, considered using a traditional recruitment firm. “We were looking for a top-level graduate who was not interested in doing a postgrad, but who had been successful in college. Someone that could really hit the ground running. We talked to one recruiter, but the fees were insane compared to the value,” he said.

Instead, they used their own network and hired someone within six weeks. He said once

Webdoctor.ie has exhausted its personal connections, it intends to use Clinch, an Irish company which communicates a company’s culture and workplace to potential hires.

“It’s a different marketplace now. It’s not just a matter of putting up a job profile with a salary. If you can communicate that what you’re doing is interesting, and that people can have a real say in what the company does, then you won’t have a massive problem with hiring,” he said.

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‘The challenge is getting the right quality of people’ Carl Dempsey, Salesforce:

In 2000, global cloud computing firm Salesforce chose Dublin as the location for its first office outside North America. The company now has about 700 employees in the city.

Carl Dempsey, Salesforce’s vice president of sales engineering for the EMEA region, said the company is “constantly hiring”, with 40 roles currently open in its Dublin office.

He said that Salesforce “sees a lot of people coming in with core skills in database, network or security” and it is looking for people with experience in areas such as scripting and automation, as well as app design and user experience.

“The challenge is getting the right quality of people. Salesforce is not just looking for the core role, but people who can bring more on top of that.” He added that he is looking for people who will have a long career in the company.

“It’s a constant battle. We’re hiring people not just to do the role, but to do the next two roles behind that,” he said.

He said it was easier to find people to fill internship roles than senior roles. “There are a lot of people out there with the right words on their CVs,” he said, but added that the issue is ensuring that those people will suit Salesforce’s culture.

He said that although salaries offered were competitive, there is no major difference in salaries between Salesforce’s team in Ireland and those in other locations.

One of the main problems Salesforce finds is that the industry is “male dominated” and it is very difficult to source female candidates in Ireland.

Dempsey pointed out that there were 2,000 start-ups at Web Summit, and in the next few years, they will all need engineers.

“We need to start building the foundations of the future economy. It’s a never-ending process,” he said.

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How to attract developers to your start-up

• Use your personal network: a friend of a friend or a former colleague might have the skills

you’re looking for.

• Have a clearly defined culture, mission and vision: excite potential hires with your plans for the

future and show them that they will be an important part of the company.

• Offer shares: you might not be able to offer a six-figure salary, but giving staff a share option

proves you value them. Bonus: it might keep them loyal even if times get tough.

• Free stuff: beer and pizza evenings, company hoodies and an Xbox in the office are relatively

inexpensive, but are a big attraction for developers looking for a fun workplace.